When The Ships Have Gone by Genevieve White

Low season: October to March

I moved to Shetland with my husband one cold April morning twenty years ago. As the ferry sailed along the Sound of Bressay and into Lerwick, I gazed for the first time at the treeless landscape, the stern cliffs, and the vast brooding sky.

Lerwick, Scotland by Darryl Brooks

And thought, what have I done?

It wasn’t long before the already-lengthening days gave way to the full-on Simmer Dim – that heady midsummer period when it never gets truly dark, the cliffs are carpeted in sea pinks and vibrant red campion, and long evenings stretch into beach barbecues (weather permitting: let’s be real, this northerly archipelago likes to keep us on our toes).

At the end of that first magical summer in Shetland, our first baby was born.

Stomping around the cliffs a few hours before she arrived, I felt the seasonal change: wind picking up, a new roughness in the sea.

The fear set in, and it wasn’t just about first time motherhood. Winter was coming.

In September, the equinoctial gales began. At the time, we were living in a village about forty minutes’ walk from Lerwick (and back then I didn’t drive). It was a long wind-buffeted walk to town for supplies with a crying baby.

I remembered a newspaper article I’d read before moving, which had rather unreassuringly suggested that January in Shetland would make you want to kill yourself.

I wasn’t quite there yet, but I was scared of the impending darkness and what was to come.

My new Shetland friends were quick to reassure me. Winter here, they said, was a different thing entirely. The frenetic solar-powered energy of summer faded; people moved life indoors, socialised more, cocooned themselves in projects and creative pastimes.

They were right.

Having lived here now for two decades, I’d say it’s more useful to think of Shetland not as four seasons, but as two. A light season and a dark season. A season for being outdoors; and a more meditative one, for turning inward, engrossing yourself in creative pursuits, and making the most of what winter light there is (it’s scarce, but extraordinary).

Beautiful landscape beside a Shetland Loch by Liz Miller

High Season: When the Ships Come In

In summer, Shetland life has the kind of intensity you’ll only understand if you live somewhere with a very short summer.

Cruise ships visit almost daily through the peak months, and on busier days the population of Lerwick, the main town, swells dramatically. The social calendar runs at full tilt: country shows, regattas, carnivals, long days that go on and on.

It’s wonderful. I’d never tell you otherwise.

But the low season offers something different.

The Mirrie Dancers

Let’s start with the Northern Lights, because what is not to love about this celestial display? Known locally as the mirrie dancers, the aurora borealis turns clear skies a shimmering, otherworldly green – sometimes threaded through with orange, pink and purple. Spotting them is never guaranteed (this is the honest disclaimer any Shetlander will give you), but your chances are considerably higher this far north, especially in rural areas where light pollution is minimal.

My advice: pack a thermos, dress in more layers than you think you need, and drive out of whatever settlement you’re in and towards the dark. Even on a night when the dancers don’t appear, the star-strewn skies are worth the trip. Join local social media groups to track alerts and real-time sightings – Shetlanders are generous in their sharing of aurora news.

Wildlife Up Close

Winter concentrates Shetland’s wildlife in ways that summer, with its long spreading days, doesn’t always allow. Otters – present all year round – squeeze their activity into short daylight hours, making them surprisingly easy to spot if you know where to look and have a little patience. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch a mother foraging with cubs.

Seals, both common and grey, bask on rocky shores; porpoises glide through calmer inshore waters. Mountain hares, in their white winter coats, stand out against the dark heather moorland. And for birders, autumn migration through Shetland is something else: these islands are a rest stop on a great avian highway, and rare sightings are genuinely possible – a Siberian Thrush, a Pechora Pipit, or something rarer still, blown off course by an October storm.

Orcas, Shetland’s apex predators, are frequent visitors. Again, sightings aren’t guaranteed – making it all the more thrilling if you do spot them.

Seals sunbathing by Liz Miller

A wild otter by Wirestock Creators

Out in the Weather

Many Shetlanders live by the mantra that there’s no bad weather, only the wrong clothes. A blustery coastal walk at Eshaness or around Sumburgh Head in October or November really does blow the cobwebs off and you’ll need your best wind and waterproofs.

Stand at the cliff edge with the Atlantic crashing below and you get that rare feeling of being simultaneously very small and very alive.

The light in winter Shetland has an otherworldly quality to it, making it a gift for photography. You don’t need to rise at five or stay up until midnight to catch a good sky. Walk outside at three in the afternoon and you might find vast, glowing bands of orange and gold above the voes.

On the days that follow the wildest storms, the air smells of peat smoke and everything is washed clean and golden.

Shetland’s beaches, always on the quiet side, are often deserted in winter. The tombolo at St Ninian’s Isle – a thin strip of sand connecting the mainland to a small tidal island – is one of the most beautiful stretches of coast I know, and in low season you may get it all to yourself.

If you really want to experience the cold, get in touch with the Haar Sauna – a wood-fired beach sauna experience that makes a bracing winter dip feel, inexplicably, like a very good idea.

 

Getting Creative

Here’s what I didn’t expect when I moved here. I thought winter would mean hibernation. What I found instead was a rich, warm, creative community that comes into its own in the darker months.

For years I ran wellbeing writing classes through a local arts organisation, and I was consistently struck by how warmly visiting participants were welcomed into those groups. If you’re looking for a window into island life – not the curated version, but the real thing – join a class. Pottery painting over coffee and cake in Lerwick. A jewellery-making workshop. Screen-printing or zine-making with Gaada, a lively artist-led social enterprise. Fused glass work on Unst, Shetland’s most northerly isle.

Then there’s the knitting. Makkin, in the local dialect. Makkin and yakkin (knitting and chatting) groups meet in community halls around the islands all winter, multigenerational and warmly welcoming. In autumn, Shetland Wool Week draws enthusiasts from around the world, united by their love of natural fibre, Fair Isle patterns and the whole textile tradition of these islands. Attendees are identifiable by their hand-knitted toories – hats made to the festival’s annual pattern, designed each year by its patron. It is a delight to be around even if you don’t knit a stitch.

Music runs deep in Shetland, and winter is when much of it surfaces: community choirs, orchestras and brass bands. The Shetland Accordion and Fiddle Festival in October is one of the year’s highlights, its Grand Dance described as something close to a traditional rave – over a thousand people spinning and whirling to some of the best traditional musicians in the genre. I’ve witnessed it and it’s still dizzying.

Knitting as a new hobby by Nastyaofly

Drama groups, writers’ groups, ceramic workshops, open mic nights at the library – there is almost always something to join if you’re curious and willing to show up and join in.

Fire Season

January to March brings Shetland’s fire festival season. Up-Helly-Aa – the biggest, based in Lerwick – has gained international attention: a torchlit procession of costumed guizers, a burning galley, music and dancing through the night. But the smaller, community-led fire festivals scattered around the islands have their own character, and several burn their galleys in the sea, which makes for a spectacle that’s difficult to describe to anyone who hasn’t stood there in the dark watching it happen.

If you’re planning a winter trip, time it to coincide with one of these and you’ll understand why Shetland winters inspire such fierce loyalty in those who live through them.

The Warmest Welcomes

With fewer visitors around, there’s more space for genuine connection. That could mean a conversation at the bar, an invitation to join a music session or a local steering you towards something you’d never have found on your own.

Shetland’s restaurants and cafes are excellent and unhurried in low season. A bowl of reestit mutton soup with a buttered bannock after a long blustery walk is a simple, heartwarming pleasure.

A Different Kind of Trip

Low season in Shetland is a different kind of trip entirely, quieter, more meditative than one undertaken in summer time.

You’ll trade the Simmer Dim for the mirrie dancers, the cruise crowds for empty beaches and for vast, dramatic skies.

Come for a long weekend. Come for a week. Come, as I once did, tentatively, not quite sure what you were letting yourself in for.

Who knows, you might just stay.