A bridge has linked Scalpay, known in Gaelic as Scalpaigh, to Lewis and Harris since 1997, replacing the ferry that used to make the crossing; on opening day, the island’s oldest resident, 103-year-old Kirsty Morrison, became the first person in living memory to reach Harris on foot. About 280 people live here, and fishing is still the main livelihood, worked from the harbour at North Harbour, the island’s only village.
A path across the moor leads east to Eilean Glas, where the first lighthouse in the Hebrides was lit in 1789. The tower standing today was rebuilt in 1824 by the engineer Robert Stevenson, grandfather of the novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, and automated in 1978. The walk starts near Tarbert, reached by a single-track road that continues over the bridge onto Scalpay.
