Northern Isles

• 1. Introduction

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  The Northern Isles sit off the north coast of Scotland, a pair of archipelagos that have been shaped by ice, ocean, and a long succession of peoples who arrived by sea. Orkney lies just 16 km from the Scottish mainland, separated by the fierce currents of the Pentland Firth. Shetland is considerably more remote, roughly 170 km north, its coastline stretching for 2,702 km across a total land area of 1,468 km2. Together, the two groups hold 36 inhabited islands. The contrast between them is striking: Orkney is known for its fertile agricultural land, while Shetland is more rugged, its economy leaning on fishing and the oil wealth beneath the surrounding seas. What built these islands, what languages were spoken on them, what wars were fought in their waters, and what record of human life survives in their soil are the questions that make the Northern Isles worth examining closely.

• 2. Stones and Towers

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  Skara Brae, Maes Howe, the Stones of Stenness, and the Ring of Brodgar together form the Heart of Neolithic Orkney, a UNESCO World Heritage Site designated in 1999. These four sites are among the most significant prehistoric remains in the British Isles. On the island of Papa Westray, the Knap of Howar farmstead is considered probably the oldest preserved house in northern Europe. It was inhabited for 900 years, beginning around 3700 BC, and was itself built on the site of an even earlier settlement. Shetland matches Orkney's prehistoric richness with more than 5,000 recorded archaeological sites across the archipelago. On Fetlar, a Neolithic-era dividing wall once ran 4 km across the island; it is known as Funzie Girt. The Iron Age produced Shetland's most celebrated structure: the Broch of Mousa, considered the finest preserved example of the distinctive round towers known as brochs. In 2011, the site grouping the Broch of Mousa, Old Scatness, and Jarlshof was added to the United Kingdom's Tentative List of World Heritage Sites under the name "the Crucible of Iron Age Shetland".

• 3. Pictish Roots and Norse Arrival

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  By the late Iron Age, the Northern Isles had become part of the Pictish kingdom. The most durable remnants of that era are symbol stones. One of the most striking stands on the Brough of Birsay: it shows three warriors carrying spears and sword scabbards alongside characteristic Pictish symbols. In 1958, a cache of silver metalwork known as the St Ninian's Isle Treasure was uncovered; its bowls, jewellery, and other objects are believed to date from around 800 AD. Writing in 1959, the scholar O'Dell described the find as "the best survival of Scottish silver metalwork from the period," noting that the brooches display both animal-head and lobed geometrical Pictish forms. The 8th century brought a sharp disruption. According to the Orkneyinga Saga, Vikings made the islands the base of raiding operations directed at Norway and the Scottish coast. Around 875, the Norwegian king Harald Hårfagre, known as Harald Fair Hair, is said to have annexed the Northern Isles and granted Orkney and Shetland to Rognvald Eysteinsson as an earldom, in compensation for his son's death in battle in Scotland. Some scholars regard this account as apocryphal, linking the story instead to events connected with Magnus III of Norway, called Magnus Barelegs. In 995, the conversion of the islands came suddenly. King Olaf I of Norway, stopping at South Walls on his way from Ireland, summoned the jarl Sigurd the Stout and gave him an ultimatum: accept baptism, or be killed. Sigurd agreed, and the islands became Christian at a stroke. The early 11th century brought the establishment of their own bishop, the Bishop of Orkney.

• 4. Scotland Absorbs the North

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  Through the 14th century, Orkney and Shetland remained a Norwegian province, but Scottish nobles had already begun to dominate the earldom. Jon Haraldsson, murdered in Thurso in 1231, was the last in an unbroken line of Norse jarls; those who followed were Scots noblemen from the houses of Angus and St. Clair. The definitive transfer came through a financial transaction. In 1468, Christian I of Norway pledged Shetland as security for the unpaid dowry of his daughter Margaret, who was betrothed to James III of Scotland. The money was never paid. In 1470, William Sinclair, 1st Earl of Caithness, ceded his title to James III, and the following year the Northern Isles were formally annexed to Scotland. Language followed politics into decline. The Norn language, descended from the Old Norse brought by the Vikings in the 9th century, began fading after the absorption into Scotland as Scots-speaking settlers arrived. Norn survived until approximately 1850, when the last known speaker, Walter Sutherland, died. The local dialects that replaced it, collectively called Insular Scots, retained strong Nordic influences and remain distinct today.

• 5. Trade, Land, and the Press Gang

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  From the early 15th century, Shetland's merchants sold their goods through the Hanseatic League, a network of North German trading towns. That arrangement collapsed with the 1707 Act of Union, when high salt duties shut the German traders out. Shetland went into economic depression; local merchant-lairds eventually stepped into the vacuum, equipping ships to export fish to the Continent. For the farming and fishing families of Shetland, the shift brought new dependency rather than relief, as they were now obliged to fish for those same lairds. British rule imposed its own burdens. Some 3,000 Shetlanders served in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars between 1800 and 1815, with press gangs actively operating across the islands. From Fetlar alone, 120 men were taken; only 20 returned. By the late 19th century, 90% of all Shetland was owned by just 32 men, and between 1861 and 1881 more than 8,000 Shetlanders emigrated. The Crofters' Act of 1886, passed under Liberal prime minister William Gladstone, changed the terms. It gave those who had effectively been serfs the legal standing to become owner-occupiers of their own small farms. Orkney's experience in these centuries followed a different path. Scottish entrepreneurs helped create a more varied community of farmers, fishermen, and merchants, who called themselves comunitatis Orcadie and worked to defend their rights against feudal overlords. In the 17th century, Orcadians formed the overwhelming majority of Hudson's Bay Company employees in Canada, valued for their sobriety, boat-handling skills, and capacity for the Canadian north's hardships.

• 6. Scapa Flow and the Shetland Bus

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  Scapa Flow, the wide natural harbour in Orkney, became one of the most strategically important anchorages in the world during the 20th century's wars. In World War I, it served as a primary naval base. After the Armistice of 1918, the entire German High Seas Fleet was transferred to Scapa Flow pending a decision on its disposal. German sailors resolved the question themselves by opening the sea-cocks and scuttling every vessel in the fleet. One month into World War II, a German U-boat sank a Royal Navy battleship at Scapa Flow. The response was the construction of barriers to close most of the harbour's access channels; those barriers doubled as causeways, allowing road travel between islands for the first time. Italian prisoners of war built the causeways and also constructed the ornate Italian Chapel, which still stands. The Scapa Flow base remained active until 1957. Shetland's wartime contribution took a different form. In the autumn of 1940, the Special Operations Executive established a Norwegian naval unit, soon nicknamed the Shetland Bus, with a base first at Lunna and later in Scalloway. About 30 fishing vessels, gathered from Norwegian refugees, were used to carry intelligence agents, resistance instructors, and military supplies across the sea to occupied Norway. The unit made more than 200 crossings. The officer Leif Larsen, who became the most highly decorated Allied naval officer of the entire war, personally made 52 of those trips. In total, Shetland lost more than 500 men during World War I, a higher proportion than any other part of Britain.

• 7. Wind, Oil, and the Simmer Dim

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  Oil and gas were first brought ashore at Sullom Voe in 1978, and the terminal there has since become one of the largest in Europe. The revenues transformed public spending in Shetland across social welfare, arts, sport, environmental work, and financial development. Shetland Islands Council alone accounted for 27.9% of the islands' economic output in 2003. Fishing remains central: the total catch in 2009 was 75,767 tonnes, valued at over £73.2 million. The climate that drives so much of the islands' character is one of persistent wind. Orkney averages 52 hours of gales every year. Shetland's Burradale wind farm, operating with five Vestas V47 660 kW turbines, set a world record in 2005 by achieving a 57.9% capacity factor over the full year. The European Marine Energy Centre, backed by the Scottish Government, has installed a wave testing facility at Billia Croo on the Orkney Mainland and a tidal power testing station on the island of Eday, described as "the first of its kind in the world set up to provide developers of wave and tidal energy devices with a purpose-built performance testing facility." Billia Croo also houses an experimental underwater data centre operated by Microsoft. Summer on these islands is its own phenomenon. On the longest day in Shetland, there are more than 19 hours of daylight, and darkness never fully arrives. That long evening twilight has a name in the Northern Isles: the simmer dim. The scheduled air service connecting Westray and Papa Westray, reputedly the shortest in the world, takes just two minutes.