Landscape Lore

The Importance of Landscapes and Lore

The landscapes of the northern Highlands are shaped by water, movement, and time. Here, rivers gather and widen before reaching the sea, tidal waters reshape the land, and light shifts constantly across hills, meadows, and shorelines. It is a place defined by meeting points: fresh and salt water, inland routes and coastal paths, people passing through and people staying.

This dynamic relationship with water has long shaped both land and life, creating a living landscape that is never static. Change is visible and felt: in flooded fields, shifting channels, and in the way the land carries memory through motion rather than permanence.

Beyond their visible beauty, these landscapes hold layered and often overlooked stories. Every place carries traces of political, social, and economic histories, alongside tales shaped by folklore, oral tradition, and personal experience. Landscape is never just scenery; it is a relationship, formed through perception, memory, and meaning.

Across the Highlands, from quiet coastal stretches along the North Coast 500 to inland paths and mountain routes, landscapes embody a living heritage. They connect past, present, and future, holding stories of conflict and care, loss and resilience, imagination and belonging. They remind us where we come from, anchor personal identity, and continue to inspire new stories.

To walk through these landscapes with attention is to engage with time made visible. Nature and culture remain inseparably intertwined. Landscape Lore invites you to explore these places not as a backdrop, but as living witnesses, offering insight, connection, and a sense of continuity for the future.