Papa Stour is one of the Shetland Islands in Scotland, with a population of under twenty people, some of whom immigrated after an appeal for residents in the 1970s. Located to the west of mainland Shetland and with an area of 828 hectares (3.2 square miles), Papa Stour is the eighth largest island in Shetland. Erosion of the soft volcanic rocks by the sea has created an extraordinary variety of caves, stacks, arches, blowholes, and cliffs. The island and its surrounding seas harbour diverse populations of wildlife. The west side of the island is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and the seas around the island are a Special Area of Conservation.
The island has several Neolithic burial chamber sites, as well as the remains of Duke Hakon's 13th century house dating from the Norse occupation of the island. The population reached 380 or more in the nineteenth century, when a fishing station was opened at Crabbaberry in West Voe. Subsequently there was a steady decline in population, although the numbers have increased from a low of 16 in the 1970s.
Today the main settlement on the island is Biggings, just to the east of which is Housa Voe from where the Snolda ferry arrives from its base at West Burrafirth on the Shetland Mainland. Crofting, especially sheep rearing, is the mainstay of island life.
Numerous shipwrecks have occurred around the coast, and the celebrated poem Da Sang o da Papa Men by Vagaland recalls the drama of the days when Papa Stour was a centre for deep-sea fishing.
Read more about Papa Stour: Geography, Geology, Ecology, History and Archaeology, Economy, Culture and The Arts
Famous quotes containing the word papa:
“Why should the generations overlap one another at all? Why cannot we be buried as eggs in neat little cells with ten or twenty thousand pounds each wrapped round us in Bank of England notes, and wake up, as the Sphinx wasp does, to find that its papa and mamma have not only left ample provision at its elbow but have been eaten by sparrows some weeks before we began to live consciously on our own accounts?”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)