The Salt Industry

Bermudians began raking salt on these islands in the seventeenth century, evaporating seawater in shallow walled pans and shipping the result to the North American colonies to cure fish, and for the best part of three hundred years that was the entire economy. The pans were divided by low stone walls, filled through sluices and worked by enslaved and later free labour under a sun that made the job brutal. Salt Cay has the most complete surviving system, with the White House, the windmills and the sluices still legible; Grand Turk's salinas run behind Cockburn Town; South Caicos has the ruins of the last operation, which closed in the 1960s.

What you actually see

• The salinas - walled pans, sluices and channels still visible on three islands.
• Salt Cay - the most complete surviving system in the region.
• The White House - the salt proprietor's house on Salt Cay.
• The flamingos - now the main occupants of the pans.

When to go

November to May is the driest and best for walking the pans. The salinas are open landscape and can be seen at any time. The national museum on Grand Turk covers the history properly.

Honest expectations

The pans are open ground with little interpretation on site and can read as scrub and puddles without knowing what you are looking at. Structures are deteriorating and hurricane damage has not helped. The labour that worked them was enslaved for most of the industry's history, which the surviving presentation addresses unevenly.

Nearby

Salt Cay has the best remains; Grand Turk's are behind Cockburn Town.