Talking Location With … Karen Swan: ST KILDA, OUTER HEBRIDES

20th June 2024

#TalkingLocationWith ... Karen Swan, author of The Lost Lover (The Wild Isle series) – ST KILDA, OUTER HEBRIDES

St Kilda is no ordinary island. Hopping in a rowing boat and dropping anchor anywhere around the landmass simply isn’t possible. Situated 100 miles off the Scottish mainland and faced on all sides by the highest sea cliffs in Britain, access is only possible at one landing spot; and unless you have your own trawler, even that can only be done during the months of May-early September. The seas are wild there – the next stop is the Faroes – and Hirta (the principal island in the small archipelago and which is commonly known as St Kilda) sits in the grey depths like a rock cathedral. If I told you it looked like something from the Game of Thrones set – blackened rock, gothic spires – you would probably accurately conjure an image of it. (pic 1)

No trees or crops can grow there due to the wild winds so the islanders that lived there right up until the summer of 1930 had to survive by scaling the precipitous cliffs and hunting the seabirds and their eggs. They beat the odds for a long time. St Kilda had been continuously inhabited since the Bronze Age but gradually their numbers began to decline. In part this was due to some unnecessary deaths from preventable illnesses, as well as the rapid modernization of the rest of the world after the Great War prompting some younger islanders to leave in search of an easier life. By 1930, only thirty-six people villagers remained, a number below the critical mass they required to sustain life there. The islanders petitioned the British government for evacuation to the Scottish mainland and the story was reported in newspapers as far as away as America and Australia.

The islands are now a UNESCO world heritage site, as well as an RSPB protected bird sanctuary and nothing can quite prepare you for the density of sound of the birds as you approach. The sky is a lattice of white seabirds all interacting in a unique ecosystem – the great skuas harassing the fulmars, gannets dive-bombing the fish…

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On land too, St Kilda has its own unique twist on common animals. St Kilda has its own indigenous mouse and wren but most visitors encounter the ancient breed of small, native sheep – brown-fleeced and as small as goats, resembling fluffy deer – grazing freely on the steep slopes; the original flocks belonged to the villagers’ landlord, Macleod of Macleod and used to graze on the neighbouring isle of Boreray. They were moved over to Hirta upon evacuation and since then have multiplied their numbers. Without any predators to disturb them (no dogs or other animals are allowed to land) they have no fear of people and roam quite happily around you. (pic 2)

The low stone single-room cottages that sat along the single, curved street, have been largely preserved  by UNESCO so it’s still possible to tread the path of the St Kildans, to sit on the wall and gaze upon the beach panorama that was their only view of the wider world. (pic 3)

Cleits dot the entirety of the landscape; they are stone beehive-shaped huts with turf roofs, unique to the islands, which were built for storage of salted bird carcasses, feathers, fulmar oil and peats, and there are over two thousand on the islands. They make perfect hidey-holes too – which are sure to get any writer’s imagination going. (pic 4)

Not that I should make this sound like a pastoral idyll. The winters were harsh and long; what few crops they tried to grow (potatoes, wheat) often failed and with no trees growing anywhere, they couldn’t use wood for their fires, but had to depend on a finite supply of peat. The winds were ferocious too; there are accounts of the islanders ‘being deafened for a week’ after one particularly hard storm. Roofs had to be strapped down (pic 5). And the summer could show just as little mercy, with no shade of trees to enjoy; the islanders simply had to be inside or out.

But if St Kilda is isolated, hostile and remote, she’s also stunning, awe-inspiring and noble. She feels ancient and completely set apart from the rest of the world – a stray Galapagan in the Atlantic – and in this modern age of connectivity, St Kilda remains aloof. Even in the summer travel window, landings are impossible if the wind switches direction. There are few true wildernesses left, but she’s one of them.

KAREN SWAN

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