Islands Matter Online Seminar: 'The Orkney Yole: An exemplar of intangible cultural heritage' with Ron Bulmer 30 March at 12pm
Yoles are the vernacular work boat of the southern isles of the Orkney Archipelago, without which coastal communities’ existence would have almost certainly failed.
Apart from the recently published ‘The Orkney Yole’, and a further publication in the offing from the Orkney Historic Boat Association, there appears to be a dearth of literature about the Orkney Yole. [Mention, however, must be made of the “Stroma Yole”.]
Yoles are the vernacular work boat of the southern isles of the Orkney Archipelago, without which coastal communities’ existence would have almost certainly failed.
Their origins are unquestionably Nordic, but is it possible to discover their origins? Generally, it is the great ships of the line that get the literature and detailed description, but the small boats, on which they depended, very little mention – if any. And yet, the design, shape and size, seems to be almost ubiquitous across southern Scandinavia, and the Baltic. Time will tell.
It was thanks to the help from the Norwegian Coastal Federation [Kysten Forbundet], who spear headed a joint Scandinavian bid to UNESCO, to be admitted to the Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage that the continuing Nordic boat building tradition was formally recognised. From that, arose the opportunity to attend the first conference after their successful bid... combined with the report concerning “The Small and Open Boat”, made for a truly insightful two days.
Ron Bulmer has been associated with the Nav School [Maritime and Engineering Department] Orkney College UHI, for some years. He has taught across a wide range of educational establishments, and well qualified in outdoor learning, and is recognised as a Professional in Outdoor Learning [POL], from the Institute of Outdoor Learning.
Ron is researching for an MRes with the Institute for Northern Studies, UHI and is supervised by Dr Andrew Jennings, Professor Mairéad NicCraith and Mark Shiner.
The Islands Matter webinars are the result of a collaboration between Dr Andrew Jennings Institute for Northern Studies UHI, Professor Frank Rennie UHI Outer Hebrides and Dr Beth Mouat UHI Shetland . This series of webinars was set up to address the hunger in the Scottish islands to hear from experts based in other islands worldwide, and to help inform the UHI Islands’ Strategy.