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

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 

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.