A walk along the Burn of Vaara

Walking on a very windy walk along the Burn of Vaara in Clousta, beginning at Clousta loch and ending at Vaara loch. Walking with the sound of the wind, and rushing, trickling, running, lapping water, tributaries dividing and sub-dividing, finding their way through channels in heather and grass.

Battling against the gusts, trying to keep our balance as we trod un-firm and water-sodden ground, and climbed over fences. Every so often a startled bird rose from the ground to whirl away into the air.

We paused at the site of a ruined click mill, watching water swirling and cascading down over large stones. Then on upwards to the edge of the loch, where, pushed by the strong wind, waves were forming on the surface, sending spray up over the rocks into the air.

Sandwiches were eaten in the shelter of rocks at the edge of Vaara loch, a respite from being blown about and from the noise.

I made a few drawings on site, and also took some film and sound recordings - link to the film here: https://vimeo.com/788984150

present day map

1878 map of area  

Ling received: fishermen of the far haaf – a sound walk around Stenness

Stenness located audioscape is an advanced technology project set in a remote setting, which we hope will draw people to the location to try out the soundscape. The technology behind it is one that will profile Shetland as a place embracing the latest digital technologies. 

This sound walk invites you to explore Stenness beach as it once was – an important fishing station until the late 19th century. A unique, yet elusive, part of Shetland’s heritage. The soundscape encourages you to re-imagine the beach as a hive of activity, where communities of fishermen and traders made temporary homes over the summer months.

Placed in the landscape are audio fragments of sounds and voices. The readings are taken from observations of early travellers visiting Stenness, and archival documents directly relating to the deep sea, or ‘haaf’ fishing: agreements binding men to the summer fishing, indebtedness, accounts of storms and loss of life, and even what the fishermen bought for their tea – so you will encounter many different voices.

The map of the beach indicates the area containing twenty sound clouds – it’s up to you to discover them. Take your time; slow down, and absorb the place and sounds as you meander around the beach. Your entrance into a sound pool will be heralded by changes in the background sound – you might hear the crash of a wave, a bell ringing, a seabird calling, or even a ludder horn. Sound will get louder and change as you walk in and out of the sound pools.

To access Stenness sound walk is an easy 2-stage process: You need a mobile phone and headphones or earbuds. The app holds all you need and once downloaded you do not need a network or phone signal; the GPS signal on your phone will trigger the sounds:

Stage 1: Search & download ‘SatsymphQR‘ from the Appstore or GooglePlay (it’s free). It’s best to download the app from a fast wifi connection before setting off for the beach.

Stage 2: Once you have downloaded this app, open it. 

Point your phone camera at this QR and allow to download. 

How to navigate: Go to Stenness beach, Northmavine (Map: Landranger Sheet 3 Shetland – North Mainland, or use Google maps). Put on your headphones, open the Stenness app on your phone and it will start immediately. Put your phone in your pocket and wander.

Take care – watch out for the tides.

Stenness sound-walk has been made collaboratively by artists Janette Kerr and Jo Millett, in collaboration with the art collective Satsymph assisted by artist Rob Gawthrop. It merges recordings of sounds and spoken word, and uses locative technology developed by Satsymph LLP.

Satsymph (Marc Yeats, Ralph Hoyte, Phill Phelps) are an artists’ collective creating interactive soundworlds layered over real-world locations satsymph.co.uk

Voices: Margaret Anderson, Ewan Balfour, Gilbert Fraser, Dave Hammond, John N Hunter, Barbara Ridland, Peter Rutherford, John Shaw, Brian Smith, Jim Tait, Valerie Watt.                      Fiddle-player: Catriona Macdonald – Shingly Beach, written by her tutor Tom Anderson for Stenness Beach.

Reading taken from: Dr Edward Charlton’s journals, 1832 and 1852; Guide to Shetland by Robert Cowie MA MD, 1879 3rd edition; An account of The New Method of Fishing on the coast of Shetland, by James Fea, surgeon, 1775; A Description of the Shetland Islands by Samuel Hibbert MD FRSE, 1822; Ployen’s Reminscences of a voyage to Shetland, Orkney and Scotland by Christain Ployen, 1839; Art Rambles in Shetland by J T Reid, 1869. Archival documents from Shetland Museum Archives, Tangwick Haa Museum.

Archival photographs reproduced with kind permission of Shetland Museum & Archives

See our website for more information:  http://www.confusingshadowwithsubstance.co.uk/sound-walk/

See review: https://www.shetland.org/blog/sound-walk-technology

Walking the Land

I have just put up a very short video I made recently which is part of the Walking the Land project - a New Years Day walk. https://vimeo.com/501510235

I also have writing and images that are part of this project on my website: https://www.janettekerr.co.uk/walking-the-land

Tour Update

Sadly our tour of the installation scheduled for 2020 has now had to be postponed due to the COVID -19 virus. 

We are planning to reschedule and tour in 2021 at all the venues in Scotland and Shetland. Creative Scotland have said that they will honour all funded projects. 

Meanwhile there is an excellent article about the installation in the Spring edition of Art North Issue 5 

That which is gone, that which remains and that which drifts between

The installation will be on show at Da Gadderie, Shetland Museum & Archives, Lerwick, until August 27th 2017. 

We hope that we will be able to take it and show this part of Shetland to audiences elsewhere - depending on funding of course.

In the course of researching Stenness and the haaf fishing we have consulted many sources. We would like to acknowledge and thank the following people for their help and support:

Rob Gawthrop - sound recording/technical support and chef extraordinaire

Shetland Museum: John Hunter, Ian Tait, Trevor Jamieson, Yvonne Reynolds (for loan of bell)

Shetland Archives: Brian Smith, Angus Johnson, and Blair Bruce

Tangwick Haa Museum: Ruby Brown and Nanette

The Vaila May crew: Brian Wishart, Jim Tait, Gilbert (Gibbie) Fraser, Andrew Cooper, Ewen Balfour, Robert Wishart, Trevor Jamieson (particularly for valiant ludder horn blowing) 

Gary and Andrew from LHD and Guardian Angell skipper for organsing and supplying Ling

Steve Anderson for gutting ling received, and Lynn McCormack for arranging this

Catriona Macdonald for superlative fiddle playing of ‘Shingly Beach’, written by Tom Anderson

Tom Williamson for creel boat journeys at Stenness

Readers of 19thC texts: Ewan Balfour, John N Hunter, Nancy Hunter, Ruth Fisher, Wilma Stewart, Valerie Watt, Jim Tait, Gilbert Fraser, Margaret Anderson, Peter Sinclair 

Tommy Isbister for talking about the fishing

Jonathan Rich (Shetland Arts) - sound installation

Finally Alistair Goodlad, who’s authoritative book Shetland Fishing Saga set us on course.

These are some of the documents and images used in the course of making our film and sound installation. 19thC texts have been taken from archival documents in Shetland Museum & Archives.

Ling Shipped off at Stenness,1817

(facsimile) D1/24/1 Small Gifts and Deposits

This fragile piece of paper records the names of fishermen and the number of ling caught by each sixareen team. They would have received payment accordingly.

 

We the Undersigned, October 1861, Book of Agreements (facsimile)

Agreements signed by fishermen binding themselves to prosecute the fishing for the Laird. D1/36/2 Small Gifts and Deposits

Each team of fishermen would sign their names agreeing to carry out fishing for the summer season for the laird. This bound them to the laird, who often owned the boats and line the men used.

Indebtedness, Book of Agreements, December 1862 (facsimile)

D1/36/2 Small Gifts and Deposits

Within this book are pages where the men write that, despite having spent the season fishing, they find themselves still in debt to the laird.  They are forced to pay these debt by giving, in this case, their livestock in lieu of money.

Tangwick Haa Museum has a wonderful 19thC Day Book which was kept during the summer fishing season. It lists items bought and prices paid by the men occupying the lodges on the beach, even giving where they were from - places around Northmavine. The names of many of the fishermen relate to families who still live in the area. It gives some insight into their lives. The book will be on show in Da Gadderie during the exhibition.

Day Book, Stenness (page shows entry for Saturday, 4th July 1891)

Ledger documenting items bought in the shop during the summer fishing season, May - August, 1890 –1895. Lent with kind permission of Tangwick Haa Museum

The lodges that the men lived in during the summer fishing season were pretty rudimentary - rough stone with poan roofs, that were re-roofed each season. They were occupied by each sixareen team. 

A hand-written booklet in the archives describes these and who owned and who occupied them. We're not sure when this was written. Some of the booths seem to have been shops, some were owned and lived in by the laird's factor, some seem to have required the payment of rent or "no rent at all".

Stennis – all the Booths and lodges within the town of Stennis

Description of the lodges at Stenness beach, 1800’s (facsimile),

D6/40/6 2 Reid Tait Collection

This booklet also describes lodges in other fishing stations on Shetland (again this booklet is on display as part of our exhibition).

The more we study the old 19thC photographs of Stenness, the more we become aware of the men on the beach - sitting outside the lodges, mending nets, washing items in the sea, spreading their nets on the grass above the lodges. 

1890's Stenness beach. Copyright Shetland Museum

Here are the faces of men who lived such a hard life on that beach, some who may have been taken by the sea. 

1890's Stenness beach. Copyright Shetland Museum

These are the men whose names were read out by our readers on the beach, names that appear in the documents describing the catch and in the Day Book listing items such as tea, line, hooks, coffee, and even sweeties, bought in the shop. 

All this has been put into the film, together with contemporary images filmed and field recordings of sounds on Stenness Beach - of the ruined lodges, views out from shore to sea and the horizon, views looking back at the beach and the Böd from the sea that the men would have seen as they returned from the Far Haaf, and of course from the sea itself. 

Confusing Shadow with Substance is not a documentary, neither is it a work of fiction. It examines the relationship between past and present and the interplay of land, sea and human activity at the site of one of Shetland's busiest former fishing stations. The material remains of the station are elusive today, yet the more we explore the landscape, the more its traces are revealed. Poised between land and far haaf, the shoreline draws us to the sea, a constant presence in a world of embedded memory. 

Images from 3 screen and sound installation

Weaving together contemporary and historical images, Shetland voices merge with the sea, drawing breath on the tide. Our work is concerned  with the interplay between that which is gone, that which remains and that which drifts between the two.

Screen and sound installation, Da Gadderie, Shetland Museum & Archives. Lerwick.

Thank you to Creative Scotland for funding this project, to Shetland Museum & Archives for supporting and giving us Da Gadderie in which to show the installation, and to Shetland Arts for their support with the sound.

Janette Kerr and Jo Millett 

Installing at Da Gadderie

Having spent a hectic few weeks since sometime in early June traveling from Sheffield to collect Jo and Rob, loading cameras, microphones, tripods, Wellington Boots, etc.,into the car, and on to Shetland.... to film, record, organise people, research for more information, and source equipment....

Then back to Sheffield on a vey rough and noisy sea crossing with no sleep to be had, to sit and edit sound and film with intensive discussions and notes being taken, anxiously await 16mm film to be processed and delivered ... buy projectors and procure various bits of equipment...from Bristol and Sheffield... and do a fair bit of even more traveling about.... 

Finally, having spent an unscheduled night and a day in Aberdeen with a bit of sight-seeing thrown in (because I messed up the ferry booking)...

  

›

›

We've spent the last 5 days installing... returning home each night to fall asleep exhausted.

It's got to be 18% grey

Pacing

Today - Saturday July 22nd - we're there... it's up and running and open to the public. I think we're quite pleased with it.

3 screen and sound installation

You'll have to come to Da Gadderie to get the full immersive experience - to hear sounds and see more images. You've got until August 27th to get here.

Thanks to Creative Scotland for funding the project and to Shetland Museum & Archives and Shetland Arts for all their support

The one that got away and infestations of hoe

      While Jo and Rob filmed on the beach I took to the water with Tom Williamson again and 

      attempted to film hooks and line under water. Not only was it difficult to actually see what I

      was filming with a GoPro on a stick underwater, I now realise how tricky it is to keep one's

      hooks and lines in order..

     And why the fishermen kept theirs carefully organised laid out in rows before setting them 

     out in the sea.

19thC line and hooks laid out on a board

       I really would have made a rubbish fisherman.

       However when I reviewed the footage later I realised that I'd managed to film the one that 

       got away - from Tom's hook...

         So close... it then turns tail and swims off!

         It is still an experience to see the land from the sea and to watch it appearing and 

         disappearing as we head out 

      Back on shore Jo and Rob were still busy doing the far more serious business of recording

      sounds and filming the sea.

      In between filming and recording we have been collecting information about the lodges and          shops that were used by the men during the fishing season. The beautiful Day Book, which          is part of the collection at Tangwick Haa Museum, is a testament to the coming and goings          from one of the shop at Stenness during the fishing season.

     Documenting the names of fishermen occupying the lodges we can find out what they were         buying, and the price of rope, tea, hooks, counterpanes and sweeties and, on occasions,             even cigars were purchased.

Pages in the Day Book

     The book will be on display during our installation. 

     From reading 19thC newspaper reports from Northmavine it is clear that fish were not  

     always plentiful during the season as articles in the local newspapers in the 1890's indicate.

     In addition to light loads, the fishermen are plagued by 'swarms of hoes' (which I think are 

     dog fish) which prevent them catching the white fish.

June 17th 1893

           Then there are other problems..

24 June 1876

          What the diet of the men consisted of and whether they were well nourished or not, living

          in such close proximity in pretty rudimentary conditions meant that illnesses spread pretty

          fast. It seems that, as usual, the unsettled Shetland weather - thick fog and gales - also

          put paid to successful fishing trips. 

          At the end of the season in August 1877 Laurence Anderson is noted as having taken the

          highest yield at 315cwt. But chief topic of conversation was the ordinance survey that was

          going on that year, with complaints of wheat fields being trampled in the process of 

          mapping and threats of giving the boys a dipping in the sea if they were seen in the corn

          again.

Newspaper 18 August 1877

          Another long day - home now for our own tea.

Light in the lum and light below the Vaila Mae

Tuesday - Sixareen launch day

A sixareen (photo from Shetland Photographic Archive)

Mustering at the museum the excellent Brian Wishart assembled our fine rowing crew from various parts of Shetland – all well qualified and skippers in their own right, so who gives and takes orders to and from whom is a mystery.

(photo by J Kerr)

Sorting the sail (photo by J Kerr)

The boat made ready we spent the morning filming the beautiful Vaila Mae. 

Under the oars (photo by J Kerr)

The sounds of the oars rising and dipping, with square sail up to catch the wind she just flies along through the water... 

Sail up on the Vaila May (photo J Kerr)

.... it's a wonderful boat to experience (and it will be available for trips around Lerwick Harbour during Boat Week - see website for more detail: https://www.shetlandmuseumandarchives.org.uk/community/boat-week/events).  

You begin to understand how such boats were able to travel so far out to the far Haaf, although the fishermen must have had a cold, wet and cramped time living in the boat, often sleeping under the sheet for several nights until they had a full catch and could return to the fishing station. 

Old sail from the Boat Haven, Unst, and sections of oars from Shetland Museum
(photos by J Kerr)

The sixareen was best suited for the prosecution of the white fishing. With a keel about two thirds of the overall length, flaring outwards to the gunnels, like the Viking ships, inside it was divided into compartments by gratings under the benches where the men sat to row. With working sections to hold the fish, the bottom of the boat would be filled with ballast of beach boulders until ready to be replaced by the caught fish. Sitting on top of a run of fish secured down by netting made the boat more stable and less likely to take on water. In the owse room the flooring was higher so the shovel might have a smooth sweep from one side to the other when bailing. The mid room was for shooting and hauling lines, which could be 6 miles in length.

Rowing on the Vaila May (photo by J Kerr)

When the first fish showed 'light in the lum', then 'light below that', followed by 'white below white', hauling a line laden with struggling fish weighing 30 - 40 lbs per cod and ling, plus Halibut weighing 2 cwt and gigantic skate, all hauled from depths of 30 to 90 fathoms must have been a supreme test of strength, even with the boat being pulled by a couple of oars in the direction of the line.

The foreroom held ballast, fire kettle and pot, plus peat fuel, the head room and bow-space were culinary areas holding a sea chest for knives and utensils and food, along with water breakers, sail, six miles of line, 5000 baited hooks, buoys, sinkers, spare rope, boat hooks, oars, oilskins etc etc.. All of which, with a mast lying somewhere in the mix, didn't leave much room for manoeuvre in a boat containing six large fishermen rowing, a skipper at the stern trying his best to avoid the breaking sea that could flood in and the bailer trying to keep the sea at bay, all at some points, hauling and gutting fish, at snatched times in between, eating and sleeping.

Action on the Vaila May, (photo by J Kerr)

Shetland fishermen were unsurpassed in their handling of these open boats, rowing the 30-40 miles to the fishing grounds. But very few fishermen would have owned their own boats, most being owned by the landowners who hired them out for the fishing season, which of course meant if the boat was lost it had to be paid for, often by a grieving widow and children, who, not being able to pay, would be evicted from the croft. In 1774 a six-oared boat complete with mast, square sail and oars cost about £6 and measured 18ft on the keel, 24-25ft overall. 

A break from rowing  (photo by J Kerr)

Thank you to Brian et al. for all your work in planing our trip, and for all the rowing we made the crew do. 

Brian Wishart, Sandwick, Gilbert Fraser, West Burrafirth, Robert Wishart, Lerwick, Jim Tait Mowbray, Walls, Andrew Cooper, Walls, Trevor Jamieson, Cunningsburgh, Ewen Balfour, Brae, Trevor Jamieson (and for blowing of Ludder Horn)

Luder Horn (photo by J Kerr)

Vaila May (photo by J Kerr)

Sixareens on Stenness beach 1890's (photo from Shetland Photographic Archive)

'

.....out at the Haaf, before the compass came into general use - with the fog and tidal currents prevailing..... here the men of old had means of finding their way to land.... an underswell - the moder dye - the surge or physical protest the Ocean makes when her cosmic motion is restricted by the proximity of land. Unnoticeable in deep water, the wave-like motion or swell becomes clearly discernible to trained eyes on soundings, and can be best observed in foggy weather. ... No matter how fierce the gale, how wind-driven and uncertain the billow, the methodical undulations of the 'moder dye' could be seen across the hills of a wind-torn sea, always setting four-square towards the land'. 

Extracts taken from 'The Sail Fishermen of Shetland', A Halcrow, pub. The Shetland Times, 1994, 1st published T & J Manson, Lerwick, 1950.
Other information taken from 'Shetland Fishing Saga', C A Goodlad, pub. The Shetland Times Ltd. 1971, and 'Inshore Craft of Britain: In the Days of Sail and Oar' vol 1, Edgar J March, pub.david & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1970.
Plus information gleaned in conversation with Tommy Isbister, Trondra, Shetland: 
http://www.shetlandheritageassociation.com/members/central-mainland/burland-croft-trail)