Putting the haaf fishermen back on the beach

Sunday 18th June - Readings

We met on Stenness Beach and a small group gathered; people very generously came and gave us their time and voices to read in the shelter of the Bød.  

We made some wonderful oral recordings read from 19thC handwritten texts that we’ve been painstakingly transcribing - extracts from the Day Book (now kept at Tangwick Haa Museum) noting daily purchases from the Bød when once it was a shop, from the Fishermen Agreements Book and from records of the Ling fishing - kept in Shetland Museum & Archives.

Thank you to John N Hunter, Nancy Hunter, Valerie Watt, Ruth Fisher, Wilma Stewart. 

The names of the fishermen who once inhabited the lodges and worked on this beach floated into the air and out to sea, merging with the sounds of sea birds and the sea pushing and pulling on the shore. It felt pretty special - in fact it made my spine tingle. 

Haaf fishermen from 1890's Stenness, (published in the New Shetlander No 59, 1961, supplied by John H Johnson)

Extract from the Fishermen's Agreements Book, 1861, Shetland Museum & Archives.

Stenness fishing lodges and Haaf fishermen 1890's ( Shetland Museum Photographic collection)

Slowly the beach begins to emerge as a place of work and the noise of the men working and living here. The more we walk around the shores the more the remains of the lodges become visible. Looking out to sea we imagine the sixareens pulling away from the shore, the land gradually disappearing as they row out to the far haaf. 

Today it's cold and there's a wind blowing the sea into the bay. Jo is up on the cliff on one side filming the incoming tide.

I go back to my kite flying attempts.... there's enough wind but I'm not sure that the camera is set in the right place...

It does give some sense of the landscape. I even catch glimpses of the ruined lodges and can see them more clearly as part of the landscape, but it's probably a bit too random for our project. Yes it would probably be easier to use a drone but I'm not keen on such high tech approaches and I like the sense of drawing in the sky over the landscape.

We leave the beach at 11pm - simmer dim is approaching in a few days time, but we need our sleep. Another busy day approaches

Agreeable beauty

Saturday 17th June  - Agreeable beauty

While the south of the UK is sweltering in 32 degree heat here in Shetland we have perfect weather for filming mist out at sea using 16ml film and video.

Followed by some photographing of atmospheric ruined lodges scattered around Stenness beach. Most have disappeared, swept away over the last 100+ years by the action of wind and sea as well as the stones being plundered over the years sine they were last occupied in the 19th C to build walls and houses elsewhere.

They would certainly have been agreeable to 18th C William Gilpin's definition of the picturesque as 'that kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture' and for whom a bit of a ruined abbey or castle with rugged edges would add 'consequence'.

Days full of sound

Thursday/Friday 15th/16th June  - Full of sound

Having collected Shetland's own musician Catriona MacDonald we drove to Stenness and recorded the wonderful sounds Catriona playing the Shingly Beach tune composed by the famous Tammy Anderson. Set against the sounds of the sea and birds it was pretty special  (not that we are getting or intend to be romantic!).

Margaret Anderson arrived and was recorded reading about the Ling catch in Stenness on Friday, June 19th 1812, her fine voice mingling with the tide's comings and goings.

And finally it was time to go home. Tomorrow is another day...

Friday 16th June started as yet another session of filming the sea  - using the GoPro above and below water level

and more recording bells ringing and footsteps walking on the beach.  

But the best of the day was a visit to Mary and Tommy Isbister on Tronda - such a wonderful mind - knowledge of and skills in building boat, violins, houses, playing fiddles, farming, fishing ....

sixareen line and hooks

We left, having recorded Tommy and with much information about the Haaf fishing, how to split a Ling, and the construction of sixareens filling our heads.

Museum day of exploration, research and discoveries

Tuesday June 13th - Meetings and Research

A day spent in Shetland Museum and Archives and a meeting with John Hunter, exhibitions officer, to discuss the layout of the space.. how the sound will work... where screens will be placed etc etc.  

Then off into the Archives to talk to the lovely Angus and Blair who patiently find 19th C documents for us to photograph, all of which are fascinating, and we listen again to recordings of the voices of James Cheyne and Christie Irvine recalling days at Stenness and the fishing.

 

'Shipped off at Stenness' - list of ling caught by Stenness fishermen, dated 1817

We are given handwritten documents that we attempt to transcribe. Wonderful records of the names of fishermen working at Stenness, detailing Ling received at Stenness 1812 - numbers of fish caught on different days by each sixareen crew (6 men in each team) with the weight of each fish. This information would be noted by the Laird's factor and set against the men's other debts - rent and purchases in the Laird's shop - as noted in the Stenness Day Book - and which would often exceed the money earned during the fishing season, leaving the men in debt.

Page from Stenness Day Book 1894 - courtesy of Tangwick Haa Museum

 I could spend days in there ... 

Then of course there are the items in the museum relating to Haaf fishing... sixareens, ling hooks and line...
 

section of sixareen

Ling fishing hook

Luder horn

And a luder horn... an important instrument for haaf fishermen, used particularly in a thick mist at sea. 
Come to the opening of our installation and you'll hear it blown.

Wildness - Splitting and Gutting

Wednesday June 14th: wild day of flying here and there
 
Arriving early at Stenness there was yet more bell recording (thanks to Yvonne from Shetland Museum loaning us an old hand bell). It's remarkable how many different ways there are to ring a bell and how much the sound varies from different locations around the beach and the ways of recording. I've learnt that a sound recordist is never satisfied.

More kite flying... with some degree of success this time. The wind blew and the kite stayed up and images of the sea with a few glimpses of ruined lodges. More practice needed on getting the right angles - all depends on wind direction and speed of course.

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 Then we receive a phone call and there's a dash into Lerwick to meet up with Andrew and collect two large Ling and a Cod (intact) that have just been brought in on the Guardian Angell fishing boat, and we get a tour around the Fish Auction house. 
Thank you to LHD Ltd, the skipper of the Guardian Angell, and Andrew.

Speeding onwards to the west-side we meet up with Lynn Mccormack and her wonderful brother Steve and family to film the splitting and gutting of the Ling on the beach. Thank you to Steve for your enthusiasm and gutting skills (sorry we made you kneel on the shingly beach - hope your knees recovered!).

 

There has been much discussion of the ways that Ling were split and each new description we read seems to differ from the last... 

Other descriptions have the ling gutted as the men returned from the far haaf, so on board the boat, while others have the whole process taking place on the beach. It probably depended on circumstances and how many fish had been caught, the weather. Ling and Cod were all certainly cleaned and salted and stacked in barrels, and laid out on the stone beaches to dry, turned and then stacked by the beach boys and old men, who probably also had to keep the seabirds at bay. 

Fish drying on the beach (image courtesy of Shetland Museum photographic collection)

Our working days seem to be getting longer and longer.. but then it still light at 11pm.. and we have much to pack in.

Trials and tribulations

We've spent the last few days on Stenness beach wandering, looking, thinking, discussing and experimenting with sounds and images, supported by the very able sound artist Rob Gawthrop. 

Jo Millett & Janette Kerr

Rob Gawthrop recording

Jo MIllett sounding the bell

Currently trying out and recording different bell sounds.. having found references to a bell marking the beginning and end of work sessions at the fishing station.

' The curing and drying of fish taken at the Stenness Haaf  is ... conducted with great regularity, a bell ringing for the cessation and resumption of labour'.

High views 

Kite flying trials are underway. Lack of wind (surprising on Shetland) is hampering progress. But that can change pretty rapidly.

The problems of having a GoPro on the end of a kite up in the air and being taken wherever the wind decides to pull is that you never know what you are filming. So the results are hit and miss, but a slightly random approach makes for more abstract images. 

Confusing shadow with substance

Confusing shadow with substance is a collaborative project exploring aspects of Shetland’s relationship with the sea and the past, and focusing on Stenness, one of the many once thriving fishing stations around Shetland’s coastline.

Inkster's Böd, Stenness 

Janette Kerr, a painter, and Jo Millett, a moving image & sound artist are researching and making a multi-screen video & sound installation to be shown in Shetland Museum's exhibition space, Lerwick - 22nd July – 27th August 2017

Site of Stenness fishing station

The project investigates the traces – tangible and intangible – of a fishing station where hundreds of men worked and lived for the summer months during the 18^th & 19^th centuries.

Stenness beach, image courtesy of Shetland Museum & Archives

In the passage between fishing grounds (the far haaf) and shore the activities and sounds are re-imagined.