They live in the most remote part of Scotland, 12 hours by ferry from the Scottish mainland and hundreds of miles from Edinburgh. And when it comes to the debate on Scottish independence, the inhabitants of the windswept Shetland Islands have their own aspirations.
As Scots prepare to vote on whether to end the union with England, many Shetlanders see the referendum as an opportunity to gain greater autonomy for themselves.
2 Apr 2014 . LERWICK, United Kingdom. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton
The detachment many Shetlanders feel on their northerly outpost runs deeper than the stormy, cold seas which separate them from the rest of Britain.
The islands’ rolling peat hills and isolated coves lie closer to Oslo than London, and for some 500 years they were part of Norway.
With their own fierce sense of identity, many of the islands’ inhabitants would like to gain control over local services as well as a share of revenues from the oil pumped from the North Sea. Some even want to have a vote on their own independence.
4 Apr 2014 . BRESSAY, United Kingdom. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton
As the Sept. 18 Scottish independence vote nears, Shetland's council has joined forces with two other island councils, Orkney and the Western Isles, to ask for more authority over local affairs and new fiscal arrangements to enable them to directly benefit from the oil, fisheries and renewable energy sources surrounding them.
Caroline Miller (pictured above), an ex-Shetland councillor who now helps run a bed and breakfast hotel thinks the resource-rich islands have a strong negotiating position.
"I think you'll get something because Scotland will need Shetland more than Shetland will need Scotland," she said.
2 Apr 2014 . SULLOM VOE, United Kingdom. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton
Over the last four decades, Britain's oil fields have pumped out 42 billion barrels of oil equivalent and about 20 percent of it has flowed through Shetland.
What's more, around a fifth of the oil and gas thought still to be found off Britain's coast is believed to lie to the west of Shetland.
If they win independence, the Scottish government wants to use tax revenue from fossil fuel production to support its state spending.
But Shetland's bid for power over local affairs and a slice of oil revenues could complicate negotiations between Edinburgh and London in the event of a Yes vote in September and ahead of what would be independence in March 2016.
2 Apr 2014 . LERWICK, United Kingdom. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton
Lauraine Manson, a 47-year-old abattoir manager says that when the Scottish independence referendum arrives, "I will be voting no because there's too many questions unanswered".
But she says that the Shetland Islands' sense of their own independent identity is very much alive.
"If you ask a Shetlander who are you? We say Shetlander, we're not Scottish," she said.