If you’re sending post this Christmas, spare a thought for the historical residents of the remote Scottish island archipelago of St Kilda, who sometimes sent letters to the mainland using 'mailboats' like this one.
Consisting of a crudely carved boat with a compartment for a letter, it uses a sheep's bladder as a flotation device. St Kilda is only about 100 miles from the Scottish mainland, but could be largely inaccessible for months due to rough seas. When in need of assistance, these devices could be launched in the hope that they would be discovered and opened. Left to the mercy of the Atlantic, mail could end up in Iceland or Scandinavia.
The isolated lifestyle of the inhabitants of St Kilda became increasingly unsustainable and in 1930 the last of the islanders were voluntarily evacuated, leaving behind a unique Gaelic-speaking culture that had subsisted largely on the islands' massive population of seabirds.
Visitors to St Kilda have made a tradition of continuing to send these 'mailboats'. In 2020, some children on a beach in northern Norway discovered an example containing postcards, that had been cast out to sea 10 years before to mark the 80th anniversary of the evacuation. It had travelled 1,000 miles over that period.
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A cute little Story I wanted to share with you.
