ON THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Beyond Fort William, where the tourist trail splits to take coachloads up the Great Glen to Inverness or out west to the coast, lies a freshwater loch set in a secluded glen. This enclave is the ancestral home of the Clan Cameron and, while the glen itself has no name, the 12-mile-long loch at its heart is called Arkaig.
Once a pristine wilderness, the ancient woodlands that surround this beautiful body of water have suffered setbacks over the past century or so. As the memorial at nearby Spean Bridge attests, this trackless vastness was used as a training ground for Commando units during the Second World War. In 1942, exercises with live ammunition caused catastrophic fires. Later came the depredations of intensive commercial forestry.
But today, the ancient forests of Arkaig are the site of
