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The Guga Hunters
From the puffin to the fulmar, the gannet to the cormorant, the sea-bird was once a commonplace meal, served on dinner plates across the length and breadth of Scotland. Now, however, it only remains on the menu in one of the farthest edges of the country. Every year, ten men from Ness, at the northern tip of the Isle of Lewis, sail north-east for some forty miles to a remote rock called Sula sgeir. Their mission is to catch and harvest the guga; the almost fully grown gannet chicks nesting on the two hundred foot high cliffs that circle the tiny island, which is barely half a mile long. After spending a fortnight in the arduous conditions that often prevail there, they return home with around two thousand of the birds, pickled and salted and ready for the tables of Nessmen and women both at home and abroad.
The Guga Hunters tells the story of the men who voyage to Sula sgeir each year and the district they hail from, bringing out the full color of their lives, the humour and drama of their exploits. They speak of the laughter that seasons their time together on Sula sgeir, of the risks and dangers they have faced. It also provides a fascinating insight into the social history of Ness, the culture and way-of-life that lies behind the world of the Guga Hunters, the timeless nature of the hunt, and reveals the hunt's connections to the traditions of other North Atlantic countries. Told in his district's poetry and prose, English and - occasionally - Gaelic, Donald S. Murray shows how the spirit of a community is preserved in this most unique of exploits.
The Guga Hunters tells the story of the men who voyage to Sula sgeir each year and the district they hail from, bringing out the full color of their lives, the humour and drama of their exploits. They speak of the laughter that seasons their time together on Sula sgeir, of the risks and dangers they have faced. It also provides a fascinating insight into the social history of Ness, the culture and way-of-life that lies behind the world of the Guga Hunters, the timeless nature of the hunt, and reveals the hunt's connections to the traditions of other North Atlantic countries. Told in his district's poetry and prose, English and - occasionally - Gaelic, Donald S. Murray shows how the spirit of a community is preserved in this most unique of exploits.
261 pages, Paperback
First published September 18, 2008
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About the author
Donald S. Murray
31 books23 followersDonald S. Murray was born in Ness in the Isle of Lewis and taught on Benbecula. An author and journalist, his poetry, prose and verse has been shortlisted for both the Saltire Award and Callum Macdonald Memorial Award. Published widely, his work has also appeared in a number of national anthologies and on BBC Radio 4 and Radio Scotland. He lives and works in Shetland.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 29, 2021
Having read Peter May's Lewis trilogy and have a long awaited holiday on Lewis later this year, I wanted to read more on the Guga Hunters.
This book provided much more than that, with the amount of social history it has around the people of Ness and nearby villages.
One small criticism is that occasionally I found a lack of continuity in paragraphs, but that may be me.
There are a number of pieces of Gaelic verse which are not translated. A translation in notes at the end would be useful.
This book provided much more than that, with the amount of social history it has around the people of Ness and nearby villages.
One small criticism is that occasionally I found a lack of continuity in paragraphs, but that may be me.
There are a number of pieces of Gaelic verse which are not translated. A translation in notes at the end would be useful.
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January 5, 2024Having visited both the Butt of Lewis (windy, bleak and very Scottish) and the gannet-laden Little Skellig off the Irish coast (unlike any place I've ever seen) this was such an interesting read for me (especially teamed with some YouTube videos of Sulasgeir).
July 21, 2016
This is the most remarkable of things: a book totally devoid of cliches. This is in part because the subject matter of seabird hunting is so remote from the lives of most of us in the developed world as to be inherently surprising. Indeed, to a resident in urban England (or even, I suspect, urban Scotland), the lives of the Nessmen — Gaelic-speaking, Sabbath-keeping Psalm-singing, Guga-hunting — can feel more remote than that of people from most foreign countries. Even in Ness, life is changing rapidly. Soon, the world of Guga hunting may belong to that most definitely foreign of countries, where they famously do things differently — the past.
How can we make sense of something like the annual Guga hunt of Ness. One approach would be through anthropology, studying it in the same way that Clifford Geertz famously did with a Balinese cock fight. Although Murray uses techniques that recall those of the ethnographer, his approach is very different. Murray is poet and this shapes his approach. After a macaronic dedication to the Guga hunters and the people of Ness more broadly, Murray includes an apt epigraph from Seamus Heaney's poem 'Kinship': 'report us fairly/ how we slaughter/ for the common good'.
Murray's book is beautiful, but not always easy to read. Leaving aside the tendency to include fairly lengthy quotes in untranslated Scots Gaelic (not one of mine), this is a book very firmly about a place. I bought it on Harris, and when traveling through the Western Isles and the northern Highlands I found it irresistible. Back in Cambridge, it could seem rather slow. Murray is certainly in no hurry, and the book frankly feels far longer than its slim length. Only when I came to the end, though, did I realize how important this lack of haste was an important literary strategy. Murray is concerned with capturing a world where time is measured in seasons and generations. My impatience shows how much we've lost this.
I said that this a book without cliches, and indeed this is true, but one comparison does come to mind, and that is Gavin Maxwell's Otter Trilogy, themselves some of the least cliched books I've ever read. Both explore the relationship between men (and I do mean men specifically) and animals in remote areas of Scotland, and both are written in lyrical prose with a highly digressive narrative. Maxwell had gifts that Murray lacks: he was a better prose stylist than Murray (or almost anyone else), had a more acute sense of humour, a more scientific (if paradoxically also more sentimental) understanding of the natural world, and a more developed interest in human psychology. Yet Murray also has something that Maxwell lacked, namely a deep sense of connection to, and respect for, local people. Maxwell was proud cosmopolitan and a somewhat haughty aristocrat who divided his time between Scotland, London, continental Europe and North Africa. Although a keen recorder of highland legends and characters, his attitude toward locals often bordered on the condescending and by all accounts he lived a life rather removed from the local community. Murray's background and attitude are very different. He is by birth part of the community he describes, and is far more humble than Maxwell in his descriptions of Scottish life.
The great Texan folklorist J. Frank Dobie wrote that 'great literature transcends its native land, but none that I know of ignores its soil'. No one could accuse Murray of ignoring the soil — or the sea — of his native island. In his own way, he also transcends it.
How can we make sense of something like the annual Guga hunt of Ness. One approach would be through anthropology, studying it in the same way that Clifford Geertz famously did with a Balinese cock fight. Although Murray uses techniques that recall those of the ethnographer, his approach is very different. Murray is poet and this shapes his approach. After a macaronic dedication to the Guga hunters and the people of Ness more broadly, Murray includes an apt epigraph from Seamus Heaney's poem 'Kinship': 'report us fairly/ how we slaughter/ for the common good'.
Murray's book is beautiful, but not always easy to read. Leaving aside the tendency to include fairly lengthy quotes in untranslated Scots Gaelic (not one of mine), this is a book very firmly about a place. I bought it on Harris, and when traveling through the Western Isles and the northern Highlands I found it irresistible. Back in Cambridge, it could seem rather slow. Murray is certainly in no hurry, and the book frankly feels far longer than its slim length. Only when I came to the end, though, did I realize how important this lack of haste was an important literary strategy. Murray is concerned with capturing a world where time is measured in seasons and generations. My impatience shows how much we've lost this.
I said that this a book without cliches, and indeed this is true, but one comparison does come to mind, and that is Gavin Maxwell's Otter Trilogy, themselves some of the least cliched books I've ever read. Both explore the relationship between men (and I do mean men specifically) and animals in remote areas of Scotland, and both are written in lyrical prose with a highly digressive narrative. Maxwell had gifts that Murray lacks: he was a better prose stylist than Murray (or almost anyone else), had a more acute sense of humour, a more scientific (if paradoxically also more sentimental) understanding of the natural world, and a more developed interest in human psychology. Yet Murray also has something that Maxwell lacked, namely a deep sense of connection to, and respect for, local people. Maxwell was proud cosmopolitan and a somewhat haughty aristocrat who divided his time between Scotland, London, continental Europe and North Africa. Although a keen recorder of highland legends and characters, his attitude toward locals often bordered on the condescending and by all accounts he lived a life rather removed from the local community. Murray's background and attitude are very different. He is by birth part of the community he describes, and is far more humble than Maxwell in his descriptions of Scottish life.
The great Texan folklorist J. Frank Dobie wrote that 'great literature transcends its native land, but none that I know of ignores its soil'. No one could accuse Murray of ignoring the soil — or the sea — of his native island. In his own way, he also transcends it.
January 2, 2021
Ness, Isle of Lewis. Local history through a look at their unique annual gannet hunt, but as much a eulogy for the passing of a way of life in this community.
May 8, 2022
A remarkable insight into the tradition of guga (gannet chicks) hunting on Sulasgeir, an uninhabited tiny island north of the isle of Lewis.
September 28, 2022
This is a tale of an annual seabird hunt by a small Gaelic crofting and fishing community told with poetry as if by a fireside with the wind howling round the bothy.
For 100s of years people have set out from Lewis for Sulasgeir, a smallish rock in the North Atlantic for two weeks or so to take young gannets, the guga. In nearby North Rona people hunted seals. Young gannets ready to be caught "are "tre-trim" - three tufted, they've lost most of their down and not turned completely dark. Any smaller and they have too little meat, older and they've lost much of their fat."
Gannet is a strong fishy meat – I've only ever eaten the eggs which are also a bit fishy – and they are one of many seabirds hunted and eaten in different ways across the North Atlantic. Puffins in Iceland are boiled in milk. They are sewn into a whole seal skin in the Canadian Arctic and left in the ground to ferment for some weeks – it is polite to serve them out of doors. On the west coast of Scotland gannets were caught by tying a herring to a piece of wood so the bird broke its neck diving for it.
This is a male-focused history of a hunt that some conservationists and anti-cruelty campaigners have tried to stop. It persists because it is about food security and taking any opportunity for variety in a community's diet where the sea and weather takes its toll.
"It represents a food source on which my community could depend, which was safe and nourishing to eat…the potato and other crops could be blighted– not only by disease but also the sound and fury of unpredictable weather. Salt could destroy grain or blast the green leaves sprouting from seed we had sown in spring…There would be seasons when there would be no full harvest from the sea, where the spaces where we looked for ling and mackerel would be empty."
The author argues the real threat to gannets is industrial food production and climate change. Since this was published the covid pandemic has been a brutal lesson in how industrial food production fosters zoonotic disease. Now in 2022 people from Lewis didn't even apply for their annual licence to hunt guga because of the avian flu outbreak has left tens of thousands of dead seabirds across the Northern Isles.
These were preventable crises and we have been relatively "lucky" that Covid19 had a mortality rate of less than 5%. The birds haven't been so lucky with a flu that is like covid without the vaccinations, painkillers or self isolation. We need system change.
For 100s of years people have set out from Lewis for Sulasgeir, a smallish rock in the North Atlantic for two weeks or so to take young gannets, the guga. In nearby North Rona people hunted seals. Young gannets ready to be caught "are "tre-trim" - three tufted, they've lost most of their down and not turned completely dark. Any smaller and they have too little meat, older and they've lost much of their fat."
Gannet is a strong fishy meat – I've only ever eaten the eggs which are also a bit fishy – and they are one of many seabirds hunted and eaten in different ways across the North Atlantic. Puffins in Iceland are boiled in milk. They are sewn into a whole seal skin in the Canadian Arctic and left in the ground to ferment for some weeks – it is polite to serve them out of doors. On the west coast of Scotland gannets were caught by tying a herring to a piece of wood so the bird broke its neck diving for it.
This is a male-focused history of a hunt that some conservationists and anti-cruelty campaigners have tried to stop. It persists because it is about food security and taking any opportunity for variety in a community's diet where the sea and weather takes its toll.
"It represents a food source on which my community could depend, which was safe and nourishing to eat…the potato and other crops could be blighted– not only by disease but also the sound and fury of unpredictable weather. Salt could destroy grain or blast the green leaves sprouting from seed we had sown in spring…There would be seasons when there would be no full harvest from the sea, where the spaces where we looked for ling and mackerel would be empty."
The author argues the real threat to gannets is industrial food production and climate change. Since this was published the covid pandemic has been a brutal lesson in how industrial food production fosters zoonotic disease. Now in 2022 people from Lewis didn't even apply for their annual licence to hunt guga because of the avian flu outbreak has left tens of thousands of dead seabirds across the Northern Isles.
These were preventable crises and we have been relatively "lucky" that Covid19 had a mortality rate of less than 5%. The birds haven't been so lucky with a flu that is like covid without the vaccinations, painkillers or self isolation. We need system change.
August 9, 2025
I read this book a number of years ago and wanted to revisit it before my imminent visit to Lewis. I found it profoundly disappointing.
The text is poorly written and would benefit from drastic editing. The author makes no attempt to provide a balanced view on the guga hunt, rather we are presented with a biased justification. As a result, some valid points he makes are in danger of being lost amongst his slanted views. There is also a lot of petty sneering at those who dare to voice opposition to the hunt. Although written in 2008, the text is deeply misogynistic and partonising towards women, leaving a bad taste in the mouth by the end.
The text is poorly written and would benefit from drastic editing. The author makes no attempt to provide a balanced view on the guga hunt, rather we are presented with a biased justification. As a result, some valid points he makes are in danger of being lost amongst his slanted views. There is also a lot of petty sneering at those who dare to voice opposition to the hunt. Although written in 2008, the text is deeply misogynistic and partonising towards women, leaving a bad taste in the mouth by the end.
March 6, 2018
Engaging account of the men who make the journey from Ness on a wee boat to catch guga. It brings home how hard it has been to survive in these island communities, and now how hard it is for the guga hunting tradition to endure.
Also worth a watch is the film the guga hunters of ness https://vimeo.com/ondemand/gugahunter...
Also worth a watch is the film the guga hunters of ness https://vimeo.com/ondemand/gugahunter...
October 7, 2023
Glè inntinneach. Really paints a broad picture of the life near the end of the Outer Hebrides. It's really not only about the guga hunters, the book is so much more. Very interesting read for anyone interested in (current and past) Scotland and Hebrides in particular. Really enjoyed taking this all in.
October 20, 2018
A passionate account of the men who go to Sulasgeir each year for the guga hunt. Includes an overview on the animal welfare debate on the issue.
September 20, 2022
Fascinating accounts from the real people of ness and their first accounts of nautical life and the guga hunts
Loved the gàidhlig poetry throughout too
Loved the gàidhlig poetry throughout too
December 3, 2011
In the not too distant past, seabirds and their eggs were a staple food for many small coastal communities clinging to the Atlantic fringes of Europe. Ness (Nis), near the northernmost tip of the Isle of Lewis, is the only community in the British Isles that retains that tradition, with men from the village undertaking an arduous expedition each Autumn to the rocky sea-stack of Sula Sgeir, 40 miles offshore. Spending two weeks or so on the rock, they capture and kill gannet chicks, known as guga, under a special licence granted by the European Union.
This book is a fascinating insight into a history that would have been shared by many other coastal communities, and how keeping the tradition has created a strong bond in Ness, rooted deeply in the language and culture of the area. Murray writes as a Nessman, with deep fondness for his heritage and the history of his community, and as a poet and journalist, giving insightful observations with a lyrical flair and wry humour.
This book is a fascinating insight into a history that would have been shared by many other coastal communities, and how keeping the tradition has created a strong bond in Ness, rooted deeply in the language and culture of the area. Murray writes as a Nessman, with deep fondness for his heritage and the history of his community, and as a poet and journalist, giving insightful observations with a lyrical flair and wry humour.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews