Across America
The first recorded European crossing
of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean across what is now the United
States of America by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1804-6 was ordered
by the third U.S. President Thomas Jefferson after he read a book about a
crossing of modern-day Canada by Stornoway-born Alexander Mackenzie. Mackenzie,
whose name lives on in the great Mackenzie River, made his journey to the
Arctic and Pacific Oceans in 1789-93.
Bear
In March 1818, William MacGillivray
of Northton, Harris, who went on to become the close friend and aide of the
internationally renowned ornithologist John James Audubon and finally Regius
Professor of Natural History at Marischal College, Aberdeen, faced an unusual
challenge for his skills as a naturalist. He was asked to kill a bear ...
in Harris! The local landowner, who lived at Rodel, had been keeping the animal
in a cage in his yard. As an expert shot - ornithology in those pioneering
days with many millions more birds available meant plenty of shooting to allow
dissection and research - MacGillivray was called on first to kill "poor Bruin"
as he calls him in his diaries and then stuff him. A special visitor centre
marking his work is situated in Northton.
Celebrities
Celebrities old and new: Some famous
names with Island connections .... Arthur Ransome based one of his Swallows
and Amazons books, Great Northern, on a visit to Lewis; the Macaulay family
from Uig, Lewis produced the anti-slavery campaigner Zachary Macaulay and
the historian Lord Macaulay; the Maciver family also from Uig, Lewis helped
found the Cunard line; former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer Iain Macleod
came from Lewis; as did multi-millionaire Donald Trump's mother's family.
Church
Lewis and Harris are Presbyterian
and Sabbatarian - meaning all retail outlets are shut on Sunday and there
are no buses or ferries. The southern parts of the Outer Hebrides have a largely
Roman Catholic population and ferries run on Sundays dependent on the season.
Eriskay
The island
of Eriskay in the southern part of the Islands is famous for its role
in the '45 rebellion when the Jacobite Charles III (Bonnie Prince Charlie)
landed to start his march on London, as well as being the site of the World
War Two sinking of the s.s. Politician, immortalised in the book and film
Whisky Galore . The island is also known through the famous Eriskay lilt;
it has a a unique breed of pony; and a locally made woollen pullover with
a unique design.
Exploding
Mail and Separated Twins
The now deserted island of Scarp
- off Harris - hit the headlines twice in 1934 - first in January. Christina
Maclennan gave birth to a baby on the island one Saturday. The following day
concern grew for her condition. There was no phone and the nearest doctor
was 17 miles of winding road beyond the ferry. Finally she travelled by ferry
boat, the floor of a bus and by car to Stornoway, many hours away - giving
birth to a twin baby in hospital two days after the first. Then in July, the
island was the setting for a trial of sending mail by rocket. The mail had
a special stamp saying Western Isles Rocket Post on it. The scheme failed
- the rocket exploded scattering mail over the beach but the German inventor
went on to help with Nazi Germany's V-rocket programme in World War Two.
Fitness
Gaining fitness nowadays can involve
nothing more than the recommendation that you should avoid the use of the
TV remote control and instead get up off your seat to change channels ...
but in 1819 William MacGillivray of Northton walked about 828 miles over eight
weeks travelling between Aberdeen and London. Earlier, when a student at Aberdeen
University he simply walked home to Harris. And it was not his prodigious
walking which drew any attention, it was his skills as a scientist and later
the details of his life contained in his diaries. A special visitor centre
marking his work is situated in Northton.
Flotsam
It is not only the warmth of the
Gulf Stream which crosses the Atlantic from the Caribbean to the Hebrides
- rotten pineapples and coconuts wash up on the shore of Taransay - famous
for its TV castaways - and other islands. The remains of a catamaran which
had been abandoned by its crew in the West Indies came ashore on Taransay
in the 1970's.
Gaelic spirituals
Paul Robeson performed Gaelic songs
at the Albert Hall in London in 1938. He said: 'Gaelic songs have an affinity
with Negro spirituals. Like all folksongs of the world, they are not composed.
They are the spirit of the people set in music.'
Iceland
North Lewis is almost as close to
Iceland as it is to Kent. Stornoway airport is 600 nautical miles from Iceland's
capital Rekjavik and 450 miles from London. Stornoway is further west than
Dublin in the Republic of Ireland and at the same latitude as the snowy wastes
around Hudson's Bay in Canada and about 200 miles further north than Moscow.
Iolaire
The greatest peace-time loss of
life in a shipping disaster in British waters took place a few yards from
Stornoway harbour on New Year's Day 1919 when 205 men drowned as the Iolaire
went off course in a storm and hit rocks. Most of the victims were soldiers
and seamen returning from the Great War - many had survived years of war to
die within yards of their homes. A monument to the victims stands on the hill
above the site of the disaster.
Lots of
MP's
The Western Isles has an MP at Westminster
and representatives in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh - but the main
island of Lewis could also be represented in Tynwald, the Isle of Man parliament,
a historic right dating back to the Norse occupation of the islands of the
west 1000 years ago.
Mutineer
James Morrison, a bosun's mate on
HMS Bounty at the time of the infamous mutiny, and who was court martialled
and later reprieved, was from Stornoway.
Slavery
In 1739 in Finsbay, Harris, across
the hills from Taransay, around 100 local men, women and children were tricked
or kidnapped on to a ship to be sold as slaves in the West Indies. The scheme
had been masterminded by local landlords. Most of them managed to escape after
the ship docked in Ireland but it is thought that few returned home.
Reign of
Tyranny
At a time in the 19th century when
political concern in London was centred on expanding the number able to vote
in democratic elections, Donald Munro combined almost every public office
on Lewis to enable a reign of tyranny under the then landowner Sir James Matheson.
He was the factor - landlord's agent - as well as the top law officer - procurator
fiscal - and one of only two solicitors - the other was his cousin. Since
he was also a J.P., people who crossed him found it rather difficult to get
justice. He was deposed after a rebellion among crofting tenants in the offshore
island of Great Bernera.
Television
The first public demonstration of
television in Stornoway took place in 1959. Stornoway had a cable television
service for several years, run by the local firm of Maciver and Dart before
full-scale transmissions to the islands started from the Eitshal mast started
in 1971.
Vanishing
Lighthousekeepers
The Flannan Isles, off west Lewis,
were the centre of a great mystery in December 1900 after the three lighthousekeepers
who were their sole residents vanished without trace, a disappearance so sudden
that a meal of cold meat, pickles and potatoes was left untouched on their
table. Surviving notes showed they had just survived a storm so fierce that
it had removed turf from the top of a cliff which normally stood 200ft above
the surface of the sea. It is thought they were caught unawares by a huge
follow-up wave and drowned.
Vikings
If the Islands are regarded as isolated
now, they were not so in the past as they formed an integral part of the Viking
world 1000 years ago on the main sea routes of the North Atlantic. The Gaelic
word for Stornoway is Steornabhagh but this is merely descended from the Norse
Steornavagr. One of the many relics of this extraordinary past are the Lewis
chessmen normally held in the British Museum, which were found at Uig on the
west coast nearly 200 years ago, and now widely copied for sale by local craftsmen.
After the Vikings came the Lords of the Isles, with atrocity after atrocity
as families - or clans - fought each other for power and influence. Battered
by the elements, remnants of that era lie in the ruined church at Ui on Lewis
or more complete in the church at Rodel on Harris. From earlier eras, there
are also prehistoric field landscapes preserved intact, the amazing stonework
of the broch (a double-walled circular tower) at Carloway, and the Calanais
Stones - usually rated as second only to Stonehenge.
Walks
There are many opportunities for
countryside walks across the Western Isles - whether over the hills or around
the coastlines. A series of walks over the whole area from North Lewis to
Barra is outlined in 25 Walks: The Western Isles by June Parker, published
by HMSO and on sale from Island booksellers.
