The Scottish Islanders

In 1887 conditions become untenable on a remote island in the Atlantic and the inhabitants leave to live on crofts offered to them on the western shores of Lewis near Carloway. The Islanders have to earn money to pay the rent, buy seed and find the resources to last them until their first harvest. It is one year after the passing of the Crofters' Act, which provides security of tenure, fairer rents and an end to clearings of recent years, but there is still simmering resentment where land is scarce. The crofts are too small to be viable farms so the townships need to farm, fish and weave to make ends meet. The Minch is teeming with fish and the high-earning Herring Girls move about the coastal towns to follow the work. Colin Campbell operates a successful coastal trading business in his topsail schooner, while Dugald Cameron can still squeeze a living by driving cattle from the Outer Islands through Skye to swim them across to the mainland at the Kyle. It is the age of steam, paddle steamers, railway construction and telegraph, all forcing change on the way things are done, while the remote glens and lochs still raise memories of Bonny Prince Charlie chased around them by Redcoats. There is the suggestion of another dimension of spirits, healing and the prediction of the future by those of the second sight. This is the story of the ancestors not just of the Hebrideans, but of many Americans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders who left these Outer Hebrides for a better living, not always by choice.