ITS result may be the first to be returned in Scotland at around 11am tomorrow, but the smart money is on Orkney Islands Council (OIC) remaining independent. After all most of the 38 candidates recorded no party affiliation, with two each allying themselves to the Orkney Manifesto Group and the only real political party the Scottish Greens.

In the electoral wars of Stromness and South Isles there won’t even be an election as there are only three candidates for the three vacancies.

As we have noted before, they do things differently in the isles.

OIC is the UK’s smallest council area covering a total of just 382 square miles and with a population of 21,850 – 0.4 per cent of the Scottish total.

Most of the population – around 80 per cent – lives on the Orkney mainland with the remainder inhabiting the other islands.

The proportion of people in employment or who are self-employed is higher than the rest of Scotland and, although much of the economy has relied on agriculture and fishing, there has been a steady growth in various sectors, including manufacturing, tourism, food processing and renewable energy. Orkney also has biggest crab processing plant in the UK.

With an abundance of wind, wave and tidal resources the latter comes as no surprise – and there are wind power developments at Burgar Hill, Stronsay, Sanday and Burray, as well as geothermal (ground heat) and hydrogen projects.

Kirkwall Grammar and Stromness Primary schools are among the public buildings which already use geothermal technology to harness the temperature difference underground to create heat and cut carbon emissions by almost a third.

Oil too has made its mark and there is a large terminal on the island of Flotta.

Orkney is also a hive of creative industry, with several renowned jewellery manufacturers such as Ortak and Sheila Fleet and many professional craftspeople at work in the islands.

The famous Skullsplitter, an 8.5 per cent proof ale is also brewed in Orkney, where it was first created more than 20 years ago. Its name, however, is not a reference to the morning after – the ale is named after Thorfinn Hausakluif, the seventh Viking earl of Orkney, who was nicknamed “Skull Splitter”.

Earlier this week, the islands’ Viking heritage played its part in the new look for Highland Park’s whisky range, as well as the launch of its new Valkyrie single malt.

“The inspiration for the design came from an ancient ‘stavkirke’ (wooden church), a World Heritage Site in the tiny Norwegian village of Ornes,” said brand director Jason Craig.

“The wooden church is heavily decorated with extensive and ornate wood carvings which we thought would look amazing on a glass bottle.

“The result is a beautiful, heavily embossed bottle featuring an illustration which depicts an ancient Viking legend of a lion locked in an enduring battle with the forces of evil in the form of serpent-like dragons. The new packaging includes a new, wider bottle, a metallic label design that complements the glass, embossed with a contemporary-looking logo as well as a premium torque closure to keep the whisky safe – all of which, we believe, will add consumer interest and excitement around the brand.”

The tranquil islands are a magnet for tourists and encompass Neolithic sites, tall sandstone cliffs and seal colonies.

A group of 5,000-year-old sites on Mainland, the largest island in the archipelago, is known as the heart of Neolithic Orkney and includes the preserved village of Skara Brae, with its reconstructed house, and Maeshowe, a chambered burial tomb which incorporates 12th-century Viking carvings.

Around a third of Orkney’s population can trace their ancestry back to the Vikings and it has retained its strong links with Norway.

Vikings settled there in the eighth century and it became a Norse earldom in the ninth, establishing itself as an important seat of power in the Viking empire. The islands’ distinctive Scandinavian names reflect this heritage, along with the magnificent 12th-century St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall.

The islands remained under Norse rule until 1472 when they were annexed by the Scottish Crown after the failed payment of a dowry for Margaret of Denmark, the bride of James III. There were 114 marriages in the Orkney Islands in 2015 – a rise of 11.8 per cent on the previous year – with more than 38 per cent of the couple aged between 25 and 34, compared to a Scottish average of 47.5 per cent.

During the two world wars, Orkney played a strategically vital role, with Scapa Flow – a vast natural harbour – acting as naval anchorage. Among the evidence of all this in Scapa Flow – from the Churchill Barriers and the Italian Chapel (built by Italian prisoners of war) – there is the buoy that marks the sinking of the HMS Royal Oak in 1939, with the loss of 800 lives.

The Royal Navy battleship had been moored off the cliffs of Gaitnip in the north-east of Scapa Flow when she was hit by torpedoes from the German submarine U-47.

Today, the wreck is a designated war grave and the waters above a place of remembrance.