Windracers 2025 OISFestival 2025-09-19 | Jess tells us about the latest developments with Windracers unmanned cargo delivery drone.
Hybrid Air Vehicles OISFestival 2025-09-19 | Lucas Princ tells us about the latest developments with the Airlander from Hybrid Air Vehicles.
TRAILER As old as the hills OISFestival 2025-08-29 | This trailer gives a brief sample of the stunning images in Selena S. Kuzman's new film exploring the immensity of geological time through the rocks and landforms of Caithness and Orkney. The film soars over mountainsides, journeys over coastal sands, seeks the marks of events from hundreds of millions of years ago - on a search for an understanding of the vast scale of time through which the land of today has taken shape.It tells the story of the ancient rocks of Caithness, on Scaraben and Smean, formed long ago amidst titanic fires, and of a far-off time when Brinkie's Brae in Stromness was a granite island in a great lake whose sediments would become the foundations of Orkney today. Geologist Adrian Hall is joined on the quest by co-presenters Katy Firth and Mara Gibb, with voiceover and an Orkney welcome from storyteller Tom Muir. ..................................................................September 9 → 10:00 am ─ 11:00 am AS OLD AS THE HILLSPhoenix Cinema, Pickaquoy, Kirkwall TICKETS → oisf.org/fest-event/as-old-as-the-hills..................................................................
THE SEA IN THE FESTIVAL OISFestival 2025-08-27 | The sea runs through the 2025 Orkney International Science Festival in numerous ways. It's the bicentenary of Walter Traill Dennison, who recorded a wealth of Orkney folk tradition that would otherwise have been lost, including descriptions of "the bonnie woods of Otterswick" in a bay where today tree remnants can be dug out from beneath the sand at the lowest tides. His stories of a country beneath the sea would fit well the exploration of divers on meadows of seagrass, working to preserve and regenerate it. There is news too of progress in seabed regeneration of shellfish, and of work to clear marine litter and recycle some ocean plastic. ________________________________________________________September 4 → 2:00 pm ─ 3:00 pmSEAWEED AFTER STORMSoisf.org/fest-event/seaweed-after-storms ________________________________________________________ September 5 → 4:00 pm ─ 6:00 pm WORKSHOP: A DIVE INTO ORKNEY’S SEASCAPE oisf.org/fest-event/workshop-a-dive-into-orkneys-seascape________________________________________________________ September 9 → 10:00 am ─ 12:30 pm SUSTAINING AND RESTORING THE SEABED oisf.org/fest-event/sustaining-and-restoring-the-seabed________________________________________________________ September 9 → 11:30 am ─ 12:30 pm THE BONNIE WOODS OF OTTERSWICK oisf.org/fest-event/the-bonnie-woods-of-otterswick________________________________________________________ September 9 → 2:00 pm ─ 4:30 pm A CLEAN SEA AND A CLEANED SHOREoisf.org/fest-event/a-clean-sea-and-a-cleaned-shore_______________________________________________________ September 10 → 2:00 pm ─ 4:00 pm WORKSHOP: RECYCLING OCEAN PLASTIC oisf.org/fest-event/workshop-recycling-ocean-plastic
TUNNELS FOR THE SCOTTISH ISLANDS? OISFestival 2025-08-25 | With the costs and challenges in procuring new ferries, is it time to follow Norway and Faroe in developing undersea road tunnels to open up new possibilities for the transport mix? Prof. Andy Sloan, managing director of the consulting firm COWI in the UK and Ireland, and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Strathclyde University, has long had a vision for tunnels as a means of transforming Scottish island transport. Earlier this summer he spoke with Howie Firth.
BEYOND HELGOLAND OISFestival 2025-08-15 | In June 1925 the young Werner Heisenberg, plagued by hay fever, found respite in the little North Sea island of Helgoland. The pollen-free conditions suited him so well that he rapidly completed the calculations that laid the foundations of quantum theory. A century later, quantum physicists from many places gathered in the island to commemorate the story and Helgoland's role in it. They highlighted quantum theory's stunning successes in explaining some of the deepest mysteries of the universe and opening the way to futuristic technology - and they also reviewed the frustrations of a hundred years of argument about what at its heart the theory actually means.In September 2025, in another island setting, Orkney will welcome quantum physicists from varied places - and musicians and a poet as well - to its 35th International Science Festival, and post the collective challenge: can you together find ways to explain the theory more clearly and take us on a journey Beyond Helgoland?Supported by EventScotland
RECYCLING OCEAN PLASTIC OISFestival 2025-08-08 | Ocean plastic is cluttering beaches and killing marine life. One approach, says Dr Katharina Vones of the Royal College of Art, is to treat it as a resource and turn it into something useful.She described to a 2024 Orkney International Science Festival audience a tabletop-scale process which schools and communities can develop, with a shredder and extruder that turns it into filament for 3D printing – and hence into whatever design anyone wants to 3D-print.
ISLAND SHEEP AND ISLAND FUTURES OISFestival 2025-08-06 | Native sheep from islands with a Norse heritage will be featured at events in this year's Orkney International Science Festival (4-10 September 2025). Speakers will highlight new opportunities for wool and meat, building on traditional strengths. It's an initiative from the island of North Ronaldsay, renowned for its seaweed-eating sheep, and there will be news of the latest developments in the island. There will be information about the revival of traditional Faroese jumpers and about the use of computer-aided knitting in the Aran Islands. There will also be an opportunity to see a cloak in Norse style made in Berneray, and to learn how to cook Icelandic lamb the traditional way. This brief video encapsulates a rich mix of images.oisf.org/portfolio-items/island-sheep-and-island-futures
FESTIVAL ON THE WAY! OISFestival 2025-08-05 | With the tickets for this year's programme now on sale, Festival director Howie Firth finds a seat by the sea to give an outline of some of the themes to neuroscientist Dr Peta Greer.
TO SAVE LIVES AT SEA OISFestival 2025-08-03 | Through storm and darkness, waves and reefs, the lifeboats have answered the call of the maroons for 200 years. Over that time, their form has evolved from open cobles to today’s rugged boats.To mark the 200th anniversary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in 2024, naval architect Dennis Davidson and former seaman Len Wilson took a look back to the earliest designs, in the days before the RNLI, and then to the seagoing disasters around the UK coast that led to the institution’s founding in 1824. They told an Orkney International Science Festival audience the story of the establishment of the Orkney stations, with the first at Stromness in 1867, and they told too of the men who crewed the boats and some of the hazardous and daring service they provided.
SEA CREATURE SUPERPOWERS OISFestival 2025-07-31 | A whole plethora of marine creatures use the laws of physics to survive and thrive in all parts of the ocean, says marine biophysicist Dr Russell Arnott. He gave a 2024 Orkney International Science Festival audience varied examples of how marine biology meets physics in our planet’s seas. Situations range from the acoustic properties of whales to the tiny shrimp that packs a supersonic punch.
SPRING WEATHER CHALLENGES FOR WELSH FARMERS OISFestival 2025-06-15 | This year’s weather patterns are causing concern to farmers, and bringing climate issues to the fore. Is this a one-off, or are we seeing the development of longer-term changes to the familiar weather patterns that farming has learned over many generations to cope with?Farmers in Wales have found themselves in the forefront of the changing weather, and the Deputy President of the National Farmers Union of Wales, Abi Reader, has been describing the situation. On June 5th she spoke to Howie Firth of Orkney International Science Festival.
THE DARK OF SUMMER OISFestival 2025-05-17 | The story of a remarkable picture of time from 70 years ago that fits elegantly with ideas at the forefront of physics today. And this picture came not from a physicist but from a writer, one of great depth - Eric Linklater, novelist and historian, the 50th anniversary of whose death was commemorated in this presentation at the 2024 Orkney International Science Festival.His book The Dark of Summer has a fateful mood, showing how chains of events can lead to tragic consequences, building up piece by piece like the Icelandic sagas which he so much admired. The story is set in Shetland and Faroe, with Orkney scenes as well, and was written at a bleak time, in 1956, amidst the Cold War and the Hungarian uprising. But it builds up to an unexpected ending with a fresh picture of the nature of time and a feeling of hope and redemption. The story was told by Howie Firth, with readings by Dame Janet Suzman, a friend of the Linklater family over many years.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BERRIES OISFestival 2025-04-18 | Salt winds can deter many plants, but not sea buckthorn. It thrives in poor sandy soil by the sea, and it can stabilise dunes and build up shelter – and it is nutritionally rich. Vitamins and amino acids, minerals and essential fatty acids, are abundant in its berries, and their juice is a healthy drink and an intriguing flavour ingredient.Kirstie Campbell first came across it when she was working as a humanitarian aid worker in Pakistan, where the berries were used in winter by remote communities. Returning to Scotland, she was surprised that the berries growing prolifically around the east coast were little used and sometimes destroyed. Concerned by the challenges for Scotland of food security and nutrition, she decided to form Seabuckthorn Scotland as a community enterprise, with the berries harvested by hand and turned into juice.She told an audience in the 2024 Orkney International Science Festival the story of a plant that grows in many places, from the Himalayas and China to Eastern Europe and Arctic Finland, and explores its potential from food and drink ingredients to natural dyes, medicine and cosmetics.This event was made possible through the kind support of Orkney Islands Council’s Crown Estate Community Led Development Fund.
WHAT TEETH CAN TELL US OISFestival 2025-03-29 | Perhaps no other body part reveals as much about an animal’s relationship to its environment, says evolutionary biologist Otto Stenberg of the University of Helsinki, Finland. He told an audience in the 2024 Orkney International Science Festival about the range of tasks that teeth can tackle.“Teeth have evolved to chop, pierce, crush and comb. They serve as sabres, scissors, mortar and pestle. The sheer diversity of tooth form and function is one of the most remarkable things about us mammals.”
SPRING THOUGHTS FROM THE FESTIVAL OISFestival 2025-03-25 | As the winter fades behind us, Festival Director Howie Firth sits back at the end of a sunny March afternoon to outline some of the themes of this year's Orkney International Science Festival (4-10 September 2025).
LIVING BY THE PENTLAND FIRTH : TIDES, STORMS AND PEOPLE OISFestival 2025-03-21 | This is the third of a series of three films about the Pentland Firth, which links the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, with its tide races and eddies making it a waterway for ships to treat with much care. Walter Mowat has spent his life beside it, and for many years his First and Last Gift Shop has been a familiar sight for visitors to John O'Groats. A visit to Caithness to make a film about the Pentland Firth was an opportunity for Howie Firth to sit down with him in the John O'Groats Hotel and ask him about the seaway and its tides. You can see The Making of the Pentland Firth online, and also Stroma - Island of Storms and Tides. youtu.be/CaGCmTAfF98youtu.be/FBXNABvqJJk There is more information about Caithness and Orkney landforms in the Caithness Landscapes and Orkney Landscapes websites.orkneylandscapes.orgcaithnesslandscapes.org
SEA WIND FOR THE FUTURE OISFestival 2025-03-01 | North Sea oil transformed the Orkney economy, creating hundreds of skilled jobs and laying the foundations from which the renewables sector has developed. Now a new area of opportunity is on the horizon – offshore wind farms to feed electricity directly into the national grid, and serviced from local harbours.Thistle Wind Partners are working on plans for a floating wind farm 21 km east of Deerness, with construction starting around 2029. Project director Ian Taylor told a 2024 Orkney International Science Festival audience about progress and the shape of the future.
THE COUNCILS, THE PARLIAMENT, AND THE BLACK, BLACK OIL OISFestival 2025-02-12 | The 1974 Zetland and Orkney County Council Acts laid the foundation for the Northern Isles relationship with North Sea Oil. The Acts granted powers for local council control and environmental protection, as well as setting up reserve funds for the community with a share of oil revenues. But how did the UK’s tiniest councils convince a busy Westminster 50 years ago to give them powers beyond those of any other UK local authority?Dr Tim Noble of Heriot-Watt University’s International Centre for Island Technology (ICIT) worked with the oil construction on Flotta and Shetland in the 1970s. He recalled the excitement of those times to an audience in the 2024 Orkney International Science Festival. He examined the parliamentary case made for the Acts, and he went on to ask: could the same approach help with energy developments today?The talk was chaired by the Director of ICIT, Dr Sandy Kerr.
STROMA – ISLAND OF STORMS AND TIDES OISFestival 2025-02-07 | For the film on the making of the Pentland Firth we took the opportunity to gather additional footage from Stroma, and here it is - a film about the island and the tides that pour past, the great whirlpool of the Swelkie, and the power of sea and storm that have created remarkable landforms like the Gloup. The island of Stroma, off the coast of Caithness, has clues to the sheer power of the sea that shaped the Pentland Firth between Caithness and Orkney and its coastlines. While making a film about the origins of the Firth, Dr Adrian Hall, accompanied by Mara Gibb from Caithness, visited Stroma to see at first hand how the sea can shape a landscape. They saw the spectacular Gloup, a great inland hole created by the sea through an underground sea cave. They saw the marks of the great storm of 1862 that hurled massive slabs of rock up onto the land. And they heard from the island's owner, William Simpson, about the people who once lived on the island, with their lives so closely entwined with the sea.The film The making of the Pentland Firth can be see at 👇youtu.be/CaGCmTAfF98There is more information about the forces shaping the landforms on both sides of the Firth on the Caithness Landscapes website:caithnesslandscapes.organd the Orkney Landscapes website: orkneylandscapes.orgThis film was made possible by the kind interest and support of Thistle Wind Partners.
GETTING YOUR GENETIC RESULTS BACK OISFestival 2025-01-30 | Viking Genes is one of the first population research studies to give volunteers the option to have “actionable” genetic results returned to them. For this to happen, a range of ethical and practical issues had to be overcome, as Dr Shona Kerr of Edinburgh University explained to an audience in the 2024 Orkney International Science Festival.viking.ed.ac.uk/about-us
VIKING GENES: GENOMIC MEDICINE OISFestival 2025-01-30 | DNA is becoming increasingly important in healthcare. Prof. Jim Flett Wilson of Edinburgh University returned home during the 2024 Orkney International Science Festival to describe the background to an appreciative audience. He explained the opportunities for prevention and early detection of disease for Orcadians and Shetlanders, arising from results of the Viking Genes studies.viking.ed.ac.uk/about-us
GREEN AND BLUE HORIZONS OISFestival 2024-12-10 | Orkney’s role as an energy exporter has continued to develop, with oil joined today by wind, tide and wave developments that have put it on the world stage for renewables, and with offshore wind on the way. Work has expanded into hydrogen and battery technology for energy storage, and alternative power sources for ships and aircraft, with each year bringing fresh views ahead. What can we expect over the next 5-10 years – and what infrastructure do we need to put in place to get the maximum benefits?Neil Kermode of EMEC and Dr Gareth Davies of Aquatera gave a 2024 Orkney International Science Festival audience a perspective from the heart of the ongoing developments.
LIVING ON THE MOON! OISFestival 2024-12-03 | It’s 55 years since Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, in what seemed a first step for humans to explore the Solar System. But few have followed – the last was in 1972 – and the dreams have faded.But now, says Prof. Mahesh Anand of The Open University, governments and companies are talking of a return to the Moon and it’s being seen as a technology testbed for exploring Mars and the asteroids. His work in planetary science has included Moon rocks and martian meteorites, and he is currently collaborating with international researchers to follow up on the recent discovery of water on the Moon. He told a 2024 Orkney International Science Festival audience about the new developments on the horizon.
TO FACE FEARLESSLY EVERY PROBLEM OISFestival 2024-11-22 | William Thomson, born 200 years ago, never went to school. At the age of 10 he entered Glasgow University, and by the age of 22 was professor of natural philosophy there. He went on to make discoveries in electricity and magnetism, heat and thermodynamics. He also made many inventions, which earned him a fortune, from which he bought a schooner to sail on long voyages. He became the first British scientist in the House of Lords, as Lord Kelvin.Prof. Graham Machin of the National Physical Laboratory, whose work in heat and temperature measurements builds on Kelvin’s foundations, told a 2024 Orkney International Science Festival audience the story of a man who was rightly called a northern wizard.
CHANGING LIVES WITH SOLAR POWER OISFestival 2024-11-17 | 650 million people worldwide have no access to electricity. For Rwanda it’s 24% of the population, for Zambia 65%, and Malawi 81%. But solar power opens the way for communities to set up their own local energy systems, whether grid-connected or off-grid.Prof. Stuart Galloway told an audience in the 2024 Orkney International Science Festival how Strathclyde University’s SG Global Renewables Centre provides knowledge needed for various stages of the progress – for developing core skills, for connecting off-grid systems to national grids, and for applying business models to run the resulting energy enterprises.
SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD OISFestival 2024-11-15 | The interface between the modern seafood industry and the environmental movement is becoming increasingly fraught and angry. Why has this happened? Shetlander John Goodlad is writing a new book on the subject. He shares his thoughts on what lies behind this conflict and addresses the key question as to how sustainable seafood is.John Goodlad has worked in the seafood industry all his life – for the Shetland Fishermen’s Association and then as a fish farmer, and now for a London-based seafood investment fund. He is also an advisor on sustainability issues for several national and international fisheries bodies. He has always been passionate about history and the result of many years of research led to his books The Cod Hunters and The Salt Roads.
DISENTANGLING DNA OISFestival 2024-11-12 | Tinier and tinier quantities of DNA can now be detected – which actually give forensic scientists a problem. Instead of just one person’s DNA at a crime scene, there may be traces of others who have never been there. To what extent can DNA be transferred from place to place, and how can different traces be sifted out?Dr Alexander Gray from the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science in Dundee told an audience in the 2024 Orkney International Science Festival of the new challenges faced by forensic scientists.
THE FUTURE OF FORENSICS OISFestival 2024-11-06 | An account from China in 1248 describes the use of science to solve a crime. Since then there have been many developments in forensic science – but, as Prof. Niamh Nic Daeid of the University of Dundee explains, there are areas where more advances are needed.And with each advance, she says, there can be risks and challenges. She looks ahead to what might be on the way, from new and more sensitive methods of detecting DNA to the increased use of AI and the development of virtual reality to recreate crime scenes.
THE MONSOON AND THE PLANET OISFestival 2024-11-04 | Water is an essential commodity for life on this habitable planet. Rainfall patterns are changing and set to change further in the future, particularly in the tropics where the lives and the livelihoods of more than a third of the world’s population are dependent. By using the chemistry of marine plankton and combining it with climate models, a team of researchers from The Open University have assessed drivers of monsoon rainfall, changes in the tropical rainfall pattern during past warm intervals, and the role of South Asian monsoon rainfall in past global climate.One of the team, Dr Pallavi Anand, Professor of Ocean Biogeochemistry and Palaeoclimatology, told an audience in the 2024 Orkney International Science Festival how tiny plankton shells capture clues about past ocean conditions - and how these have been used to infer changes in past Earth System processes such as monsoon climate.
THE MAKING OF THE PENTLAND FIRTH OISFestival 2024-11-01 | Selena S. Kuzman’s film soars over shores and hills and sea to give varied perspectives on one of the world’s great waterways. It shows how the Firth was carved out by the power of glacial action in the Ice Age, followed by the forces of storm, wave and tide which continue today. The film was premiered at this year’s Orkney International Science Festival in September, and made possible through the funding support of Thistle Wind Partners who are developing the Ayre Offshore Wind Farm to the east of Orkney. The story was scripted by Edinburgh geomorphologist Dr Adrian Hall, who has spent a lifetime of work studying and writing about the rocks and landscapes of Scotland. He was joined on his journey in Caithness by Mara Gibb, UHI STEM Coordinator for Caithness and Sutherland, and in Orkney by Katy Firth of Stromness Museum. Very much in their thoughts along the way were memories of the renowned Orkney geologist, the late Dr John Flett Brown, whose lifelong study of the Old Red Sandstone geology is highlighted in the dedication of the film.The narrators look at the marks in Caithness where great glaciers scraped over bedrock. Probing the boulder clay, they find chalk and shell fragments dredged from the bed of the Moray Firth by the moving ice. On Hoy, they search for glacial erratics carried from the Northern Highlands and find evidence for an ice flow into the valley of Rackwick.The film shows how everywhere along the shores of the Firth, the effects of the power of the sea are apparent. On the island of Stroma, the storytellers look at great caves opened in the cliff by the force of the waves. They trace the course of the great storm of 1862 when waves ran up and over the 200-foot cliffs at the north end of the island and formed torrents tearing up earth and rocks in their flow. The film Stroma – Island of storms and tides can be see at 👇youtu.be/FBXNABvqJJkThey complete the story of the Pentland Firth at the Old Man of Hoy, looking back at the gradual dismantling of rock that led to first a headland and then an arch, and to the present towering stack since 1700 – and which will itself be eventually destroyed by the same forces that created it.At its premiere in September, the film received a glowing audience response. “Fascinating content and stunning photography,” wrote one audience member. “Interesting information beautifully presented and paced,” wrote another. “In 50 fascinating minutes, so much science was explained very easily, making the film a great highlight of this year’s festival,” wrote Tom Groat in The Orcadian.The film is a continuation of a series of videos and podcasts developed by Adrian Hall and John Flett Brown in a collaboration which has also led to a comprehensive Orkney Landscapes website (orkneylandscapes.org) and now to a new Caithness Landscapes site (caithnesslandscapes.org/). The scale of the two sites is as vast as the northern landscapes themselves, spanning locations and landforms from coastline and sea-cliffs to hillsides and mountains, with the aim of providing a resource for the whole community – schools, teachers, researchers, and indeed everyone who wishes to find out more about the richly varied landscapes of the two counties. Everyone involved expressed warm thanks for the help in the making of the film provided by William Simpson for Stroma and by Walter Mowat in John O’Groats, both of whom have recorded material which will be featured in further videos about Stroma and about the Firth’s currents and navigation. Use of the film by communities for local screenings will be welcomed.
NEW SHELTER FOR FISH OISFestival 2024-10-28 | Masanobu Shibuya is one of the pioneers of engineering diving in Japan with nearly 50 years of experience, from large-scale offshore development projects to disaster recovery work.An increasing concern for the ocean environment has led him to work with marine renewables companies to create rich seaweed forests and other ecohabitats to benefit sea life and fisheries. He told the story in the 2024 Orkney International Science Festival, in discussion with Dr Gareth Davies and Neil Kermode, in an event hosted by Shibuya Diving Industry, Aquatera and EMEC.
TO BUILD IN ORKNEY’S EARTH AND STONE OISFestival 2024-10-27 | Earth has been used as building material in Orkney since the Neolithic. Architect Tom Morton and mud mason/artist Rebecca Little have been studying its use in Orkney’s ancient buildings for Historic Environment Scotland, and they’ve identified a range of skilled techniques. Earth can bind stones for walls, and clay was used to seal roof slates at the Ness of Brodgar. Recent studies have highlighted its use as decorative plaster. And as they explained to a 2024 Orkney International Science Festival audience, in today's climate situation, local materials like earth and straw could have a role again.
THE POWER OF MUSIC FOR PEOPLE LIVING WITH DEMENTIA OISFestival 2024-10-21 | People living with dementia progressively lose skills and abilities. Their feelings and emotions, however, remain; as does their enjoyment of music and their ability to engage with it.Combining years of practice, research and teaching with a lifelong interest in music led Diana Kerr to helping to set up and run singing groups. She was Director of Stirling University’s MSc in Dementia Studies and a Research Fellow at Edinburgh University and has written widely.She told an audience in the 2024 Orkney International Science Festival what research findings show about music and dementia, and she described practical ways in which these insights can be applied.
GREEN CHEMISTRY OISFestival 2024-10-18 | We’re used to taking non-renewable resources from the ground, turning them into chemicals and consumer goods, and eventually throwing them away, to end up as landfill or ocean plastic. But a new approach turns this model right around. Green chemistry seeks ways to transform waste or renewable natural materials, to make safe chemicals and recyclable products.Prof. James Clark of the University of York’s Green Chemistry Centre describes examples that include cleaning products from sawdust and food wastes, fuels from waste cooking oils, medical devices from seaweed, and clothes from pineapple leaves. He spoke in the 2024 Orkney International Science Festival about the practical benefits and the underlying vision.york.ac.uk/chemistry/people/jclark
THE MAKING OF THE PENTLAND FIRTH : TRAILER OISFestival 2024-09-28 | “The choice of film, rather than a lecture, was a master stroke,” wrote Tom Groat in The Orcadian, and Dr Adrian Hall had the sea beside him on each step of the journey in search of the origins of the Pentland Firth. On the cliffs of Caithness and on Stroma he was joined by Mara Gibb, as they traced an ancient landscape where a long-ago glacier scoured out bedrock and opened the channel where the sea flows today. From the Stroma lighthouse they looked out at the power of the Swelkie, the great whirlpool that for the old Norse was a turning mill beneath the sea, grinding gold or sometimes salt. On Hoy’s Atlantic coast Katy Firth saw with him evidence of an ice flow through the valley of Rackwick, with its massive rounded boulders on the beach. They completed the story at the Old Man of Hoy, highlighting the impact of storm and sea on coastal shape. In their thoughts along the way were memories of an outstanding Orkney geologist, Dr John Flett Brown who has inspired so many people with a love of Orkney‘s rocks and their story. Selena S. Kuzman’s film explores a long-lost landscape, marked today by glacial scrapes on bedrock and chalk and shell fragments in clay, and soars over shore and hills and sea to give varied perspectives on one of the world’s great waterways. A big audience enjoyed the first showing in the Festival, and it will now be premiered on YouTube towards the end of October. In the meantime, here is a trailer.The production of the film 'The Making of the Pentland Firth' has been made possible through the kind support of Thistle Wind Partners.
Mineralogist and mountaineer Matthew Forster Heddle OISFestival 2024-09-25 | Matthew Forster Heddle, born and brought up in Melsetter, Hoy, is Scotland’s greatest mineralogist. Stromness Museum made his work the focus of their 2024 summer exhibition, which jointly featured the immense contribution to Orkney geology of Ted Kellock. To mark the occasion, Heddle’s great-great-grandson Hamish Johnston, author of a biography, gave an online presentation.
THE VITAL ROLE OF AIRCRAFT FLYING FROM HMS TERN OISFestival 2024-09-15 | A talk by Cdr David Hobbs MBE RN (retired)
A PATH THROUGH GAMES AND LANGUAGE OISFestival 2024-09-11 | Does our digital world mean the end of tradition and older languages? On the contrary, say Prof. Maya Chacaby (Anishinaabe, Beaver Clan) of York University and virtual learning expert Benoit Buyse of UniVirtual: technology provides fresh ways to pass on heritage to a new generation. They describe how the virtual world of Biskaabiiyaang teaches Anishinaabe language, history, and culture through gamified quests and activities; and how the outcome is an Indigenized curriculum, accessible and engaging.They join us online to describe the process of translating Indigenous Knowledge and traditional storytelling into game mechanics.
THE ORKNEY SKY AT NIGHT OISFestival 2024-09-07 | Join Catherine Young online in live conversation with astronomers Callum Potter from Rousay and Eric Walker from Conon Bridge, to hear about some of the superb objects in the night sky that can be seen by enthusiastic amateur observers over the next few weeks and months.
How to Build a Seggy Boat OISFestival 2024-08-28 | Showing how my dad taught me to build a seggy boat.
ORKNEY INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE FESTIVAL 2024 PROGRAMME LAUNCH OISFestival 2024-07-09 | Festival director Howie Firth outlines some of the many events in this year’s programme – from Malaysian coral to fulmars on Eynhallow, from ice in the Antarctic to gold in the stars. The Festival runs from 5-11 September. There is more information on the Festival website: oisf.orgThe tickets for this year will go on sale on Saturday 20 July at 12 noon. To find out more about the many events, here's a direct link to the programme:oisf.org/oisf/programme-2024
THE CHURCHILL BARRIERS: LOOKING BACK AT THE FIRST 78 YEARS, AND FORWARD TO THEIR CENTENARY OISFestival 2024-05-21 | by Neil Kermode, of the European Marine Energy Centre[The sound quality of this recording is only just adequate - for best results listen using a headset, with the volume fairly high.]Part of the Another Orkney Production event - Celebrating Scapa Flow 2023.Thumbnail image: flickr.com/photos/intrepidexplorer82/51408560303 Creative commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
THE THORFINN AND THE HURRICANE OISFestival 2024-01-05 | On the morning of 31 January 1953, the steamship Earl Thorfinn, on her round of Orkney's North Isles, was hit by a hurricane and had to run before the wind towards Aberdeen. Captain Hamish Flett and his crew coped with mountainous seas that smashed her steering gear and conditions that destroyed other vessels that day including the Stranraer-Larne ferry Princess Victoria.How did the ship survive, and how has marine communication developed over the years to help in such situations? Prof. Tom Stevenson tells the story in a talk for the 2023 Orkney International Science Festival.In association with the Museum of Communication in Burntisland, and Orkney Wireless Museumoisf.org/fest-event/the-thorfinn-and-the-hurricane
FESTIVAL NEWS OISFestival 2023-11-18 | Orkney International Science Festival director Howie Firth looks back at some highlights of the 2023 Festival and sends some early news of 2024.
SCHOOLS COME TO SEE THE SUN OISFestival 2023-10-26 | It's a 6-metre-diameter globe with NASA spacecraft footage of the Sun itself projected on its surface, so it seethes with solar storms as the light blazes out. Created by a collaboration of artist Alex Rinsler and solar physicist Prof. Robert Walsh of the University of Central Lancashire, it came for seven days to St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney as part of the 2023 Orkney International Science Festival and attracted record numbers. Graham Richardson's film shows how it looked to a visiting group from Stronsay school who had travelled in by ferry to see it at first hand.There is more about the visit of the Sun and the Cathedral itself on the Science Festival website:oisf.org/portfolio-items/the-sun
THE SUN IN THE CATHEDRAL OISFestival 2023-10-26 | It's a 6-metre-diameter globe with NASA spacecraft footage of the Sun itself projected on its surface, so it seethes with solar storms as the light blazes out. Created by a collaboration of artist Alex Rinsler and solar physicist Prof. Robert Walsh of the University of Central Lancashire, it came for seven days to St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney as part of the 2023 Orkney International Science Festival and attracted record numbers. Colin Keldie's film shows how it took shape.There is more about the visit of the Sun and the Cathedral itself on the Science Festival website:oisf.org/portfolio-items/the-sun
SOLO TO THE SOUTH POLE OISFestival 2023-10-22 | On 17 January this year Ben Weber reached the South Pole after a 58-day, 700-mile trek alone across Antarctic ice and snow.Born in Orkney, where his parents lived in Stronsay and then Stromness, he decided nine years ago to develop a new pattern of life, with a vision of a global journey cycling south through the Americas; skiing across Antarctica; cycling back north through Asia and then skiing across the Arctic Ocean. He returns to Orkney for this year's Science Festival to tell the story of his journey to the Pole.Ben's own website is at:polarweber.comDetails of the event are on our website:oisf.org/fest-event/solo-to-the-south-pole
THE LOST FLOCK OF ST KILDA OISFestival 2023-10-05 | [Original version, as livestreamed]They survived on St Kilda, the remnants of an ancient flock from a far time, and their future was unclear. Then Jane Cooper’s interest in knitting led to her awareness of their uniqueness; and she uprooted from Newcastle to come to Orkney and set up a Boreray flock with the last few sheep from the Highlands – known by lovers of this rarest of sheep breeds as ‘The Lost Flock’.She was astonished to discover that she was the sole custodian of this flock in the world – and so she began tracking down the origins of the Boreray breed and piecing together its onward history, through Norse times and Highland crofts.Now she has written a book, The Lost Flock – published on 14 September; and tonight she tells of the sheep themselves and her search for their story.Details of the event are on our website:oisf.org/fest-event/the-lost-flock-of-st-kilda
