Orkney could be Britain’s gateway to the Arctic

Orkney is a charming archipelago of some 70 islands and skerries – 20 of which are inhabited – ten miles north of mainland Scotland. It’s closer to the Arctic Circle than it is to London. It is also at the heart of the wider geographic and cultural Nordic region, with Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands to its west and Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland to its east. North Ronaldsay, its northernmost island, is nearer to Tórshavn than it is to Glasgow, and to Bergen than it is to Dumfries.

As Arctic shipping routes become more navigable, Orkney’s strategic location between the North Sea and the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap may make it the most important gateway for ships coming in from the north and sailing onwards to the ports of western Europe or the North Atlantic. While Russia has several major ports along its Arctic coastline, northern European nations have only a few large deep-water ports that can serve the evolving needs of the High North as melting polar ice makes the Northwest passage and Northern Sea Route more navigable.