FROM HOY TO HUDSON BAY AND BACK
Take the 6 pm ferry from Stromness for a journey to the old Nor’ Wast. Curator Janette Park of Stromness Museum tells the story of the long Orkney links with the Hudson’s Bay Company and the people of the region. Polar historian Dr Maria Pia Casarini tells the story of the company itself.
You can see the Hoy Heritage Centre exhibition about the life of William Sinclair Ritch from Rackwick in Hoy, who joined the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1872, had a family in Canada with his Cree wife, Sophia Wynn, and returned to the island 38 years later.
There’s a light supper to start the evening – and admission is free.
The ferry departs Moaness Pier in Hoy, to return to Stromness, at 10 pm. Bookings from Orkney Ferries online or phone 01856 872044.“I was born on the 29th day of July, 1852, in a two roomed cottage built by my father in the Village of Rackwick, in the Parish of Hoy. My father lived there all his life and his father before him, in the same house (Midhous to name) and had a small farm of ten acre of ground.
Rackwick is a small Village with only thirty children going to school. I worked on the farm with my father until I was sixteen years of age. I then went to the Herin fishing and at end of the second fishing I joined a Sloop going to the Baltic with a cargo of herring for Sateen in Germany and back to Leith with a cargo of grain and I stayed home all winter and the following year I sailed with Captain John Ritch, my half brother and in 1871 I made a voyage in the Hudson Bay Company’s ship Ladie Head going to moose factory in Hudson’s Bay and back to London, England, The following year I came to Moose factory to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company (1872)”
