Loch Morar from the W end of Carn Mor. 4pm, 1/6/85
Old cultivation strips at Kinlochmorar, from Druim Ile Coire of Carn Mor.5pm, 01/06/85~ The DOVE: 8th June 1801: FORT WILLIAM to PICTOU, NOVA SCOTIA with 219 passengers ~ among whom were EWEN CAMERON: Former residence: KINLOCHMORAR Children: DONALD JAMES RODERICK ELIZABETH (14 years) MARY (4 years) MARGARET (3 years) CHRISTIAN (1 year) A widower, presumably - other family heads on this emigrant ship are listed with their wives. Did Mrs Cameron die from complications, or exhaustion, during the birth of her seventh (at least) child? Was it the final blow for a man toiling to wrest a living for his family from this thin sour soil? And lead him, by no means a young man, to take them on an unimaginable journey to a new continent? What immense strength of character Ewen Cameron must have had, both to live on this land, and then to leave it.Speculation, of course. This croft may not even have been his, as there are a few other ruins, down by the lodge (also a ruin) and further on by the loch-side, but whoever it was who laboured here did so heroically - every scrap of usable land between bog and rock has been worked, something which could not have been done without enormous physical effort. We who for pleasure and recreation walk these hills and glens ought to bow our heads and pay homage to these people.
The Little Mermaid of Barrisdale. 11pm, 07/06/92 ~ Having to dodge the heat in Knoydart was, for me at least, a novel and so far unrepeated experience. We set off from Kinlochhourn in the cool (that was the theory anyway) of the evening, and arrived at Barrisdale some time after sunset, a half-moon poised neatly on Stob a'Chearcaill.
