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The Strath of Kildonan, Sutherland The Strath of Kildonan and Beinn Dubhainn |
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The Strath of Kildonan, Sutherland The Strath of Kildonan and Beinn Dubhainn |
THIS LONG AND
LOVELY GLEN winds from Helmsdale, on the east coast of
Sutherland, to the bleak settlement
of Kinbrace 18 miles inland, and on another five miles to Loch
Badanloch, the source of the Helmsdale River. Driving
northwest up the strath, once you have left the outskirts of
Helmsdale behind there is barely a handful of inhabited
houses until Kinbrace comes in sight. It was not always so. Kildonan
was savagely cleared in the years between 1813
and 1819 - so savagely that these clearances provoked the first
recorded dissent against the evictions anywhere in the
Highlands. The clans here were Gunns, Mathesons, Mackays, Macbeths
and Sutherlands - all the peoples of the
Sutherland/Caithness border region, but Kildonan was predominantly
Gunn territory, and it was the Gunns who
resisted in 1813. They first ran off a Mr Reid, agent for some
southern sheep-farmers, who had visited the strath,
asking questions and taking notes; Mr Reid declared to anyone who
would listen that he had been attacked by
a mob and had barely escaped with his life.
IT WAS JUST
THE EXCUSE the Duke of Sutherland's factors had been
praying for. The male staff of the estate were
sworn in as special constables and a detachment of infantry sent out
at the double from Fort George. This was more
than the Gunns could withstand and their resistance melted away.
Within three months large areas of upper Kildonan
had been entirely cleared, and the people offered tiny allotments of
poor land on the clifftops near Helmsdale, or sent
into exile in Canada - the choice of many of the younger people. In
June of the year they sailed from Stromness in
Orkney, bound for the Red River settlement in Manitoba.
IN 1819 THE LAST
INHABITANTS were cleared from lower Kildonan. This time
there was no dissent; the people
had learned by bitter experience that neither government, nor law
courts, nor their church, would speak a word or lift
a hand in their defence. They went quietly into exile; to Glasgow; to
whatever patch of land they might be offered to
scrape a living. Some went to join their kinsmen across the Atlantic.
After the events of 1813, there had been further
evictions and emigrations in 1815, when 700 Kildonan clansfolk left
for the Canadian settlements along the Red River
and in Glengarry County. They had a hard time and had to fight both
the harsh Canadian winter, Cree Indians
and renegade Frenchmen. They called their new home Kildonan.