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On holiday in Sutherland Isabel and I went to Lochinver intending to take the walk east out of Lochinver on the long track that leads between Suilven and Canisp.
It was a cold day in early April, but bright with little wind, an ideal day for a walk amongst the hills of Assynt. Not far from Lochinver harbour there is a short road that runs inland at right angles from the coast for about 300 metres. Beyond the road end was the start of the track we intended to walk. There is a parking space for walkers cars, not a big space, and even this early in the season there was only room for one more car when we arrived there.
About a couple of kilometres into the walk we reached Glencanisp Lodge by the shores of Loch Druim Suardalain and about a kilometre beyond the lodge we arrived at this striking scene with Loch na h-Airigh Fraoich in the foreground.
The loch's Gaelic name translates as 'the loch of the heather shieling'. In past times shielings were pasture land and an important part of the cycle of subsistence and survival in crofting communities. In the summer the women and children would drive the stock to the shielings where the animals could graze freely.
Thus the cultivated fields at the croft could grow free of the depredations that could be caused by sheep and cows. Apart from looking after the stock at the shielings the women would also be involved in the peat cutting, all of which had to be transported to the croft, all without the aid of modern transport.
The mountain in the distance, Suilven, is very striking and distinctive from any viewpoint. It's name is an amalgam of Norse and Gaelic and is derived from Sula Bheinn, where Sula is Norse for pillar and Bheinn is Gaelic for mountain. It's most pillar like aspect can be seen from Baddidarrach on the northern shore of Loch Inver.
North-west Highland Place Names
The landscape of the North-west Highlands and the Gaelic language are intimately connected. Other languages have contributed to the richness of our place names, notably Norse, but the North-west Highlands have for centuries been a Gaelic landscape. In listing the meanings of place names I have relied on authoritative sources wherever possible. For further information about sources please refer to North-west Highland Place Names in the main menu.
Assynt; From the Norse Asaint or Asaint meaning ‘ridge end’.
Baddidarach; A small town in Sutherland. The usual references failed me but I did find a reference to this place name on the linguae-celticae.org website. There I learned that the Gaelic name for this place is Bad an Daraich which, based on my limited knowledge of Gaelic, translates to ‘the clump of oak (trees)’.
Canisp; No reference to this name in my preferred sources. According to Wikipedia it is from a Norse word meaning ‘the white mountain’.
Loch Druim Suardalain; This is a compound Gaelic-Norse place name. The only reference I could find to its meaning was in the ‘Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness Volume XV' published in 1888-89. The transactions state that Druim is Gaelic for ‘ridge’ but that Suardalain is of Norse origin. Norse svarda for ‘sward’ and Norse lain for ‘land’. Therefore the name means ‘the loch of the ridge of the sward land’.
Lochinver; A town in Sutherland, named after Loch Inver, which see.
Loch Inver; In Sutherland, Gaelic Loch an Inbhir meaning ‘the loch at the river mouth.
Loch na h-Àirigh Fraoich; Gaelic; Loch of the heather shieling.
Suilven; A very dramatic shaped mountain in Sutherland. None of the authoritative sources I use list this name. Researching other sources on the web indicates its name is an amalgam of Norse and Gaelic derived from Sula Bheinn, where Sula is Norse for pillar and Bheinn is Gaelic for mountain.
Sutherland; From the Norse Suðerland, that is ‘South Land’. It may seem odd that the far north of Scotland should have a name which means ‘South Land’, but if you were on Viking raiding party from Norway it would have been an obvious name to choose.
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