Stiuir

Life’s good on Eigg. The sun’s out. The tea room down by the old slipway is doing a roaring trade. The Shearwater ferry’s over from Arisaig on the mainland, and has delivered musicians Gabe McVarish and Ross Martin to the plaintive strains of shoreside piper Dona. They’re playing tonight with Eigg musician Damien Helliwell in the community hall up in the woods above the pier. Oliver, Fiona and Antoine were up early on a fishing trip with local Ian Lever and bounced out in a small open boat into the bay between Castle Island and Eigg. They came back wet and elated with a basket of shining mackerel.

Community cook-up tonight with the ceilidh, and everyone’s invited. We’re nearing the end of our first week, and have generally found our sea legs, though Rody asked someone in the shop yesterday if she had, by any chance, a sprung floor. We were doing well with the sea toilet too, until a knot of seaweed got into the system, and the night was punctuated with the sounds of people pumping frantically to no avail. Being on a boat is all about proximity and shared resources, and reminds us of our habits of easy consumption. Here there’s no looking away, no throwing away.

The true value of things is restored to them: water, food, sleep, warmth, solitude and good companionship are all equal, all equally necessary and all need to be negotiated moment by moment. Until we’re up on deck, in a 22 knot breeze, with the mainsail bellying out and Jo and Mat on the winches, Rody at the helm with Jim alongside, and the rest of us braced in various places on the deck, riding the long swell and watching gannets plunge headlong into the sea.

Time for a bike ride over to Laig Beach or the Singing Sands, where Eigg historian Camille Dressler is guiding some of us through the island’s ancient and more recent past. Others have peeled off with John Booth for a tour of Eigg’s ingenious combined renewable energy system, which brings solar, wind and micro-hydro power together to supply the islands needs.

Scottish Wildlife Trust warden John Chester has taken Tom marching off into the hills in search of birds and butterflies, and a group of us spent the morning with Bob and Nora at the Earth Connections Sustainability Centre – a hugely imaginative project currently transforming the old Lodge into a teaching, training and research facility sharing pragmatic adaptive responses to climate change, resource use and the study of human ecology. It’s an incredibly inspiring island; its population diverse, skilled and committed exploring a range of approaches to stewardship, community development and responsible resource use.  And they know how to throw a good celebration too.

Rody Gorman’s just published a new volume of poetry: Beartan Briste (Burstbroken Judgementshroudloomdeeds), Cape Breton University Press. It’s beautiful. In Gaelic and English.

Posted: 21 July 2011, 12:58pm
Tags: community, history, local knowledge, local produce, renewables, sustainability