The Last Wilderness: A Journey into Silence

by Neil Ansell

  As the light began to fade, an otter appeared on the rocks and slipped into the water. It swam straight out from the shore, and beneath the glassy water I could see its whole body, every twist of its thick tail. It created the strange illusion that it was swimming through air, floating just above the surface of the sea. It did not dive or hunt but headed purposefully towards the islands opposite. Eventually it was so far away that its head was just a pinprick, leaving a little v-shaped ripple that followed it. And then, finally, it swam into the trail of light as the last rays of the setting sun spread across the face of the waters, and winked out altogether.

  SEPTEMBER

  The Kingdom of Crows

  The miles ticked away in darkness. I would already be in the Scottish Lowlands by the time it was light enough to see. I don’t find it easy to sleep sitting up on a crowded train; it is more a matter of snatching a few minutes at a time. My head lolls, my neck stiffens, my legs cramp. And on this journey, when I dozed off, my heart would cramp too, so it became an even more uncomfortable and restless trip than normal.

  The train arrived in Glasgow at breakfast-time, and I walked the short distance from Central to Queen Street. This was basically the halfway point; the journey from Glasgow to the Rough Bounds would take as long as the journey from the south coast of England to Glasgow. The streets were full of people rushing to work. I began this last leg of the journey reading a book, but as the train climbed into the Highlands, the landscape quickly became a distraction that I found impossible to ignore, and I spent the next four or five hours just looking out of the window at the increasingly dramatic landscape. It was afternoon when I arrived at the ferry port in Mallaig, and just a short wait for the boat. There are big ferries that head off to the islands, to Skye and to Rum and the Small Isles, but I was taking the little ferry across Loch Nevis to the village of Inverie on Knoydart. There are two boats that make this crossing, depending on the time of day; a smallish ferry, or an even smaller one that carries nine passengers only. The boat doesn’t just transport people; it takes everything – building materials, food supplies, mailbags. Nothing can make it to Knoydart by road, for there is no road. Everything was piled high on pallets on the deck and then covered in tarpaulin in case it was a splashy crossing.

  We left the little harbour and set off on the half-hour journey. The weather was mostly overcast but there was not much chop. I spent the journey as close as I could get to the prow of the boat, looking out for the harbour porpoises that arced away, slick and oily, from the boat as it approached. I counted eight in all: two pairs, and then a group of four. These are the smallest members of the whale family and usually tend to avoid boats, unlike the dolphins which will often ride in the bow-wave, so there were probably more that I missed. It was a better showing than the last time I had been out in these waters, when I had seen just one pair. There had apparently been a party of bottlenose dolphins in the vicinity, and the porpoises had made themselves scarce, for dolphins predate on their smaller cousins.

  I had chosen my night’s campsite before we had docked; a small, isolated strip of sand tucked behind a rocky promontory, a beach that was not even marked on the map and well away from any trails. It looked almost certain to be somewhere I would have to myself. So when we arrived at the jetty and disembarked, while all other passengers turned towards the village, I set off in the opposite direction, and followed the shore. The south-facing slopes of Knoydart, all around the village, are perhaps surprisingly thickly wooded. It is not entirely natural woodland, but is nevertheless a very attractive mixed wood of large mature trees that must once have been estate woodland planted in Victorian times, and is now well managed by a community trust of local residents.

  As I followed the shore west, a buzzard flushed from the trees and flew low ahead of me between the tree trunks, then swept up to perch again a few trees further ahead. As if it was leading me on. The sun came through the clouds, illuminating the heather-clad hills above. The heather was in full bloom and the rowans were laden, heavy with berries. At first there were a few loch-side houses, widely spaced along the shore, but then I reached the end of the last track. I circuited a shallow bay that cut deep into the land. A wren appeared in the bracken along the shore, calling at me. Such a bold little creature; it allowed me to approach to within just three or four feet, and in spite of my presence it threw back its head and burst into song. For such a small bird, the wren has a powerful voice, and is one of the few birds that can still occasionally be heard singing in the dead of winter. When I lived in Wales, I remember once hearing one in full song while out walking on Christmas Day. The hunting of the wren is a Celtic midwinter tradition, with the wren perhaps being symbolic of the year just ended. After that Christmas it became something of an annual ritual for me, my own version of the wren-hunt, to go out after each winter solstice listening for my first winter wren. No wrens were harmed in the making of my own personal tradition. But no more. Never again will I mark the turn of the seasons and the lengthening of days with birdsong. The wren had just joined my ever-growing list of birds whose song was now beyond my reach. It was so close, I strained towards it, hoping to pick up something, even a single low note, but there was nothing there, just the breeze blowing. It was gone for good.

  I regret the loss of the song of the wren because I can recall it, in full throat on a frosty winter’s morning on a Welsh riverbank. I do not miss the calls of birds that I have never heard, and I do not miss the ultrasonic calls of the bats that lived in my Welsh loft, because they were ultrasonic; they were always beyond my reach. Our view of the world is strictly limited; by our place in time, by geography, by our scale. And it is constrained by the operational limits of our sensory organs. When I see a rainbow, I am seeing just a segment of the wavelength of light; other creatures might see a quite different rainbow. I am keenly aware of the decline in numbers of some of the birds and animals from my childhood forays into the countryside – the corn buntings and skylarks and water voles – but I do not mourn the absence from those fields of the corncrake, at least not in the same personal way, for the corncrake had already gone before I arrived. Its passing belongs to the childhood memories of an earlier generation. The world we grow up in becomes our blueprint for what is natural. Changes that take place more slowly, over the course of more than a single human lifetime, will always fail to register in the same way, because every new generation creates its own new normal. Dramatic changes in population sizes, deforestation, loss of habitat and climate changes; all are happening on our watch. We have brutalised and compromised the world far more fully than may be readily apparent. We need to think beyond our own time span, to the time of our children’s children and further, for nature’s sake as well as their own. The natural world surely has an intrinsic value which goes beyond its utility to us as a resource.

  To reach the spot where I had seen the little beach from the boat I would have to mount a high ridge. It was steep-sided; I had to scramble up the slope using my hands to haul myself up, first from birch trunk to birch trunk, then from heather stalk to heather stalk. It was hard work with a pack on my back that had to include enough food for several days as well as camping equipment, but it felt good to be off-trail. Then I had to cross the marshy hilltop, hoping that my guess was good. My concern was that I would reach the shore and wouldn’t know whether to turn left or right, but my aim was true and as soon as I mounted the last ridge I could see the little beach right below me. There was a dome of rock, almost an island, out on the waters of the sea-loch, linked to the land by a low spit of turf, with on one side a rocky beach, and the other a strip of white sand. I clambered down the steep hillside and shed my pack on the close-cropped grass. Someone else had camped here once; there was a circle of stones from a long-ago campfire. The grass was littered with flotsam, tangles of fishing net and floats and inscrutable nautical plastic. I took off my boots and stepped onto the sands. There was a thick coil of seaweed at the very top of the be
ach; this beach would disappear entirely at high tide. I walked down to the water’s edge and waded in. The sun was breaking through the clouds and further up the loch towards the mountains it was showering; there was a rainbow reaching across the waters, my own personal rainbow.

  My intention had been to camp on the sandy deer-cropped turf, but as day turned to evening an onshore wind began to pick up from the west, steadily gathering in force until it reached a point where it would not be easy to put up my tent. But in the lee of the almost-island was a cluster of contorted birches clinging onto the rock face, and beneath them a small level grassy shelf which would suit me perfectly. The only thing this place lacked was fresh water; I found a few rainwater pools among the rocks above the splash zone, but the water was brackish and unpalatable. I regretted not filling my water bottle when I had crossed streams earlier in my walk. I had just a couple of mouthfuls left; that would have to do until morning, for it was too late now to go on a water-hunt. I was never a good planner; I cannot count the number of sunsets I have watched during my travels only to find myself lacking food or water or firewood or shelter and having to either make do without or go to a great deal of trouble to remedy these errors of omission. It is a kind of chronic optimism that is my downfall. I will come to a stream and wonder whether perhaps I should top up my water bottle, and will think, no, there is sure to be another stream closer to my destination. And I will repeat this pattern until I have missed my final opportunity. I have got many a soaking from the same flawed logic. I have been out walking and it has started to rain, and I have wondered if I should put on my rain gear, only to decide it will be a shower, bound to stop shortly. And so it is that I seldom put on my waterproofs until it is really far too late, for I am already soaked through.

  After pitching my tent, I sat on the outermost rocks and looked out over the loch. This promontory was an otter midden; there were carapaces of crabs by the dozen, and large fragments of the strange rough orbs of sea urchin shells, in beautiful symmetrical patterns like mandalas. A team of gannets criss-crossed the loch, hunting. It is impossible to mistake a gannet for anything else, even at a great distance. While seagulls may appear perfectly white, they are dull against the radiant whiteness of the gannet. Even under an overcast sky, gannets seem glaringly brilliant, as if they have a ray of sunlight shining down on them. Following the pack was a solitary Arctic skua, hook-winged and predatory-looking. The skua is a pirate. It will wait while other birds, generally terns and gulls, catch themselves a fish, and then it will pursue them, mobbing and harassing them relentlessly until they surrender their prey. I was not sure I could imagine a skua taking on a gannet, though; gannets are powerful birds.

  I knew that I was ill, but had decided that the risk to my health was most likely not severe enough to make me think twice about coming. I understood that my journey would become far more of a physical challenge than it would normally have been, but I was determined to complete this project anyway. In times like this, I always seemed to find untapped reserves of stubbornness that I could draw upon. I avoided telling people of my difficulties, or telling anyone where I was going, even my children. Apart from anything else, I wanted to have the freedom to roam, not to stick to a preordained plan, and I knew that I was aiming for places where I would be unreachable. This may seem rash, but I was determined that no one should feel any sense of responsibility for my intransigence. This was my problem; I saw no reason to make it anyone else’s. Sitting alone on the last rock on the shore, I felt I had chosen solitude and emotional self-sufficiency perhaps more completely than ever before. It made me feel more alone, more independent. My body might be failing me but it somehow made me stronger rather than weaker, more sure of myself than ever.

  It was over three months since I had last been here. In part, I had wanted to avoid the peak tourist season, but I had also wanted to be available while my younger daughter was off school for the summer. My older daughter had returned from several months in Southeast Asia, her own first independent travels. She had come home seemingly more grown up and enthused; she talked about wanting to come walking in Scotland with me. Another time, I said; this is something I have to do alone. We did all go camping together over the summer, however, as we almost always have. They brought friends with them, and it was a wildly different experience from my solitary ventures. It was all about the company. Now that September had come, my older daughter had gone off to start university. When a child leaves home it is, of course, a watershed moment for anyone, and although my younger girl was still at home, I did wonder if I was in some way having to prepare myself psychologically for times to come, when I would be alone whether I liked it or not.

  Looking out to sea, I could watch dark heavy clouds blowing in from the west, fast and low, lower than the hilltops. The clouds reached down, ropes of rain, tentacles that stroked the surface of the loch. I waited until the first one hit me; a sudden blast of cold wind-lashed raindrops. Remembering that I had left the contents of my pack spread out on the beach, I sat it out and waited for the rain to pass, then far too late gave in and ran to throw everything in the tent before it was all soaked through.

  I was woken in the early morning, not by cuckoos now, for they had all flown back to Africa, but by hooded crows calling in the birches that overhung my campsite. These birds are the northern equivalent of the carrion crow, and are closely related, even occasionally interbreeding in the Scottish lowlands where their ranges meet. For a long time they were believed to be varieties of the same species, but more recently the hooded crow, the corbie, has been upgraded, and it is now considered a species of its own. Studies have shown that given the choice it will prefer to pair with a crow of its own type, and there are behavioural differences too; while the carrion crow is usually seen alone or in pairs, the hooded crow is more inclined to gather in small groups. I unzipped the fly of my tent and looked out. The crows flushed, calling in annoyance, and alerted a group of three red deer hinds that were picking their way down the hillside, presumably heading for the green turf above the beach. Seeing me, the deer paused, then abandoned their descent, turning along the coastline and picking their way across the rocky slopes like mountain goats.

  Having no water, I did not want to wait around, but packed up quickly and headed along the shore. Out on the loch was a low rocky islet. It was barely an island; it was so low that a high wave would have swept over it, but in this watery place that was half-land, half-sea, the grey seals had gathered in numbers. Unlike the alert harbour seals, these animals were supine. Their blubber drooped over the rocks so that they looked like outsized drops of spilt candle wax. I sat and watched them all doing nothing together until the rain began again, and I sheltered under the best available nearby tree for a while until I could no longer dispute that it had set in, and dressed in my rain gear. I headed back in the direction of the village and as I walked the rain grew steadily heavier. No shortage of water now.

  There were few people about in the village. There was something about this small row of loch-side cottages that made it feel qualitatively different from the other villages I had travelled to on my journey through the Rough Bounds, and caused it to seem more remote than it really was. Knoydart once supported a sizeable population of crofters, perhaps over a thousand, but then they were pressed by the landowners to vacate the land. Most chose to emigrate, and set off for Canada, and those that stayed were eventually forcibly removed in one of the most notorious incidents of the Highland clearances. For a long time the entire peninsula was almost entirely uninhabited save for a few estate workers, and it is only in recent decades that the population has slowly begun to build up again, though still only to a tiny proportion of its earlier levels. Everybody here has consciously chosen to isolate themselves from the world, to live in a small community cut off from the mainland. Everybody is an incomer, even the Scots who live here. No one is here by accident, and no one is passing through on their way to somewhere else, for it is on the way to no
where.

  The village had a single pub, a post office, a shop and a café. I went into the café, stripped off my rain gear and hung it up. Soon I was sitting amidst a small pool of water in which floated bits of bracken. Outside the window, the sun came out over the loch. I ordered a coffee and apologised for dripping everywhere. I told the guy at the counter that I had been walking in the rain for two hours, and the moment I stepped inside the rain had stopped, and the sun began to shine. He said, that being the case, then perhaps I should stay all day. I asked him how long it would take to walk over the top, to the north side of the peninsula, as I was thinking of spending a couple of nights camping over on the virtually uninhabited north. He said he had only done it once, with a group of friends. It had taken them six hours, but they had been partying, drinking as they went, so I would probably do it in less. This was all I needed to know; I could make it to the other side before darkness fell.

  I wondered what it would be like to live in such a remote place. All the people settled here must at some point in their lives have responded to its very isolation. They could hardly be here by accident. I presumed that in season there must be as many visitors to the peninsula – hill-walkers and summer visitors – as there were full-timers. But living here year round may not be a solitary affair at all; quite the opposite. It is normal enough in the city to have no idea who your neighbours are, yet in a small community like this everybody would know everybody else, and would have some degree of interdependence. It would actually be rather a social affair, I thought. The quest for solitude is less about choosing a remote location than it is about striving for an emotional self-sufficiency.