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Small Island of Big Hearts
By Islomaniac | January 4, 2007
I recently came across this article in the Sunday Times about a young womans experience on the small island of Canna. article also discusses how this small in Scotland is in search of new families to help bolster its dwindling population. The article is a great read and its just confirms the notion that islanders are the happiest, healthiest and most hospitable people, no matter where you go on the planet.
Canna Island
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Author unknown
Times Online.co.uk
Could you survive a year on remote Canna? Kenny Farquharson meets a woman who did. She says the new residents will never be lonely
There are moments from her time on Canna that Elizabeth Bell will always remember. Climbing the 300ft sea cliffs. Wandering alone on the machair. Catching sight, for the first time, of the snow-capped Cuillins in the distance. But most of all, she will remember the spirit of the islanders. “Bonfire night here was magical,” says the 36-year-old New Zealander, who has spent two winters on Canna on a sea-bird preservation project.
“We had a great fire and rockets exploding over the beach and the kids waving sparklers. Everyone was handing round cake and having a dram. It was just fantastic.”
Bell is leaving Canna on Tuesday and recalling the good times makes her jealous of the two families who will move there permanently next year as part of a scheme to repopulate the island.
Canna and its smaller neighbour Sanday are owned by the National Trust for Scotland, which earlier this year issued a worldwide appeal for families to join the remote island community, currently with a population of 15.
Last week the NTS announced that 18 families had been shortlisted, chosen from 350 who answered the ad. These will be whittled down to two in the coming months with a decision announced in the spring.
Bell is ideally placed to provide advice to the hopefuls on what they should expect on Canna.
She is something of an expert on islands, having worked on wildlife projects in Mauritius, Madeira, the Pitcairns and the Azores, as well as Lundy, off the coast of north Devon.
Many people, she says, have the wrong impression of island life.
“They think the main thing is the isolation — and they are right, up to a point. You will need to be totally self-reliant at times. You have to be quite happy by yourself.”
That, however, is an incomplete picture. “You can be more isolated in a big city, where you don’t know your neighbours.”
The reality that the Canna incomers face, says Bell, is one of a close dependence on the other islanders — something that many people might find difficult to deal with.
“On an island you need to know your neighbours really well, because you might need them and they might need you,” she says. “You have to be happy to interact with people.”
Canna is part of a small group of four islands west of Mallaig and south of Skye, the other islands being Eigg, Muck and Rum. It is just five miles long by one and a quarter miles wide and has no pub and no shop, other than a tearoom that operates in the summer when the island gets 30,000 visitors.
The school on Sanday has just one pupil, although there are two other preschool children in the population. The pupil, Caroline MacKinnon, has been dubbed “the loneliest girl in Scotland”.
Bell has been entranced by Canna’s natural beauty. “The most striking thing is the cliffs,” she says. “I love scrambling around. It’s just mind-blowing — the views and the birds all around you.”
She has been working with 10 colleagues on a project that aims to preserve sea birds by exterminating the rat population. Last winter the team killed an estimated 10,000 rats by laying more than 5,000 poison baits around the island.
In recent months, Bell has met four of the shortlisted families while they were on winter visits to the island. “They were all pretty great — although one family stood out because its members had worked on islands before and so understood the whole community ethic and the difficulties about working in a place like this.”
Bell declines to give any clues as to their identity.
“You could tell they were all trying to decide how it would feel to live here. A few of them had a really terrible time getting here — an awful four-hour ferry trip when it was really rough. That might have given them some food for thought.”
Not only were the visits a chance for the applicants to get a glimpse of the island, it was also an opportunity for the islanders to run a rule over their would-be neighbours.
“The community here has had a role in sifting the applications, and they will help choose the two families,” says Bell.
The current population has two main considerations, she says. “One is finding someone who will fit well into the island community. The other is that they will have something to do on the island — as a builder, a plumber or a mechanic. They will have to show they can be self-sufficient or be able to help in the rebuilding of the community.”
As for the physical hardships, Bell says the recruits will have to be clear-eyed about what to expect. “You really have to be ready for the weather — especially the wind. Many people may never have been in winds like you get here on Canna. The storms can be severe. A few years ago one of the bridges blew away. And sometimes the ferry doesn’t turn up.”
Two houses have been set aside on the island for the incomers. Tighard is a five-bedroom Victorian villa that would make a good B&B, and Taigh Buel na Fadhlach is a 14-year-old detached family home with four bedrooms. Preference is being given to families with primary school age children.
“My advice to them,” says Bell, “would be to be prepared to knock on people’s doors.
“Canna thrives on its community and the spirit of helping each other out. That’s what makes the place what it is.”
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