• Just enough land to call my own
  
• The view from the Braes
  
• The Certificate of Title
  
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Just Enough Land To Stand Upon and Call My Own.

I'M ANGUS MACKENZIE born at the shores of Loch Broom near Ullapool in the Highlands of Scotland. It is one of the most beautiful places in the world, for here at Ullapool, not only do we enjoy breath taking scenery, there is tranquility and more, the Highlands is a place of charm, hospitality and attachment which combine to make the area so special.

Upon retirement I met and married Pam who is from Honeoye Falls in the State of New York where we have now settled. Whilst our wedding took place in America it was not long before we decided to have a reaffirmation ceremony in Scotland and chose as the venue the imposing Eilean Donan Castle set out in the waters of Loch Duich in Wester-Ross. Our friends in the Highlands came from near and far, to make it a magical event and an occasion that we will never forget.

It was only natural that I would want to bring my bride to the place of my birth and so we travelled north to Loch Broom, where we had been invited by Trevor Rogers, a friend of more than forty years, to stay in his beautiful home on the shore of the loch. High above the loch on land owned by Trevor there is no better place to see the surrounding countryside than the Braes of Ullapool. From here one sees a three hundred and sixty degree panorama of mountains and seascape, nearly two hundred miles of horizon.

Standing there on an early winter's day, the late afternoon sun had already gone down leaving an afterglow that showed the mountain tops brilliantly white, with fresh snow glistening against the inky blue of the eastern sky. Below in the shadow, the lights of the loch side cottages were coming on one by one, no more than pin points of illumination, some twenty miles away by road. We reflected upon their occupants, our friends, Matheson's, Maclean's, Mackenzie's, Maclennan's and so many others, and alas, some are no longer with us.

Whilst the sky in the east and along the southern shore was now dark, out to sea and along the northern fringe of the sea Loch, the light was still sufficient to see the detail. I pointed out the spot across the loch from the cottage where I was born, to where in July of 1773 the brig Hector had set sail for Pictou, Nova Scotia, with the first settlers, some native of Loch Broom and Coigach, many had walked over the mountain tracks from the east coast and from even further afield to join the ship that would take them to a new life in a new country.

From our vantage point nearly 500 feet above the sea, the fishing village of Ullapool looked no more than a toy town. Far beyond to the west, the sky was now a pale luminescent gold against which we could see the dark outline of the Summer Isles and across the sea of the Minch, the Outer Hebrides, the Isle of Lewis and Harris and beyond again but this time only in our imagination our friends across the ocean in far away Canada and America.

It's a view that one is reluctant to leave, but the light had almost gone as we walked the short distance back to the car. I had hesitated for a moment, reluctant to leave the sights I had known and loved since my boyhood. I turned to Trevor and told him I wished a bit of this were mine, one square foot would be all I asked for. "Just enough land to stand on and call my own." ...

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Page updated November 21, 1998