The North Harbour, Scalpay
(Photo by Steven Lennie).
Above you can see the North Harbour of Scalpay, which is the main area of Scalpay Village. The pier in this photograph appears rather empty of fishing vessels, this is because they are all out to sea working (Scalpay has a very hard working fleet). The large buiding to the left of the pier is the community centre. This building was only built recently (more info. soon) and serves as a meeting place for the island. Several functions a year are held at the centre, includinf dances, plays, coffee evenings, exhibitions, etc.
The area behind the telegraph pole is the Scalpay Primary School, which consists of one large building and several smaller ones. At one time there were approx. 150 pupils but in recent years this number has reduced dramatically (due to the general depopulation of the islands). The piece of red on the shore to the left is the roof of a building that used to be a fish processing factory. In the past "when the fishing was good" the harbour was often completely full of large fishing vessels and the fish was processed on Scalpay. Sadly as the fishing declined the factory became obsolete.
On a happier note, a new fish processing unit on Scalpay has been built by Stolt to process the salmon that is produced by it's local fish farms
