Strathspey Storywalks

09/04/2025

Life on the plateau. Please enjoy the last pic of lichen looking like it's at a rave.

06/04/2025

Funding news #1! Thoroughly delighted to announce that I've received funding from the Cairngorms Trust under their Park for All Fund.

I'll be working with children and young people from racialised and minority communities who live within the Cairngorms National Park, to creatively document their experiences of the outdoors and connections to the land.

The project will largely be led by the young people, in a series of outdoor and indoor sessions, and I'm aiming to work with the local schools and youth groups along the way...

In the meantime, if you know of any young folk who might want to be involved, do drop me a message!

Watch this space for further details and for when the project kicks off...

05/04/2025

Prepping today for the Re-imagining Landscape Stewardship gathering with The Glasgow School of Art - Highlands and Islands next week. I'm thoroughly delighted to have been asked to run a Storywalk to kick off the gathering, and really looking forward to the event - hearty discussions I'm sure, with folk from all over the world.

And the larch is out! Popped up Ord Ban/Bàn (variously recorded as the hill of the women/fair rounded hill) this morning for some sunshine, views, and layers of blue mountains. Creag Meagaidh looks to have marginally more snow than Am Monadh Ruadh...

04/04/2025

Blasted (as much as my little unfit legs would allow) up Cairngorm last night to catch the sunset. (For ref it was exactly 8pm at the Ptarmigan.)

Wasn't thinking of much, just enjoying walking and the rhythm of it for the first time in ages it seems, and how the last of the light plays on the granite, highlighting all the pocks and ridges of plateaus of each stone that makes the path, that crosses the mountain, made of the mountain. 

And then the last rays caught the tops of stones across the plateau. How little snow there was. The mosses like 70s carpet. The smell of the wind.

And it was a strange direction, coming straight down into Coire Cas, compelling me into a jog on the way back, the lights of Aviemore twinking in the distance. 

Wonderful few hours. 

29/03/2025

Last night was the last stargazing storywalk of the season (back in Sept!) with wonderful women from London.

One remarked as we walked through the dark that she felt so free; it was the most free she'd ever felt.

Just wanted to mark that feeling as Women's History Month draws to a close, as being on guard daily is still a part of women's daily life, particularly in towns and cities. And the dark is the epitome of danger/freedom.

We chatted about warrior queens. The stars were ours! ✨

24/03/2025

Places and traces, with Feminist Bird Club Inverness at RSPB Loch Garten, Abernethy on Saturday. A calm day, weather-wise and energy-wise. FBC is rooted in feminist, anti-racist and social justice principles so the storywalk began where we stood, Loch Garten, and spiralled out across the globe, with historical links and folktales - all linked to traces, or non-traces, in the local landscape.

I also shared some new research about a local lady from near Boat of Garten who was transported to Tasmania / lutruwita as a convict, and how our Scots pines from Abernethy and Glenmore were involved in those journeys as the ships that transported the convicts to settle a 'new' land.

And we did some sign-painting (and tree-planting and path removal) - geeky facts and dodgy Gaelic spelling all mine but artwork was by the super talented Steph!

Thank you all for having me! 🙏🌿

23/03/2025

Popped to Stirling on Friday to join a network of academics and teachers working to decolonise the Scottish history curriculum.

Instead of only looking at the 'positive contribution' Scottish settlers made across empire, now all impacts will have to be explored, from a range of perspectives, including indigenous communities. The countries focused on are Canada, Australia and New Zealand - all countries and peoples we have very close links with here in the strath. Very galvanising day...

11/03/2025

Upcoming in Abernethy! Delighted to be running a Storywalk as part of this event with .scotland. We'll be exploring traces in the land, starting locally from where we stand with placenames and stories, spiralling outward to global traces, connections and influences too. There's literally only a few tickets left so get them quick!! 👇

Posted • 🗺️🌱 places and traces 🦉📍

We’re excited to be hosting an away day at Loch Garten, a wildlife-rich Caledonian pine forest like no other in the UK🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲

The day will include:
🥾nature volunteering, with a range of indoor-outdoor, low-high energy.
🥜 packed lunches with crested t**s (🤞🏻)
🗺️ a creative afternoon workshop where we’ll explore the place-names and stories of the local area.

this event is open to all ages and genders. free but booking essential ~ booking will open this sunday @ 5:30pm

loads more info in the eventbrite page 🔗 link in FBC bio

[Image description: green graphic with white text which says “places and traces. 10:30-4pm, saturday 22 march 2025, rspb loch garten nature centre”. circular image of people walking along a forest path.]

08/03/2025

Her name was Katherine Ross. She had a young child. The young child died, and she was accused of murder and sentenced to hang here on Gallow Hill in Tain in 1762. The town built a new gibbet in order to carry this out. This was the view where she died, looking out over the Dornoch Firth.

With today's lens, she may have had postnatal depression, or may have smothered the child while sleeping in the same small bed, or the child may have had an underlying ailment. 

The story goes that after her death a white dove landed on her head, signifying her innocence. The local community were so outraged by her death that no more hangings took place here; she was the last. 

(I believe recorded some of this history. Her poetry books - of archaeology, of belonging, of light, of kinship, of soil and land and layers, of thresholds, of time and hope - are beyond wonderful if you feel like treating yourself for International Women's Day!)

06/03/2025

Current reading, plus cat. Happy !

03/03/2025

Thank you to everyone who joined the sunny windy loop around Feshiebridge for the Women of the Cairngorms Storywalk yesterday! 

The strath and indeed Scotland would look and feel very different without these women. Their marks in the land may not be obvious but they shaped, and continue to shape, where and how we live. We also briefly chatted about women from here who travelled (or were taken) elsewhere and shaped other places (across empire) too.

The biggest challenge was picking and choosing which stories to tell, there are so many... so this may be an ongoing expanding project methinks. 

And it's the first time I've told stories to somebody up a tree!

I'll add more dates for this walk (and different, accessible routes) later in the year as there's been a good bit of interest. 

PS Men! This walk is as relevant (if not more so!) for you! ;)

25/02/2025

Coming up on Sunday! Tickets half gone! Women of the Cairngorms Storywalk, a circular walk from Feshiebridge.

Sharing stories while we wander (with foraged tea!) of just some of the remarkable women who have shaped Badenoch & Strathspey, from 'lumberjills' to high society women to so-called 'witches' to adventurers to writers and poets.

Their marks may or may not be left in the land, but their impact and legacy stays with us regardless - it might just be a bit more hidden...

✨ All welcome! Booking link in bio 👆
 

24/02/2025

To the left of these buildings - Corrour Station House, the most remote train station in the UK - is an area known as Na Caplaich / An Caipleach / The Mare. 

Here, a shepherd and his wife were making their way from Rannoch to Loch Treig on horseback when a winter storm blew up. The wifey was in a pretty bad way, so numb with cold she kept falling from her steed, and the shepherd knew she wouldn't make it. He knocked out his mare, gralloched her, and his wife crawled right inside the carcass to keep warm while the shepherd went to fetch help. She was dry and cosy and quite recovered by the time the shepherd returned. Hence the name of the place...

It's not the only story I've come across about people sheltering inside animals for survival, but it's the only one (so far) that seems to be linked with a specific place - and easy to imagine the necessity, when the winds and snow are howling across Rannoch Moor! 

23/01/2025

More trees! Not only am I trying to find the locations of the 'Lumberjill' Women's Timber Corps camps in the Strath, I've also been researching the ships built with Spey timber and what they were used for and where they ended up in the world. It's been fascinating, horrifying and impressive in equal measure...

If anyone has any insight into either of these topics, please do be in touch!

River Spey Fact of the Week!

In the 1600s the River Spey was used to transport logs down stream from the ancient forests to shipbuilding yards at Garmouth and Kingston.
A lot of the stories talk of the timmer floaters - the men who worked and rafted with their 'floaters cleek' - a long stick to help steer the timber rafts but there was also lumber jillls, women who worked the lands up near Glen Feshie and down through the Strathspey.

Aviemore Local storyteller Sarah of Strathspey Storywalks has been researching the history of the Lumber Jills in the area. Looking forward to hearing what secrets the land has to tell!

Photo Credit: Visit MoraySpeyside

14/01/2025

Seem to be on a tree theme. Birch & rowan encircling Avielochan chambered cairn, a Bronze Age burial cairn which is well worth a visit - enter through the passageway and sit amongst the stones and trees. 

The rowan that guarded the entrance has now fallen - second to last pic is from 2022 when it was still upright. 

And the birch just outside the cairn is FULL of witches' brooms, bonus! (Last pic). 

The Avielochan area is full of hut circles, remains of townships, field systems, and has been habited for at least several thousand years. It's got a wonderful feel about it. 

12/01/2025

Seasonal places. This loch only appears in winter, on Granish Moor, so I call it the Winter Loch ;) Does anyone know if it has a 'proper' name? Or does anyone have their own names for it?

It's the highest I've seen it in a few years, lapping up to the dead Mini.

How many other places do you know locally that are seasonal, only appearing in winter or summer? Or spring or autumn for that matter...

09/01/2025

Pines part 2. The Scots pines in this seemingly uninteresting local picture tell several stories... reading a landscape is one of my favourite things, so many layers, so many perspectives too. No two people see the same. 

And there are always signs. Being outdoors is the best practice...

Remnants, past, future, attitudes, shifting lifestyles and values, different peoples, creatures, faiths, epochs.

04/01/2025

Saturday night lights. With the Plough/An Crann, Mars/Màrs (formerly Goac), Orion/an t-Sealgair Mòr, Auriga/An Tarbh Geal. And a strange glow over Creag Pityoulish...