If the essence of hill stalking is the hunting of wild deer in wild places, then there can be few places in Britain so wild or remote as the islands and West Coast of Scotland

That there have been deer on the Hebrides since ancient times is beyond doubt, though how they got there has until recently been something of a mystery. Arran stags are known to be able to swim the 5km or so to the Kintyre peninsula, so it is no surprise that the inner islands were colonised by red deer from mainland Scotland. But it would be a tough challenge for the strongest beast to make the 30km crossing from Skye to Harris in the Outer Hebrides. It has only been with the advent of DNA analysis of ancient deer samples that it has been shown that the red deer of the outer Scottish islands are the result of introductions by Neolithic people. Where these Stone Age folk brought the deer from, however, is still a mystery, as they were genetically distinct from those of the Scottish mainland.

On the single island of Lewis and Harris, deer have traditionally been confined mainly to the high ground of North Harris, a rugged, rocky place of mountain, moorland and sea