Saba / Special Interests / Culture & Heritage

Saba's mountainous terrain and inaccessibility has made the island a unique and fascinating bloom in the garden of Caribbean islands. The impact and legacy of slavery is less apparent here, with no towering sugar mills or great houses to visit. Instead there is a hardy culture born of the need to survive in a landscape harshly treated by nature, where the amount of land available for cultivation was small and rough seas and tricky anchorages made contact with the outside world difficult. Saba only became permanently linked to the Netherlands in 1816 and its islanders retain a proud and independent spirit -  many of them descend from just a few families. Look in the cemeteries and you will see the same surnames such as Hassell and Johnson cropping up again and again. Although the population has now been supplemented by incomers from such diverse nations as Holland, Germany, Great Britain, the United States, the Dominican Republic and Colombia, many new arrivals subscribe to the piratical spirit that is a hallmark of the Saban character.

Until the 20th century, which saw the arrival of “The Impossible Road”, the harbour at Fort Bay, and the opening of Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, life on Saba was slow, hard and quiet. For visitors, the most tangible links to the island's tough past are its hiking trails, the steep steps of Ladder Bay that was once the main entry point to the island, the historic rooms of the Harry L. Johnson Museum, a clutch of 19th century churches, and the small, white wooden cottages that are dotted around its towns, some of which are now available for rent.

Tourism has only developed in the last twenty years as a result of a new appreciation for holidays that are small-scale, adventurous and close to nature. The creation of conservation areas to protect Mount Scenery and the coastline has encouraged visitors to seek out this remote island, and a Tourism Masterplan has been drawn up that hopes to double the number of arrivals by 2020.