Unst
Unst is the most northerly inhabited island in the United Kingdom, sitting at the very top of the Shetland archipelago, far out in the North Atlantic between mainland Scotland and Norway. At roughly 20 kilometres long and 8 kilometres wide, it is the third largest of the Shetland islands, home to around 600 to 700 people, and possesses a remarkable concentration of natural beauty, wildlife, history and geological interest packed into its relatively small area. The sheer improbability of a thriving community existing this far north — further north than Bergen in Norway, further north than parts of Alaska — gives the island an almost mythic quality. For visitors who make the considerable effort to reach it, Unst delivers a profound sense of arriving somewhere genuinely remote and elemental.
The island's history stretches back at least 4,000 years. Neolithic settlers left their mark here, and the island contains excellent examples of Bronze Age and Iron Age remains, including brochs — the distinctive drystone towers unique to Scotland. The Norse influence is overwhelming and enduring: the name Unst itself derives from Old Norse, likely meaning something akin to "eagle's abode," and the vast majority of place names on the island are Norse in origin. Viking settlers arrived in the 9th century, and their cultural imprint never really left. During the medieval period Unst formed part of the Norse-controlled Northern Isles until the islands were pledged to Scotland in 1469 as part of a royal dowry. The island also played a role in the herring fishing industry that was central to Shetland's economy for centuries, and later became home to RAF Saxa Vord, once one of the most northerly RAF stations in the world, which tracked Soviet aircraft during the Cold War and whose radar domes are still visible on the island's northern heights.
The physical experience of Unst is dominated by wind, light and sky. The landscape is largely open moorland, dramatic coastal cliffs, sheltered voes (the local word for sea inlets) and bright green pasture where hardy Shetland ponies and sheep graze seemingly oblivious to the gales. The northern tip of the island, at Hermaness National Nature Reserve, is one of the great wildlife spectacles in Britain: vast colonies of puffins, gannets, great skuas (known locally as bonxies), razorbills, guillemots and fulmars nest on the clifftops and sea stacks. The great skua is particularly notorious at Hermaness, dive-bombing walkers who stray near nests with unnerving precision. On a clear day the views from Hermaness extend to Muckle Flugga lighthouse, perched on a jagged rock stack just offshore, and beyond it to Out Stack — the absolute northernmost point of the British Isles.
Muckle Flugga lighthouse was built in 1854 by David and Thomas Stevenson, relatives of the novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. Thomas visited the site during construction, and scholars have noted that the shape of Unst and its outlying islands bears a resemblance to the map of Treasure Island — lending a tantalising if unproven suggestion that Stevenson's imagination may have been seeded here. The lighthouse was automated in 1995 and no longer has a resident keeper, but it remains one of the most dramatically sited lighthouses in Britain, standing on a bare rock beaten by some of the most powerful swells in the North Atlantic.
Haroldswick, in the north of the island, contains the Unst Boat Haven, a wonderful small museum dedicated to the traditional wooden boats of Shetland, and the nearby Unst Heritage Centre covers the full sweep of island history from prehistoric times through the Norse era to the twentieth century. The village of Baltasound, the island's main settlement, has a hotel, post office and other basic services and sits beside a sheltered bay. Keen botanists visit Unst partly for the Keen of Hamar National Nature Reserve near Baltasound, a strange, moonscape-like area of serpentinite debris — a rare ultramafic rock — that supports a unique community of arctic-alpine plants found almost nowhere else in Britain, including the endemic Edmondston's chickweed, described by the young Shetland botanist Thomas Edmondston in the 1840s when he was barely a teenager.
Getting to Unst requires both commitment and patience, which is itself part of the charm. Most visitors fly to Sumburgh Airport in southern Shetland from Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Inverness or Bergen, or take the overnight ferry from Aberdeen to Lerwick operated by NorthLink Ferries. From Lerwick, the drive north through Shetland Mainland takes roughly an hour and a half to reach Toft, where a vehicle ferry crosses to Ulsta on the island of Yell. A drive across Yell leads to Gutcher, where another ferry crosses to Belmont on Unst — the whole journey from Lerwick taking perhaps two to three hours depending on ferry timings. The two inter-island ferries are operated by Shetland Islands Council and run frequently throughout the day, and the crossings themselves are brief and scenic. There is limited accommodation on the island including the Baltasound Hotel, self-catering options and a legendary community-run camping bød at Bobby's Bus Shelter, a roadside bus shelter that has been decorated and stocked by locals and become a minor internet sensation, drawing visitors from around the world to photograph it.
The best time to visit Unst is from late May through August. During this period the island experiences the "simmer dim," Shetland's extraordinary long twilight in which it never fully gets dark at midsummer — the sun barely dips below the horizon. Seabird colonies are at their most spectacular in June and early July. Wild flowers are abundant in the summer months, and the weather, while never guaranteed, is at its most benign. Winter visits are for the hardiest travellers: gales are frequent and fierce, daylight is very short, but the Northern Lights (aurora borealis) can be spectacular, and the island takes on an austere, almost otherworldly quality. Visitors should be prepared for changeable weather at any time of year, and should bring layers, waterproofs and sturdy footwear regardless of season. Mobile phone signal is limited in places, and the pace of life is deliberate and unhurried — both good reasons to settle in and stay longer than a day trip would allow.