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To some, these two archipelagos will never be anything other
than distant and overlooked specks of land peppering the wild
North Atlantic, above an already distant north coast of mainland
Scotland. They certainly are remote and they have maintained a
social and political, as well as geographical, distance from the rest
of Scotland, which goes a long way to explaining the relatively
few visitors each year. Both were under Norse rule until the mid-
15th century and, somehow, seeing them as a part of Scotland
can be very misleading. Each must be seen within the context
of its own unique cultural background and unusual geography.
Shetland’s northern islands, on the same latitude as Alaska, are
as strange and different as Britain gets, while beguiling Orkney just
smiles serenely as the rest of world races headlong into the future
at alarming speed. It is these qualities that make the islands worth
visiting and the ones that the tourist boards are keen to plug. Both
Orkney and Shetland are littered with outstanding archaeological
evidence, not just of six centuries of Norse occupation, such as at
Jarlshof at the very southern tip of Shetland, but also of life back
in 3000 BC at Skara Brae and the Knap of Howar in the Orkneys.
They are also among the best places in Britain to see wildlife as
yet untamed by the 21st century. Here you can sail alongside
porpoises and seals, potentially spot killer whales (orca) and watch
a million migratory seabirds nest and raise their young during the
summer months. And, thanks to fast and frequent transport links,
it doesn’t take an Arctic expedition to get here.
