‘Morvern is an
enormous, inverted
triangle cut off from the
Western Highlands.’
Morvern
James Petresees it more as an island
W
hat exactly constitutes an island? Must it be always sea-girt? Do we
count ‘tidal islands’ that are and are sometimes not islands? Can we
count tracts of land which are cut off and entirely, or almost entirely,
surrounded by lochs and rivers? e question may be subjective and best
answered by the views of those who live there.
One such ‘marginal’ land is Morvern. Certainly some of its inhabitants sense
that it is, to all intents and purposes, an island. Indeed it looks like one, for a
study of the OS maps shows that, but for 250 yards or so, between the sources
of the Carnoch river in Gen Tarbert in the west and the rivers Tarbert-
Inversanda in the east, Morvern is an enormous, inverted triangle cut off from
the Western Highlands.
Inspection of the OS maps also readily shows that this land is even more
sparsely-populated and bears even fewer marks of modern human settlement
than other remote parts of the West Highlands and Islands. e huge stretch
of coastline along Morvern’s eastern flank, from Loch a’ Choire down to Loch
Aline, has no road or track. Few tourists make it here!