Eigg - The Least Expected Isle of
Scotland Written and Photographed by Michelle McAlister
For a month long visit to Scotland, I decided to hunker down
in just one spot—on the remote and rarely visited Isle of
Eigg. At twelve square miles and with a community of just 83 residents,
Eigg is a blip in the sea—a smudge of land in the Northwestern
Inner Hebrides. I figured a tiny nowhere isle would guarantee
an earthy un-touristy experience, allowing me to absorb the real
Scotland. But news of my intended destination begot gasps of bafflement
and disappointment from the Scots I’d met along the way.
“I wouldn’t go there if I were you,” a tie-wearing
Glaswegian clerk advised me.
”Really?” I asked, taken aback at the stranger’s
showy disapproval.
He laughed aloud, calling over his colleague. “Rodney,”
the clerk yelled. “She’s going to Eigg!”
“Eh? Did you say Eigg? But that’s just a wee isle.
There’s nothing for you there,” red-haired Rodney
seethed, a big frown distorting his face into a grimace. “That
place is not worth your time.”
But I had already made my plans—weeks ago, when I had pored
dreamily over my map, lured to the far-flung droplets of land
folded in the creases, adrift in the pale blue paper sea. I likened
finding Eigg in that paper sea to be a spontaneous instinctual
decision, a moment of discovery— my quintessential idea
of unscripted travel. So I boarded the West Highland Railway bound
for Scotland’s scattered western isles, chugging northward
five hours across the loch-lavish purple Highlands.
As my train lurched into the Mallaig station, the edge-of-the-world
port town serving as the mainland’s ferry depot, I followed
signs to the docks.
A pack of Canadian tourists purchased tickets to the popular,
heavily visited Isle of Skye. When they cleared, I inched forward
and put my pounds on the counter for a one-way ticket to Eigg.
The bored ticket counter lady scrunched up her wide porous nose
and shook her head.
“Did you say Eigg?” she questioned.
“Yes, just one-way,” I repeated.
“You don’t mean Skye, do you?” she said, confused.
“It’s not Skye you want then?”
“No, it’s Eigg for me.”
“Suit yourself,” she muttered.
I sat down, waiting for Eigg’s ferry to arrive. I began
to wonder if I hadn’t made a mistake.
As my mind churned, Skye’s slip queued with loads of chatty
travelers while Eigg’s remained empty. Then, swaying in
the choppy sea, a hard working ferry slammed into Eigg’s
slip, puffs of black smoke billowing over the hills of Mallaig.
After four hours, the ferry veered towards Eigg. I climbed down
the grated passenger ramp, eager to get a look at the faraway
land that inspired those mainland guffaws. Mounds of lazy green
hills rolled down to Eigg’s shoreline, tumbling into pebbled
beaches. A lone farmhouse stood guard on the right, while a scattering
of sheep claimed the left. Jutting from the center of the isle
a sliver of a mountain stood alone, looking as though someone
had spliced off its accompanying range on either side and left
only the middle, tallest pitchstone peak.
“What’s that?” I asked Angus, the ferry’s
weathered skipper.
“That’s the An Sgurr,” he replied.
“It’s cool looking,” I declared.
“Aye, this is Eigg.” He winked, giving an assuring
nod.
We both clamored down to watch the ferry maneuver into port.
Angus propped his ragged beefy sailor hands on his hips and gazed
out toward the isle. The force of last night’s gale still
rocked the ferry up and down, but Angus was windproof, right at
home on the sloppy sea.
My rented cottage would be in Glamisdale, one of two settlements
on Eigg. I trekked to my cottage on the only road. The shady walkway
spilled open as the woods deferred to valleys, affording views
across the water to the nearby Isles of Muck and Rum. Loads of
puffed baby lambs dotted the green valleys as droopy-eyed momma
sheep strolled leisurely, leading their insecure heel-knocking
twins across slopes in search of the tastiest grasses. The verdant
valleys dipped and curved, looking prehistoric—preserved
without a hint-of-human. The earthy smell of the wet land pulled
me down out of the haze of travel and in that still moment, I
could swear that saber-toothed tigers and bare-chested, kilt-clad
members of the MacLeod and MacDonald clans stormed across the
fields, warring and pillaging right in front of me.
When I reached my cottage, I threw down my backpack to explore
the land of purported disenchantment.
Following farm roads through grassy fields below the Sgurr, I
came across an ancient village deserted since the 16th century
Highland Clearances. Hundreds of Highland clans were evicted,
to accommodate the UK’s ambitious agricultural agenda. But
that was centuries ago. Where were the clans now? I hadn’t
come across a single islander since I’d gotten off the ferry.
I found myself wandering down empty roads, winding up in different
valleys of identical looking sheep. I cooed at baby sheep with
their pink filled ears, rimmed with curly newborn wool. They reminded
me of Hostess’s pink snoballs.
The next morning I strolled to the General Store and rummaged
around the tiny rotting produce section. The pickings were slim.
“Is it eating apples you want?” the storeowner yelled,
craning her neck around a tidy display of chocolate bars. “Cause
what you have there are cooking apples.”
“You can’t eat these?” I asked, confused that
such a distinction exists.
“No,” she firmly declared.
I put the apples down, juices involuntarily springing through
my teeth, the imagined tartness tingled my tongue. Her disapproving
look proved she knew I wasn’t going to bake an apple pie
tonight or any night for that matter, and it was clear that I
would be depriving an islander of these valuable commodities who
would probably bake the fat apples that very night. Anywhere else,
I would have bought and eaten them on my way out. But I was on
Eigg, and I wasn’t about to be the American who took the
last of the fruit, “And she wasn’t even going
to bake them!” they would whisper.
As I purchased my groceries, a fit woman strode in wearing shorts
and hiking boots, a scruffy mess of a terrier trailing her. On
the side of her truck, colorful letters advertised her trade:
Donna the Piper
Lessons in piping, whistle, dance
Learn the Highland Fling & the Highland Laddie!
“I hope the black eye heals ‘fore the wedding,”
Donna the Piper said as she took a seat on the counter.
“Aye, it’s already fadin’ some, but she’ll
still make for a beautiful bride!” laughed the storeowner.
“You know, it would be all right for you to come to the
reception tonight,” the storeowner smiled.
“Really?” I stuttered, elated at the over-the-counter
invitation.
“Aye, all Eigg folk are welcome!”
Was I considered Eigg Folk? After days with just sheep, I would
finally get to meet the reclusive islanders.
That night, the rain poured from the black sky as I walked to
the Community Hall. The men sported full Highland dress kilts
with tailored tuxedo jackets and creamy braided wool socks folded
over their aging knees. Tartan flashes clung to the edge of the
fold, proudly displaying the pattern of their clan. The men and
their families sat at designated clan tables—each table
wearing a different tartan: a green plaid table, a red plaid table,
a blue plaid table.
I overheard the green and blue table laughing over the bride’s
black eye. At the bride’s Hen Party, a Scottish lady’s
last hurrah before her wedding night, a local farmer dancing as
a short notice stripper, had sexily swung his belt around atop
a table, the belt buckle hitting the bride in the face.
As I scurried to the bar in the back of the hall, I met a man
with fuzzy, unfocused eyes and rosy cheeks. I tried my best to
ignore him as he swaggered over.
“I’ll have a pint of cider, please,” I ordered.
The rain-sopped drunk reached out, putting his warm swollen hand
on my shoulder. “Do you like wine?” he slurred.
“Um, yes,” I replied
“Well, then tell that bartender you won’t be needing
a drink—just a glass.”
The drunk pulled out a bottle of wine from inside his damp tweed
jacket and filled my glass, spilling over the rim. Aidan was Irish,
and a poet. His inebriated body leaned into mine, reciting incomprehensible
lines of poetry. His russet-tinged Beaujolais lips grazed my ear,
painting images and words from another faraway island, the one
he left 16 years ago. His muffled poetry swirled in the air making
music with the accordion, the fiddle and the pennywhistle.
As I sat, clapping at the red plaid table, it struck me that
I had almost given up on Eigg. The reactions of others had narrowly
tempted me to doubt my choice in destination. But glancing around
the room, I was glad I hadn’t strayed from my instincts;
the unexpected rewards of spontaneous travel to unscripted destinations,
ripe with unrehearsed people.
I was sad to leave Eigg the next morning, not entirely ready
to be a mainlander again. As the ferry prepared to shove off,
Donna the Piper came barreling down the coastal road, her terrier
riding shotgun. She clamored out of her beat up truck with a large
black case, opened it and steadied a wobbly set of bagpipes on
her shoulder. Placing her mouth on the blowpipe, Donna breathed
life and celebration into the bags.
Sailing away to Donna’s rendition of “Scotland the
Brave”, I threw a handful of thick silver rimmed gold coins
from the ferry’s rails to her opened case on the concrete;
her terrier spun in circles, chasing the flying pounds. I watched
Eigg disappear into a sea of wind-whipped green, vanishing into
an indiscernible speck rendering the tiny isle forgettable, dismissible
even, except to the few who instinctually journey to the purported
nowhere.
Michelle
McAlister is a freelance writer and world traveler.
She primarily travels solo and is a frequent international
volunteer. Her stories about travel have appeared in San Francisco
Chronicle, InTravel magazine, eMagazine, the Environmental
Magazine, Tango Diva, and have garnered a bronze certificate
and honorable mentions in Traveler's Tales' SOLAS Travel Writing
Awards 2008. While she calls San Diego home, her overstuffed
bookcase sardined with travel journals and maps to far flung
locales spur her to travel on, further neglecting her garden.
