St. Kilda - The Anniversary of the End

 On Aug. 29th, 1930, the last 36 residents were evacuated from the islands of St Kilda, 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, out in the middle of the north Atlantic, at their own request.  It was the end of an era; humans had lived on the small cluster of islands for 4000 years, though it was a pretty simple and primitive life.  By the way, there never was a 'St. Kilda', the name comes from an old Norse word, 'skildir'.

The classic image of St Kilda is this view of the main street (the only street).  Now under the ownership of the National trust for Scotland, six houses have been restored, with steel roofing.  There is also a Ministry of Defense outpost on the island, with a missile tracking station.  This was where the men of the community met each morning to assign work.

Each family had a plot of land extending down to the shore and up to a drystone ring wall (to keep the sheep out).  This was where they grew their meagre crops of potatoes and barley.  Scraping out a living was hard, particularly climbing down cliffs on ropes to gather seabirds and their eggs.  It was dangerous work, and more than one man lost his life.

We found ourselves lucky with the weather when we visited, as most tourist ships have to content themselves with a view from the boat.  We disembarked into zodiacs and had time to climb up above the village to get a view back.  That scar on the far hill is an ancient Neolithic quarry, showing the evidence of civilization over 4000 years.

The birds they caught provided a crop of feathers, and the women spun wool gathered from the primitive and very hardy breed of Soay sheep that wandered the island.  With these they paid their rent to the chief of the Clan Macleod who owned the islands.

There are 1200 small stone storage buildings known as 'cleits' where the eggs were kept and seabirds dried.  The loose drystone construction let the air blow through, creating the necessary dry conditions.

On top of one of these cleits I spotted this nice patch of tiny pink flowers known as Thrift.  I also spotted a tiny bird hopping around.

It turned out to be a St Kilda Wren, a rare little bird known only from these islands.

The population of St Kilda went up and down, down in difficult years, and up in the better years.  In 1852 a large group of 36 left for Australia, WWI showed young men life on the mainland, and in the 1920s an influenza epidemic killed four men.  By 1930 several men were determined to spend the winter of the mainland seeking work.  This only left 36 islanders on S. Kilda that year. 

As they depended heavily on the men for the gathering of eggs and birds for food, life became untenable.  Both the community nurse and the minister encouraged them to think of moving. In May of that year the remaining islanders petitioned to be evacuated to the mainland, and 95 years ago today it happened, the end of a 4000 year era.