Salt Cay

Salt Cay was inhabited by the Lucayan people when Europeans reached the islands in the early 16th century; they disappeared soon afterwards through disease and forced labour. Bermudians arrived in 1673 and founded Balfour Town on the west coast, establishing what became the island's principal industry for the next 300 years: producing salt by evaporating brine in shallow pans. The island came under British colonial rule in 1766.

Salt Cay salt travelled far. Salt from the Turks and Caicos preserved food for George Washington's army in the American Revolutionary War, and Canadian and American fishing fleets used it to salt down their catches. As late as the 1920s and 1930s, up to half a dozen sailing ships at a time anchored off the island waiting for cargo, which had to be ferried out to them across the shallows. The island was once home to several hundred people, all supported by the salt industry, and the 1941 film Bahama Passage, shot largely on Salt Cay, recorded the industry in its final days.

Competition, costs, mismanagement and the lack of a deepwater harbour finally ended salt production, and the population shrank. An airstrip was built in the 1970s. On 7 September 2017 Hurricane Irma damaged every house on the island. The airport has been upgraded since the late 2010s and was renamed Leon Wilson Airport in 2020.

Salt Cay's identity is bound up with salt. The island is given over mostly to the old salt pans, and the ruins of the salt works, the town founded by Bermudian salt rakers and the animals left over from the salt days are what give it its character. Donkeys and cattle, descended from those that worked the salt industry, still roam freely across the island.

Life is that of a very small village. Everyone lives in Balfour Town, and the community of about a hundred people shares the conservative, church-centred outlook of the islands as a whole. Visitors arrive by community ferry or small plane, and the island has only a handful of restaurants and shops.

The sea gives the island its other identity. Salt Cay lies in the middle of the North Atlantic humpback whales' migration route to the Silver Bank, a mating and calving ground north of the Dominican Republic, and some of the same whales are seen off New England and further north. Each winter whale-watchers come to see them, and whales, including mothers and calves, are often spotted both from boats and from the shore.

Salt Cay had an estimated 108 residents in 2012, all of them living in Balfour Town. The island covers about 2.6 square miles, roughly 2 miles on each side, and much of it is salt pans. It is the second-largest of the Turks Islands and forms its own district with some uninhabited cays nearby.

The island is now popular with visitors looking for uncrowded beaches, whale-watching, diving and other water sports. There are no hotels or resorts; visitors rent houses and villas, and the island has a handful of restaurants specialising in fresh seafood and a few variety and gift shops. Supplies come by sea and air from Grand Turk and Providenciales, and residents rely on the community ferry and small planes for anything the island cannot provide.

Roads in town are hard-rolled limestone and the rest of the island is crossed by paths and trails, so people walk, cycle or drive golf carts. The population today is a fraction of the several hundred who lived here in the salt-raking years.

Food on Salt Cay is simple and comes mostly from the sea. The island's few restaurants specialise in fresh seafood, at least one serves traditional Turks and Caicos cooking, and a couple offer international dishes. Conch is the staple of the islands — cracked (pounded and fried), as fritters, in chowder, or raw as conch salad with lime — and grouper, snapper and spiny lobster are the usual catch. Johnnycake is the traditional side.

Groceries are limited to a few small variety shops, so visitors who rent houses often bring supplies from Grand Turk or Providenciales and cook for themselves.

Salt itself is the island's best-known product. Sea salt and bath salts from Salt Cay are sold in the shop of the national museum on Grand Turk, a small reminder of the trade that once kept sailing ships anchored off the island. Rum is the usual drink across the islands.