Seasons on Harris (8 page)

And then, abruptly, the high moors and glens fade and a vast glowering expanse of peat bogs and blackwater lochans stretches out ahead for mile after mile to misty horizons. There are brief interludes of straggly crofter communities at the side of the road, but these are merely human-scaled frills on the fringe of this dark, threatening infinitude of…nothingness.

Even on warm, sunny days, this is an eerie emptiness, pockmarked here and there with remnants of ancient peat-cutting beds and collapsed frames of summer “shieling” shacks suggestive of traditional lifeways long abandoned to the silence and slow imploding suction of the bogs.

I'm heading for Stornoway, but a sign appears at the roadside pointing westward across the bogs to the remnants of settlements and forts and standing stones, many of which are thought to predate the great Egyptian pyramids—most notably the 4,500-year-old stone circle of Callanish.

I'd intended to revisit these places with Anne to see if they'd impress us the same as they had more than twenty years ago. But the hell with it, I thought, this day is all mine and I can go wherever I want—so why don't I just nip over and take a peep, then return some other time with Anne to investigate their mysteries more fully.

Great idea, responded my little serendipitous self. Go! So I went, easing my car off the main road and heading due west across the wild fringe of Barvas moor.

Bleak barely describes the next twelve miles. I was now alone on one of the loneliest roads in Britain. Naturalists and ornithologists of course love this place for its untrammeled wealth of flora and fauna—harder to spot here than in verdantly lush
machair
locations, but that's what makes the moor so captivating to the knowledgeable viewer able to identify all the sproutings of ling and bell heather, bog asphodel, sundew, cotton grass, bog myrtle, blue moor grass, deer's hair grass, and those spongy green masses of sphagnum moss.

I obviously respect their enthusiasm and certainly empathize with their virulent opposition to one of the most ambitious mega project
concepts to ever hit the Hebrides—that proposed creation of one of Europe's largest wind farms across these moors. The actual scale of the concept varies depending on the perspective and political savvy of the presenters, but according to the latest headlines in the
Stornoway Gazette
, there's talk of as many as six hundred four-hundred-foot-high turbines that could generate “enough sustainable energy for half the Highlands of Scotland” and ensure “considerable economic benefits” for the rather sparse coffers of Lewis.

The objectors of course decry the destruction of “a unique and beautiful wilderness,” the decimation of “countless thousands of birds every year” in the huge whirling blades of the turbines, and a wide array of other traumatic factors, including “the pathetically meager royalties that the private investors proposing the scheme would donate to the island as token compensation for their capitalistic greed and topographical and aesthetic ruination.”

This, I thought, as I scurried across the dark moors and bogs, is yet one more of those dramatic confrontations between traditionalists, environmentalists, and futurists. It's early days yet but already, in the strident pro and con letters to the
Gazette
and furious village meetings, I could sense the battle lines forming and the fear of yet one more unwanted invasion—invasions that for thousands of years engendered so many of the ancient remains of forts and huddled settlements in defensive locations scattered up and down the west coast of Lewis.

These remnants of threats and bombastic responses were all still intact as I meandered my way along the coastal road—the modest stone circle and standing stones of Garynahine, the Breaseclete burial chamber, the restored Norse mill at Shawbost, the enormous towering bulk of the Iron Age Carloway
broch
or dun (much archaeological argument here about whether
brochs
are fortified homesteads and duns are actual forts or…), and the excellent renovation and museum at the Old Blackhouse Village at Gearrannan—a flourishing community in the 1950s of over twenty tweed weavers that traces its origins back more than two thousand years. And these are merely a handful of the outstanding sites here.

Callanish Standing Stones

All these I left for later explorations with Anne and ended up, as intended, walking up the long rise from the recently opened visitor cen
ter at Callanish to stand—alone and whipped by a vigorous Atlantic wind—at the base of the great standing stones themselves.

Nothing seemed to have changed since our last visit two decades ago. Which I suppose is what one hopes to find when faced with such splendid white stone monoliths more than four millennia old. Furious debates continue as to their origin and purpose: Were the stones actually “erratics” pushed south by glaciers or were they hauled across country by mysterious means like the huge components of Stonehenge? Was it a Druidic ceremonial center, astronomical observatory, Christian sanctuary, Neolithic trading post, “ancient saints turned to stone,” focal point of invisible energy “ley lines,” or a flying saucer landing site for extraterrestrial tourists? Many accept the simpler description I found in one of the Hebridean guidebooks:

Another commentator was fascinated by the comparative age of this remarkable creation:

Numerous learned tomes (and many far more erratic monographs and lunatic fringe diatribes) have been written on Callanish and the archaeological wonderworld of Lewis's west coast. I will therefore leave any further academic descriptions and speculations to the “experts”
(despite their remarkable ability to disagree on just about every detail and nuance of this amazing place), and merely suggest that Callanish seems to speak to everyone who comes here in a unique and very personal way.

It helps of course to have the place to yourself, as I did on that first exploratory day, when I sat quietly sheltered from the wind by the central stone and let the magic creep in slowly. And what I sensed was not so much the ghosts of ancient generations (or any “beam me up, Scotty” sci-fi hallucinations) but rather an overpowering sense of the bold certitude—and fortitude—of the builders of these places. On subsequent visits I was equally beguiled by the certitude of some interesting (and occasionally rather odd) characters I found here, lured to the stones by their metaphysical presence and power. Neo-Druids, crystal planters, Travelers (sort of New Age gypsies), worshippers of solstices and the ancient earth goddess Brighde, practitioners of Wicca (white magic), and admirers of the winter northern lights (aurora borealis), which are particularly mystical here—all are lured to this remote and lonely place, seeking spiritual revelations and confirmations.

In the same way that I admire the intense hermitlike dedication and faith of the early Christian saints (despite the cynicism of those historians who suggest that their primary purpose was not so much the promulgation of the gospels to a Christ-less world but rather the salvation of their own souls), I sensed a similar clarity of original vision and belief here. With one difference: this was an immense
communal
creation reflecting a well-established continuum of perception and action that possibly linked ancient civilizations throughout Britain, France (Carnac in Brittany possesses an equally amazing series of creations), and many other coastal fringes of Europe. The only problem is that I, in common with most other commentators, have no real idea what that collective visionary perception once was. Obviously, the recognition of higher powers and energy potentials was the binding bond, as it has been for almost all sects, religions, and cults from time immemorial. But after that…what else? How were their gods—their higher powers—depicted? Was fear the driving force for communal action—fear of mortality; fear of crop failure, starvation, and social decimation; fear of
ever-present invaders with more powerful forces at their own disposal; fear of internal anarchy if the human species were not disciplined and restrained by durable power structures? Or just the oh-so-common fear and/or respect of the masses subjected to the dominance of strong clan leaders or dictators? Or…

 

I
N THE CASE OF
S
TORNOWAY
(yes, I finally left Callanish, a little reluctantly, and drove back across Barvas moor to my destination of the day), you immediately perceive the visionary impact of more benign leaders in the form of affluent “social reformers” who gallantly tried to transform this modest crofting and fishing community, set around a deep, safe harbor, into something far grander, gracious, and affluent.

These utopian visions began as far back as 1599 when Stornoway was a base for the “Fife adventurers,” who had been instructed by King James VI (later King James I of England—more convoluted British history here) to tame “a barbarous, uncivilized, and pagan people.”

Various skirmishes and devious dealings around that time between the clans led to the ouster of the powerful MacLeods (a family of Norse origin) by the MacKenzies in 1610. Then another power shuffle during the Jacobite “rebellions” of 1719 and 1745 brought a brief occupation by Oliver Cromwell's forces, and finally, in the next century, the “gentleman visionaries” began to appear. It's a long story, but eighty-three-and-a-half-year-old Hector Campbell (he was very precise about his age, and his incandescently red face, which could have easily doubled as a traffic light, glowed with geriatric pride), who I met on a bench overlooking the harbor, seemed to have his own unique perception of the town's history from that point onward: “Well, Lord Seaforth—the MacKenzie chief had himself renamed in English fashion—built himself a fancy mansion for himself across there from the harbor. And then along comes the big ‘opium king,' James Matheson, in 1844, buys up Stornoway and the whole blinkin' island, tears down Seaforth's place, and puts up—that thing—and planted all those woods too.”

“That thing” is Lews Castle, one of the first features you notice as you drive into this tight-knit little town of 8,600 or so residents. It sits
on a hillside overlooking the harbor and the town, in glorious Victorian-Gothic pomposity, with turrets, towers, battlements, and elegantly carved stonework surrounded by one of the oddest sights on this storm-torn, bog-strewn, and largely desolate island: a gorgeously lush swath of woodlands stretching for a mile or so along the inlet, and way back to the Harris road. You just don't expect to see trees anywhere on Lewis. But here they are in their thousands, including an encyclopedic array of “exotic” species, and looking more like the country estate of some landed gentry family in the lush, sumptuous greenery of Sussex.

“Is it open to the public?” I asked Hector.

“Oh—aye, 'course it is. All kinds of walks and streams and nice cozy places for a bit of…well, y'know. It's nice to have some trees, 'specially after that ninth-century Viking raider, Magnus Barelegs, burnt down all the forest on Lewis an' left the whole flippin' moor bare as his own legs!” Hector chuckled at his own ribald imagery, revealing a battered Stone-hengelike set of nicotine-stained teeth.

“The castle's closed, though—they say it's fallin' down. But there's a technical college behind it. We're proud of that. A college on Lewis. Makes us
Leodhasaich
feel a bit more important d'y'ken. Means the young kids might stay a wee bit longer…Anyhow so—like I was tellin' ye, Matheson moved in and started makin' changes to the town. Did some good things. Helped us out during the terrible days of the potato famines and whatnot around 1845. Brought in food and supplies for us an' got to be a baron too for ‘his great exertions and munificence' an' all that. Good man gen'rally speakin', even though they said he made most of his money in the opium trade. But then again, so did Queen Victoria, I've heard…But when he died in comes our ‘Wee Soapman,' Lord Leverhulme, in 1918 and buys up the island again and—boy—was that an eye-opener! He had all kinds of ideas and projects—plantin' great forests of willows for basket makin' all over the Lewis moors; a new iodine industry from all the seaweed we've got; peat-fired power stations can y'believe; building up the herring fleet after World War I to make Stornoway the ‘fishin' capital of the world' and gettin' work for all those hundreds of ‘herring girls' and dozens of kipperin' smokehouses, an' tryin' to get the crofters off the land and into canning factories here.
Oh—an' he built that bloody great tower over there too.” (Hector pointed to the west, where an impressive eighty-five-foot-high tower rose on the horizon—a memorial to the 1,159 Lewismen lost in World War I.)