The First and Last Port of Call

by Fiona Grahame

AT THE SOUTH end of the old town of Stromness, Orkney, is a sealed up well, Login’s Well. It is very easy to pass this by, but take a moment to look into its glass covered window and think about the inscription beside it: which bears the following inscription:

“There watered here The Hudson Bay Coys Ships 1670 -1891. Captain Cooks’ vessels Resolution and Discovery 1780. Sir John Franklin’s ships Erebus and Terror on Arctic Exploration 1845. Also the merchant vessels of former days. Well sealed up 1931”

The well was a source of fresh water for the many vessels which called into Stromness during the great age of exploration and discovery when the town became a major port on the Atlantic sea route.

From early on in the 17th century The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) called in at Stromness to sign on men and buy up supplies for the voyage to Canada’s northwest. Orcadians were favoured because of their hardiness being so used to the sparse and harsh conditions at home and which they would have to endure employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company. By 1779 three quarters of HBC servants were from Orkney, 416 out of 530. The company had an office in Stromness and dealt directly with the town’s merchants until 1913.

Orcadians were favoured because of their hardiness being so used to the sparse and harsh conditions at home and which they would have to endure employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company