Explore the Isles of Harris of Lewis with a Cicerone guidebook

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Maps
• Reviews
• Further Reading

Together Harris and Lewis make up the largest island of the 130 mile long archipelago variously known as the Outer Hebrides or the Western Isles. They are at the very edge of Europe and, other than St Kilda and a few other isolated mountain peaks rising from the ocean bed, there is nothing to the west at a latitude of 58°N but ocean until you hit the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. During the dark winter months there are gales every third day; the other two simply being windy! And with nothing in their way for thousands of miles, the Atlantic winds rattle ill-fitting doors and snatch carelessly pegged clothes from washing lines making the islands seem a desperate place to be. Much of Lewis is black peat bog pitted with thousands of lochs and lochans and the interior of South Harris looks so ‘lunar’ that it stood in as the planet Jupiter for the filming of the sci-fi movie 2001: A Space Odyssey back in 1968. It all makes for a seemingly unappealing and hostile place to go walking, especially when getting there will certainly take longer and could cost you more than a budget flight to the guaranteed warmth of southern Europe.

But if you’re a dedicated walker, tired of the crowded hills and mountains of more accessible areas, coming to Harris and Lewis is a must. You will get solitude in abundance and won’t have to go far off the few beaten tracks to have a summit or glen to yourself. For despite frequent ferries and flights to the mainland, these islands maintain an air of remoteness. Disembark at Uig after a week on the Outer Hebrides and even Skye can seem busy and boisterous, totally geared up for tourism.

In spite of being part of the same landmass, often referred to as the Long Island, Lewis and Harris are very different. With fish farming, ship building and even software development the economy of Lewis is much less dependent on tourism. Outside of Stornoway, the only town in Lewis and Harris, the traditional occupations of crofting, fishing and weaving are still prevalent with many islanders still having more than one occupation. Having seen parents and grandparents suffering from the boom-and-bust cycles of industries such as herring fishing, weaving and rendering seaweed for chemicals, Lewis folk are proudly self-reliant and know how to get along. They also know how to enjoy themselves and although the Sabbath is still strictly observed with no shop opening or newspapers (a Sunday ferry service only started in 2009), Saturday night on the town in Stornoway is just as noisy and boisterous as in any other small town.

Harris is a total contrast; even Lewis people talk about going there as if it were another country. In many ways it is – or at least it was. In the past the mountains of Harris formed a substantial natural barrier between Lewis and Harris, and the sea rather than road was the main means of communication and transportation. It’s easy to see why, despite being part of the same landmass, they have retained the names Isle of Lewis and Isle of Harris. Everything happened at the periphery where the land meets the sea and even today there are few landlocked villages anywhere on the island. The division was more than geographic. Until 1974 it extended to local government with Lewis being part of the county of Ross and Cromarty and Harris part of the county of Inverness. Together with the other islands of the Outer Hebrides they are both now part of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar – the Western Isles Council, headquartered in Stornoway.

Compared with Lewis, Harris has far less of most things that seem to count in the modern world. It has a smaller population with barely 2000 people compared with the 18,000 in Lewis. Having little industry other than agriculture, fishing and tourism, it is far less industrialized than its neighbour. And the lack of memorials to the land struggle or the staunch resistance to Lord Leverhulme’s ambitions that can be found in Lewis suggests that Harris folk are perhaps more tolerant and easier going. When much of the Spanish Armada was wrecked in storms as it circumnavigated Scotland in an attempt to escape Sir Francis Drake’s fleet in 1588, some of the Spanish sailors are said to have ended up on Harris. Their Mediterranean genes are supposed to give the indigenous population a darker complexion and an easier manner than the blond, blue-eyed Lewismen, many of whose ancestors came from Norway. Who knows? It is also said that the Gaelic spoken in Harris has a softer lilt to it than that spoken in Lewis. Certainly everything else about the place seems to have a similar charm. But don’t dismiss either. Harris may have higher hills and a greater number of beaches, but Lewis has more prehistory, more tourist attractions – and ultimately many more hills.