Isobel Wylie Hutchison (30 May 1889 – 20 February 1982) was a Scottish Arctic traveller, filmmaker and botanist. Hutchison published poetry, books describing her travels to Iceland, Greenland, Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands, and articles in National Geographic and other magazines. She lectured frequently, using her films, photographs, and paintings to illustrate her talks. Her papers were gifted to the National Library of Scotland by her long-time friend Medina Lewis.
Many of the plants Hutchison collected during her life are in Kew Gardens, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and the British Museum. In 1934, she became the first woman to receive the Mungo Park Medal from the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. In 1949, she was awarded an honorary degree from the University of St Andrews in recognition of her botanical and literary contributions and “that indomitable spirit which defies hazard, danger and discomfort, and is the source of all great human achievement”.
Early life
Hutchison was born at Carlowrie Castle in West Lothian, the third of five children of Jeannie Wylie (1857–1931) and Thomas Hutchison (1841–1900). Her father died when she was 10 years old. He left equal provision for all of his children with trusts, and as a result, she was financially independent throughout her life.
Her uncle was Robert Hutchison of Carlowrie. Her grandfather Thomas Hutchison (1796–1852) had been provost of Leith and was well-established in the wine wholesaling trade, and his father-in-law had been a successful farmer; his wealth enabled him to spend a great deal of time with Isobel, teaching her about botany and gardening. She also received a private education from a governess, and was active physically at croquet, tennis, archery, skating, hiking, cycling, Scottish country dancing, and walking.
From 1900, she attended school in Edinburgh, where she studied a curriculum suited for a Victorian gentlewoman. After her sister married a naval officer and saw little of him for long periods, Isobel decided that marriage would restrict her life.
Hutchison confessed to wanting to be a poet and started writing while young. She began keeping a diary as early as 1899 and continued to do so for most of her life. She edited The Scribbler, a magazine created by the family, which she continued to write even into her 20s. A polyglot, by the time she was an adult, she could speak Italian, Gaelic, Greek, Hebrew, Danish, Icelandic, Greenlandic, and some Inuit words.
From her early years, she had gone for long walks and would often walk the from Carlowrie to Edinburgh, spurning the family motorcar. These walks reached when she was 20, for examples Blairgowrie to Fort Augustus () and Doune to Oban (). Later on, she went for long "strolls" and wrote articles for the National Geographic afterwards.
Hutchison's youngest brother, Frank, died in 1912 at the age of 16 in a climbing accident in the Cairngorms. Another brother, Walter, was killed in the First World War.
From 1917 to 1918, Hutchison studied business training and marketing, as well as religion and language, at Studley Horticultural College for Women in Warwickshire. In 1918, with little food for the animals and all the men gone to the war, influenza swept through the college, and some students died. Shy and perhaps somewhat naive, Hutchison connected emotionally with the other women students, making life-long friends such as Medina Lewis. However, she felt somewhat at a loss when her friends expressed their interest in men, writing in her diary: "I feel as if I belonged to neither sex - a sort of onlooker."
Post war The confusion and uncertainty Hutchison felt at Studley College was not resolved when she graduated with her horticultural certificate. She entered King's College London in the fall of 1919, living at a women's hostel and taking classes in religious studies. After six months of "fevered activity and emotional instability", Hutchison suffered a mental breakdown in 1920. She was sustained by the continued success of her writing; her poetry was acclaimed by The Scotsman, and she began writing a novel. She supplemented her legacy from her father with the fees she received.
In 1924, Hutchison was invited to join a well-off Edinburgh acquaintance on a tour to Spain, Morocco, Egypt, and Palestine, arranged by Thomas Cook. She found her female companion rather overprotective, causing Hutchison to resolve to travel alone in the future. In later life, she traveled alone or with men, but never married.
On her return to Scotland, she spent some time walking on Barra, North and South Uist, Harris, Scotland, and Lewis, and completed a trek. She wrote an article for the National Geographic and received $250, which partially paid for her trip to Iceland.
Arctic adventures
Iceland
Hutchison got the idea of travelling to Iceland in 1924, while sitting on the beach at the Butt of Lewis. This started out much as a holiday tour. She went to Reykjavík for about a month and looked at the geysers and other tourist sights. After attending a lecture by Jean-Baptiste Charcot, she decided to walk around Iceland.
This was unheard of by the local guides, who refused to organise a trip. Eventually, one guide did give her a route to follow, on which she frequently got lost. However, the Icelanders were hospitable and helped her by lending her ponies, for which they often refused to accept payment. Although she was impressed with the flowers on Iceland, she was not collecting seriously on this visit. After returning to Scotland, she wrote another article for National Geographic, which they published as a major 30-page feature.
Greenland Greenland was not so easy to visit as Iceland. The Danish authorities closely monitored visitors to the country, but as she was travelling on official permission to collect flowers for various organisations, she was granted a visa.
She travelled by sea and spent much time living on board while exploring the east of the country in July 1927. She did, however, visit and get to know many Greenlanders. She was careful to keep in with the Danish officials and their wives, as a large difference in status still existed between the Danes and the native people. Greenland had a thriving Christian community, which Hutchison, as a regular churchgoer, joined enthusiastically. Consequently, whenever a pastor was going to visit an outlying village, she would be offered a lift with him in his boat. This allowed her to see several ancient churches and cathedrals, of which there were a large number. At each stop, she would collect flowers and plants to send back home.
The town of Angmagssalik, founded in 1895, was still primitive when Hutchison arrived in 1927. She stayed there for four days and collected flowers, sailing in an umiak and visiting a Greenlandic tent home. She bought kamiker and thigh-length boots, and wore them to protect against biting insects.
Her next visit was to Augpilagtok, where cliffs rise thousands of feet out of the sea. She was shocked to see how poor the Greenlanders were. She gave one woman her last pair of spare socks and commissioned a carver to make a model of a kayak to give him some money; this model is now in the National Museum of Scotland. When she arrived in Julianehab, the town had no hotels or hostels, so she stayed with the district manager, but continued to eat on board the ship. She joined in Scottish country dancing, which had been introduced by Scottish whalers, with Greenlanders and her fellow passengers.
Her next stop was Igaliko, where she met Hans Reynolds, a Norwegian scientist, who showed her ruins from the 10th century and remains of the cathedral from 1146. She found over 50 plants there and some barley. She later visited several Danish settlements near Cape Farewell.
Reaching Cape Farewell itself was not possible, so she landed at Nanortalik, where she stayed with the Danish manager, Mr Mathieson, who helped her journey to an island of birch trees, in an umiak with six rowers and a steersman. This voyage took five days, and Hutchison regarded it as one of the best times of her life.
Before leaving Greenland, Hutchison met Dr Knud Rasmussen, who became a firm friend. She returned to Scotland on the Disko, arriving at Leith on Christmas morning, 1927.
She had made many friends during her visit to Greenland, and Dr Rasmussen came to stay at Carlowrie. In April 1928, she got permission to visit the west of Greenland, and spent the next six months preparing. In August, she sailed to Disko Island. There, she met Dr Morton Porsild, director of the Arctic Research Station, who gave her advice on what seeds to collect and where they could be found. She would then send these on to the Royal Horticultural Society. She moved to Umanak where about 10 Danes lived with many locals. She stayed in a vacant three-bedroom house, and a housekeeper was found for her called Dorthe, who later became a close friend. Initially, Hutchison could only speak Danish, but she soon learned Greenlandic. She spent some time collecting plants on Nugssuak and also sketched on this trip. Later, she went to Igdlorssuit (Unknown Island) and then to Upernivik, where she stayed in a basic hut. By this point, she had filled 300 envelopes with seeds. During the winter, she gave a film show using the projector she had brought.
Hutchison had brought many books with her, and she lent these to her Danish friends. She had also brought her steel skates (the locals only had wooden ones) and received much exercise. She attended church regularly with Dorthe and often went to local coffee mornings. Sanitation was a problem, with typhoid and consumption ever present; at one point, Dorthe fell ill, and Hutchison had to carry out the housework herself.
Hutchison had spent seven months in the bay, during which time she had learned much about the way of life and the tensions which existed between the two communities. The dark nights made the social life full of parties and coffee mornings. The winter of 1928 was hard, and the temperature fell to , causing the bay to freeze solid. She went fishing through the ice, which she enjoyed. Her experience became the subject of a poem.
Dogs in the village had to be killed for food and fur, which upset her. Normally, the residents lived on seal and halibut. By April, daylight was sufficient to turn off the constant oil light. When the ice started to melt, she was able to leave Disko Island and go on tour with the pastor to visit other communities around the Umanak Bay, meaning she could look for more plants and flowers. At each community, the pastor carried out communion services, which much impressed her. That became the subject of three or four poems. She got to know the eight rowers well, as by this time she spoke Greenlandic fluently. At the end of the trip, she landed on Unknown Island, staying for a month in a small Danish house. Her time there was her happiest in Greenland, and she is recorded as having said, "I am glad to be alone for a little".
She made several botanical excursions in the manager's motorboat to visit other nearby islands. From here, Hutchison could see the mountain on Nugsuuaq, which she decided to climb. Helped by a team of two local men, she succeeded in reaching the summit at , after 12 hours of climbing.
On a cold day in late August 1929, she left the Umanak Bay. Her next book, On Greenland’s Closed Shore, was received with much acclaim, and over the next two years, she gave many lectures and talks on the BBC and wrote articles and poems.
Alaska
Hutchsion was inspired to go to Alaska after reading a book on the American Arctic. Leaving Manchester by cargo boat on 3 May 1933, she crossed the Atlantic, passed through the Panama Canal, then travelled up the western coast of America. The ship had only six passengers, but she traveled in reasonable comfort.