"[Shetland] abounds with fish of divers sorts...&
for barter of fish the Hollanders and English doe yearly repaire thether
with corne and cloth and other commodities;...The chiefe harbour is
Brassisounde where every yeere their be 200 or 300 saile of Hollanders in
ships of great burden."
RICHARD JAMES (1614-1618), DESCRIPTION OF
SHETLAND,ORKNEY AND THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND
"HERRINGOPOLIS"
In the first decade of the 20th century Lerwick and Baltasound were the
centres of a huge herring fishery by steam drifters. Dozens of smaller ports
around the Shetland coast had their own curing stations, attracting tens of
thousands of migrant workers every summer.
The First World War destroyed the
Russian and East European markets but gutters, packers and coopers lasted
into the 1960s, when drifters became obsolete and were replaced by purse-seiners
and, in the 1990s, by pelagic trawlers.
In the 19th century the great grandfathers of today's Shetland trawler crews
rowed and sailed to the longline fishery for cod, ling and tusk, up to 40 or
50 miles from land. The six-oared "sixerns" with their tan coloured
squaresails were picturesque but deadly in summer storms.
Casualties were high and safer, decked boats like the Swan replaced
sixerns as soon as Shetlanders could afford them. In the past hundred years
the technology of boats and gear has changed repeatedly but the intimate
connection between Shetland and the sea remains. At Scalloway the North
Atlantic Fisheries College continues this tradition, training the next
generation of fishing crews and seafood workers, and carrying out research
into fish stocks, processing and marketing. Taking fish, fish-farming and
fish processing together, seafood is still Shetland's largest industry,
employing more people than oil.
SUNSET OF THE RED FLEET
Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Bloc fishing fleet made regular calls at
Shetland. The early 1990s saw the peak of the "klondykers" when up to 80
fish factory ships anchored in Bressay Sound, processing summer herring and
winter mackerel on board. The collapse of Communism was soon followed by the
bankruptcy of the klondykers and now most of the fish is handled in modern
plants onshore.
THE UNICORN
On the east coast of Shetland a rock bears the name of the Unicorn, a ship
lost in August 1567 while chasing Mary Queen of Scots' husband, the Earl of
Bothwell, who had fled to Shetland under suspicion of involvement in the
murder of her first husband, Henry, Lord Darnley. At Sumburgh Bothwell
commandeered two ships from German merchants. Just north of Bressay Sound
the Unicorn had almost caught up with him when they both ran onto the reef.
Bothwell's damaged ship limped on to Baltasound in Unst but the Unicorn was
a total loss. The fugitive sailed before a gale to Norway, where the King of
Denmark rejected his offer to give back Orkney and Shetland to the Danish
crown and clapped Bothwell in jail, where he died insane.
