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Newlyweds John and Jane Coutts point out their
tiny island of Fetlar to Joe Rhinehart, right, of Webster, who
traveled there this year and met Jane at the Fetlar Interpretive
Center where she works. Jane, who visited the Great Smoky Mountains
last year, recognized Joe’s accent and told him she was returning
to Western North Carolina to be married. Joe invited the couple
to visit when they came to the mountains and they spent time with
him last week at his home in Webster. – Herald photo by
Nick Breedlove
By Rose Hooper
Oh, Rose, do I have a story for you,” Joe Rhinehart of
Webster said breathlessly over the telephone.
“There I was in Fetlar, the remotest island of the already-remote
Shetland Islands in the North Sea. I had to take a ferry to get
to the main island and then another ferry to Fetlar and I walked
into this incredible museum called the Fetlar Interpretive Center,
and when I started talking to the woman there she said, ‘Hold
on, I recognize your accent. You are from the mountains of Western
North Carolina, aren’t you?’ Now can you believe that?”
Rhinehart said all in one breath.
Turns out the woman, Jane Mack, the community development specialist
at the museum, had vacationed in Great Smoky Mountains last year.
The lure of the majestic mountains, the sweetness of the summer
season with sun-tanning days and cool breeze evenings, and the
friendliness and hospitality of the people prompted her decision
to return here to get married.
When she told this to Joe, Webster’s own “Mr. Hospitality”
immediately said, “Well, Jane, when you come, you must stop
by and visit me.”
And that’s exactly what she did Aug. 8 when she returned
to the states with the love of her life, John Coutts, to get married.
Given the name “Garden of Scotland,”
Fetlar has some 75 inhabitants, most of whom were born on the
remote North Sea island. The home of newlyweds John and Jane Coutts,
who were married last week in the Great Smoky Mountains, lies
over the ridge from this Presbyterian church.
“We’ve worked together 12 years in Fetlar
but never got married. We just never found the right place,”
the new bride told Joe as she introduced her husband, a writer
for the Shetland Times newspaper.
When she was here last year she took a lot of pictures to show
John where she wanted to be married.
“I wasn’t the marrying kind,” John, seven years
her senior, admitted.
But love works its own mysterious magic, things fell puzzle-perfectly
into place and here the newlyweds were on Joe’s doorstep.
Bluegrass adds to the attraction of a WNC marriage, John told
Joe, and he wasn’t referring to the kind grown in Kentucky.
He meant the Hank Williams-, Carter Family-, Doc Watson-type he
listened to via shortwave radio when he was growing up.
„The åin-comers¼ ‚ those who¼ve moved to the
island ‚ are buried on one side of the church, and the natives
are buried on the other side,¾ said John Coutts, whose family
moved to the island in the 1800s and are considered „in-comers.¾
“I love that music; I knew it was popular
in this region, and this was a great excuse to come over and hear
it in person,” said John, who, as luck of the draw would
have it, arrived on a weekend when mountain musicians were tuning
up their banjos and fiddles for an all-day bluegrass festival
in Sylva. Following a civil service at the Bryson City magistrate’s
office, the bluegrass-loving couple began playing their honeymoon
by ear.
“We drive around, see some place we like and that’s
where we stay,” said John. “We have no set agenda.”
The night before arriving at Joe’s, they stayed in a quaint,
rustic, mountain cabin.
“Most of the homes we’ve seen here in the mountains
are attractive, like Joe’s here with its glass doors and
wood siding, but they’d never stand up to our weather in
Fetlar. The walls on our house are 3 feet thick,” said John.
“We get so much wind – 200- to 300-mile an hour gales
– killer wind,” said Jane. “That’s why there’s
no tall trees on our island.
“With the wind blowing and the sea crashing against the high
cliffs, it’s beautiful but it’s a rugged beauty where
we live. Here in Western North Carolina you have a gentle beauty,”
she said.
Rich soil, green fertile land, along with 300 species of flowering
plants earned Fetlar the title “Garden of Scotland.”
Keeping with that theme, the Coutts have their own greenhouse
where they grow organic vegetables, including beans, peas, squash,
lettuce and radishes.
“By the time vegetables are shipped in to us, they are generally
not fresh,” said Jane of their North Sea island location
between the north coast of Scotland and Norway where whales are
often spotted from the coastline.
More than half the island’s 75 inhabitants were born there,
which is home to some of Scotland’s oldest archeological
remains, including a mysterious stone ring dating to the Bronze
Age.
Fetlar has its own post office, ferry, several shops, a nurse
(but no hospital) and an elementary school where students go until
they are 12 years old. Then they go to boarding school in Lewrick
– 50 miles as the crow flies – and ferry home on the
weekends.
“Fetlar’s a remote place; nobody ends up there by accident,”
said Joe, who took his first trip there this year. “It might
be a tiny island, but they have a world-class museum with national
exhibitions – Jane and John should be proud of their work
there.”
In addition to working at the newspaper, John, owner of WriteDesign,
a multimedia and web design company, created the museum’s
web page and multimedia exhibits.
The Coutts kicked up their stateside celebrating a notch last
Sunday when John also celebrated his birthday.
“John will probably have a lot to write about for his newspaper
column when he gets back home,” said Joe as he served the
couple a Southern breakfast – their first ever – of
buttermilk biscuits and sawmill gravy.
„With the wind blowing and the sea crashing
against the high cliffs, it¼s beautiful but it¼s a rugged beauty
where we live,¾ Jane Mack Coutts said of her island of Fetlar,
the most remote of the Shetland Islands. Located in the North
Sea between Scotland and Norway, residents can view whales from
the coastline. The Vikings inhabited the island around 900 AD
and in 1100 the Norse arrived. Much of the „Norn¾ language has
been adapted to the island¼s dialect.
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