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  

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)...

  

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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) 

Running before the wind

Monday 19th June 

Having stayed over night in Braewick campsite we were up early and down at Stenness beach to be greeted by morning mist and drizzle. Undeterred clutching Wellington boots, cameras and GoPro stick we set off for sea with Tom Williamson who was waiting for us in his creel boat . 

It meant that we could get some sense of the experience of leaving from Stenness Beach as the sixareens had once done; of what the Haaf fishermen would have seen as they rowed out to the fishing grounds, behind them the land and Böd slowly receding and before them the open sea and far horizon (not that we went anywhere as far as they would have gone). 

 

During the fishing season from around Beltane Day in May to Lammas Day in August their days and nights were spent traveling in an open boat between shore and far haaf setting lines and hauling the fish until there was a full catch in the boat and they could turn and head back to shore, where the ling and cod would be washed, salted, and laid out on the stone beach by the beach boys while, after a few hours rest, the men returned to the sea. Bleached white by sun and air, the white fish, so prized on the continent, would be stacked and then weighed by the factor and a record made of each boats catch.

Hand-written list of Ling shipped from Stenness, 1817 (document held in Shetland Archives)

I've read that the men sometimes rowed for nine hours, although, weather permitting and with a good wind behind them, with the sheet raised this must have taken them to the far haaf a lot faster. A hard life, and one in which they didn't have much say but to go to the fishing, given pretty much all they had was owned by the Laird.

Extract from Fisherman's Agreement Book, 1861 (held in Shetland Archives)

The day we went out there was a brisk wind and choppy seas, the mist hanging over us, but I know they experienced far heavier seas running. Being so low in the water the land disappears the further out we traveled. Even so, rowing Foula down with its high cliffs, would have been some feat. Any bit of land would have acted as a marker - a meid from which to orientate their position. As Tommy Isbister remarked 'when you were sitting down in a boat ..when the land was sinking you knew where you were'. These men would have known their sea, could read how the water was running, and most of the time knew how the weather would be.  Despite this there were times when there was heavy storms and loss of life.

Grave stone in graveyard at Eshaness

Returning from the haaf fishing the first sight of the beach would have probably been the chimneys of the Böd rising above the hills, or smoke rising from the lodges.

Thank you to Tom for taking us.

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