This small wooded lump is Shieldaig Island, sitting in Loch Shieldaig and a familiar sight for those exploring the North Coast 500. It doesn’t seem like much, just a pretty natural feature, but this wee island gives a clue to life 200 years ago.
The village of Shieldaig is a picturesque spot between Applecross and Torridon, the perfect place to stop and settle your nerves after driving over the Bealach na Ba and round the winding coastal road. It’s also great to just sit and do nothing, between the dramatic mountains and the sea.
People have lived here for a very long time, the name Shieldaig actually comes from the Old Norse for Herring Bay, showing how much the Vikings appreciated Scottish seafood. Most folk lived in scattered, small communities though, not villages like this.
Then in the early 19th century, Europe was in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars and the need for fresh Royal Navy recruits increased dramatically. The Admiralty offered grants to build houses and fishing boats at Shieldaig to try and train up boys to be sailors they could later coerce onto warships.
It’s also said that the Naby were the ones to plant hundreds of poker-straight Scots Pine on Shieldaig Island that could be used for ship’s masts! By the time the war had finished in 1815, the trees still hadn’t been harvested and while some were used as poles for drying fishing nets, the majority still stand for us to see today.
These days, the island is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and so rarely visited that it’s a welcome sanctuary for wild birds while I’ve often spotted seals bobbing in the waters nearby.
It’s easy to bypass Shieldaig on the main road, but even though I seem to have lost all my pictures of the village, trust me that it’s a perfect coffee/lunch/overnight spot and well worth the visit!
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