Wick: Music, herring, whisky & more

Historic town in the far north of Scotland

Caithness is the northernmost historic county of mainland Scotland. Like the northern and western islands of Scotland, the county has its own flag reflecting its Norse heritage. It was named by the Vikings because when they arrived in the ninth century, a group of Picts called the Caits were living in the area. The town of Wick was so named because it’s on Wick Bay, which is actually redundant since “wick” in Norse means bay or inlet (originally “vik,” which is where the word “viking” came from).

The actual northernmost point of the mainland is at Dunnet Head, near Thurso in the center Caithness’ northern coast. About 8 miles to its east is the Castle of Mey, where Queen Elizabeth’s mother often resided from the 1950s to 2001. On one day a year, she used to work as a clerk in the local post office in order to meet everybody.

Another eight miles to the east are two areas we’ll visit shortly: John o’ Groat’s and in the northeast corner of Caithness, the beauty of Duncansby Head. From there, you can gaze into the distant south and view the north coast of Aberdeenshire and Morayshire.

At our hotel in Wick, the stairway was lined with historic photos of the herring industry, which lasted from the 1780s all the way to the 1960s. At its peak, Wick had over 1,000 fishing vessels based there, so tightly packed together that some said you could walk across the whole harbor from boat to boat without getting your feet wet! Robert Louis Stevenson wrote of the herring boats: “a strange sight, and a beautiful, to see the fleet put silently out against a rising moon, the sea-line rough as a wood with sails, and ever and again and one after another, a boat flitting swiftly by the silver disk.” At the peak of the industry, in 1867, some 3500 “herring lassies” in Wick apparently were able to gut 50 million herring in only two days, for export to England, Scandinavia, Russia, the U.S., and the Caribbean. At one point, some 650 Wick coopers made 125,000 barrels a year to cure the fish.

Here’s a picture I took of one of the historic photos in the hotel stairway, showing the harbor packed with herring boats. Below it is another photo from the hotel but this is a cleaner copy of the same shot, showing the rows of barrels curing the herring. On the right is a trio of “herring lassies.” Note the tape on their hands to protect them from the super-sharp knives they used to gut the fish at lightning speed.

Listeners and players of Scottish music are likely to know of some of the music that has come out of Caithness, which I’ll discuss more next week, but one great fiddler that makes his home there is Gordon Gunn. We were fortunate to be joined by Gordon on several of our visits to Wick.

One of my favorite recordings of Gunn’s is his 2000 CD Shoreside. He can be heard on other excellent albums as well, such as his more recent Wick to Wickham, and the recordings by the band Session A9 (see the video from my earlier post). Here’s a taste of the first track on Shoreside — I never get tired of this CD! As you'll hear, Gordon Gunn is well grounded in tradition but also loves to innovate and improvise.

Gordon spoke with us about his musical experiences, not sparing us his dry sense of humor, and played quite a few tunes. On a couple of occasions, he was accompanied by the venerable Isobel Harper. Her husband Addie Harper played fiddle and accordion and led the famous Wick Scottish Dance Band from the 1950s to the 1970s. He wrote popular tunes such as “Barrowburn Reel” and “John Keith Laing.”

We also had a session or two with Gordon, and a few drams of Old Pulteney whisky, from a local distillery named after the old fishing port of Wick. And it’s a good single malt — Old Pulteney 21 was named “World Whisky of the Year” in 2012.

One of the times Gordon and Isobel played for us, they joined us at the Wick Heritage Center, an unassuming building which seems to open up inside to endless rooms and exhibits, including a kippering kiln, a cooperage, a working lighthouse, a harbor setting, an art gallery, and a photo collection covering more than 100 years of Wick history, including when it was the herring capital of Europe.

Here’s a photo of Isobel and Gordon playing piano and fiddle in an exhibit about local wool and sweaters. To the right is a photo I took of an exhibit displaying Addie Harper’s accordions, with a old photo of the Wick Scottish Dance Band.

Next week, we’ll talk more about Caithness, its history and the great literary and musical tradition of the “Grey Coast.” Then we’ll continue on to view some spectacular scenery!