ORIENTATION
THE ISLE OF JURA
Jura is an island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, northeast of Islay and only a short distance off the Scottish mainland. Despite this proximity to Scotland proper, getting to and from the island is not easy, so that Jura’s 200 or so inhabitants form a close, distinctive, and supportive community. My sequential trips to Jura for this project involved an international flight into Glasgow, a flight in a small propeller plane to Islay, a car ride across Islay and onto the Jura ferry (which took me across the sound of Jura), and finally a 30-minute drive along Jura’s single road across the island by way of the south coast to the small, solitary village of Craighouse. The island’s main industry is the Jura Distillery, which provides a draw for tourists in the high season and jobs for a significant number of Jura islanders. In addition to the distillery, several local festivals and events draw people to the island at various times throughout the year. The most notable of these is the Jura Fell Race, which takes place in May every year. It is an intense 28-km foot
race starting and ending in the town of Craighouse; participants, running through moss, tall grass, and mud, must traverse all three peaks of Jura’s mountains, the Paps. It is a grueling race that draws competitors from all over the world. The population of the island swells significantly during the weekend of the race.
The Isle of Jura has been continuously inhabited since the Stone Age, first by nomadic hunters and subsequently by farmers, and is riddled with standing stones, cairns, duns, and forts dating back through its entire history. In the 1700s, the system of clans transitioned into the feudal system of lairds and serfs predominant elsewhere in Europe, and one particular family, the Campbells, maintained control over most of the island until 1938. In the mid-1800s, Jura had a peak population of more than 1,300 people, but that number has steadily declined to the 200 or so people that live there today.