The Highlands

Britain may have its neat urban gardens, but Scotland has a much bigger and better backyard.

Edinburgh is a very hilly city.  Over 300 million years ago, rifts in the Earth’s crust formed a volcano in southern Scotland, and the Ice Ages carved hills into the landscape as the glaciers melted.  Now, there is a jagged peak called Arthur’s Seat that leans toward Edinburgh and offers great views of the city as well as the sea toward the east.  A rocky trail meanders around the extinct volcano like grooves in a self-serve ice cream.  Beds of yellow flowers hug the embankments.  You can climb all the way to the top mostly by walking up a steady incline.  Once you reach the pinnacle, you can clamber up the crevices and then perch atop a rock to share the view with the birds.    

Once you venture north of Edinburgh, you can soon find yourself out in the remote wilderness among bigger mountains.  Way back when Scotland was near Canada, the landmass headed toward England, which had detached itself from Europe.  They gravitated toward each other.  When they collided, tectonic plates smashed together, and the Highlands were born.  The Highlands is a sparsely populated area that used to be considered a lawless hideaway.  The Jacobite Rising of 1745 motivated the British to more tightly control the wilderness of the Highlands.  Nowadays, not many people live there, but many come to visit to take in the views.     

On a clear day, which is rarity, you can see the birch and spruce trees reflected on the placid lochs.  Upon seeing the Highlands for the first time, the scenery was breath-taking.  It’s very easy to grow sentimental over nature and to employ melodramatic adjectives to the views, like:  stunning, mesmerizing, awe-inspiring.  However, exploring the Highlands is no trivial matter.  One does not see the lovely mountains, the serene lochs, and the assortment of greenish hues and think, “These are just big rocks...I’ve seen enough.”  No, this coincidental continental drift has created a phenomenon to be cherished.

I saw a retired couple lounging in fold-up chairs next to their RV.  They were savoring the view.  If that is where I’ll be in my old age, I’ll consider my retirement a great success because, despite the cold, unpredictable weather, this beats moving to Florida.  You can hike anywhere you want in Scotland because of their “Free to Roam” law, which states that you can’t technically trespass on private property.  There are rules, however.  You must camp fifty meters away from someone’s house, and you must pick up after your dog.  Only one mountain requires professional gear to summit.  You can simply walk up the rest of Scotland’s two hundred odd peaks.   

In addition to the greenery, you can find sheep grazing on hill sides.  Highland cattle feed there as well.  This breed sports the same hairstyle as emo teenagers.  Their long, brown bangs dangle over their eyes.  Apparently, their beef is delicious. 

In some areas, the roads have two lanes——or dual carriageways as the Scots say——but often a driver finds himself sharing a narrow road with traffic that flows in opposite directions.  These conditions are not ideal for eighteen-wheelers driving through a windy countryside.  

The Highlands may not offer the best highways, but it is undoubtedly a hiker’s paradise.  There is abundant freshwater bursting from streams that unload into the lochs.  There is even a walking trail you can follow all the way from England.  If you’re a Harry Potter fan, your scenery will resemble Hagrid’s grounds.  His hut used to be out in the mountains, but somebody removed the half-giant’s abode due to safety hazards.  

The only downside to this speck on the globe is that the temperature fluctuates drastically even within a single day.  The higher you climb, the colder it gets, obviously.  On the ground, the temperature could be in the seventy degrees Fahrenheit, but up on the peaks it’s cold enough for snow.  Also, the winds by the lochs can be bitter, but the shelter of the forest is often humid.  If you ever go to Scotland, don’t waste your time at Loch Ness.  You will find outrageous prices, but no monsters.  Forget Nessie and visit the Highlands.             

The Loch Ness Monster

Why do people search for monsters?  Moreover, why do tourists pay £13 to discover nothing but water at Loch Ness?  The word “loch” is Gaelic for “lake.”  Essentially, Loch Ness is just a body of fresh water with a history of mystery.  Situated in Scotland’s Highlands, the lake and its surroundings are picturesque, but, intrinsically, there is nothing special about the lake aside from its natural beauty.  Yet thousands flock to the shore of Loch Ness to search for that elusive water horse.

I ordered fish and chips to-go at a rinky-dink shop with overpriced options.  A stubborn man in front of me complained to the cashier that the last time he ate at this restaurant his pizza toppings were incorrect.  His only validation was his word.  Why he didn’t correct the error on the appropriate day was beyond me.  The cashier assuaged the man’s mild frustration, and the manager succumbed to the customer’s demand of a free portion of chips.  By the time the disgruntled customer left, I was convinced that cheap bastard was the monster of Loch Ness.  

Despite the cold wind that blew in from the loch, I decided to have a one-man picnic near the shore.  A nearby restaurant had tons of empty tables, but I was deterred by the sign indicating the tables were for paying customers only.  I hunkered down on a soft mound of grass and leaned against a fence post.  As I chomped away at my crispy potatoes, I scrutinized the loch for signs of the unordinary.  

The water was choppy.  A thin cloud of fog limited my view.  A cruise ship packed with sight-seers, cameras at the ready, set sail toward the haze.  I stared at the water and didn’t know what I wanted to believe.

The cynic in me mocked those tourists who wasted their money on a cheesy boat ride.  They were bound to be freezing and ultimately disappointed.  But I also envied their child-like giddiness over an old legend that has an extremely minimal chance of actually proving to be true.  Embarking on a monster hunt requires a strange type of faith.  First of all, you embrace the irrationality.  You know you live among men and women, not monsters.  Yet part of you must be convinced that there’s the slightest possibility that mythical creatures do exist.  You hope to join the ranks of the alleged witnesses.  In a similar way, people hope to win the lottery.  The chances are slim, but you believe in your chance, no matter how small.  

This kind of faith is not like having faith in God because the social ramifications differ greatly.  Christians, for example, are part of a massive group.  Whole communities share the same religion.  Having a small amount of faith in Nessie may be world-wide, but to emphatically believe in her existence is to be part of a select group of outsiders.  These individuals may be deemed unhinged or slightly deranged, and there would be no public outcry as a result of this ridicule.  

But if you were to make similar allegations about a believer in God, you are bound to ruffle some feathers.  Believers in God or some Creator of Life who goes by a different name comprise the norm, but believers in Nessie are minorities.  God simply has a bigger fan club, but the mechanics behind the belief are the same whether we are gazing up at the sky or staring into the depths of a lake.

I continued snacking on my meal and sipping a cold Irn Bru, Scotland’s most profitable soft drink.  (Coca-Cola and Pepsi do not reign supreme in the Kingdom of Scots.)  As I expected, I saw only the choppy waves of Loch Ness.  The view was beautiful, and it was free to look from the shore.  I could just as easily gawk at Lake Erie in Pennsylvania, so what was so different about this one in Scotland?  And why is a boat ticket so expensive?  Is the water purer?  Is the view more striking from the middle of the lake?

The price has nothing to do with the physical world, yet the Scottish government funneled millions of pounds into this monster search merely to heighten the craze over this money-making magical-being.  In 1984, spending for the Nessie hunt peaked during Operation Deep Scan.  However, a recent glitch in a 2013 Google Earth scan sparked interests once more.  If the satellites spotted a strange object, surely there must be hope for the creature’s existence.  Once again, tourists ate up these reports and became optimistic that they would lay their eyes on this seemingly immortal peculiarity.  

Part of me believes this legend continues to be revitalized in order to stimulate the economy.  Inverness, the nearby town, has capitalized on this Nessie craze by creating a Disney-esque park, which features docile dinosaur look-alikes with toothy grins.  This behavior isn’t new to Scotland, though.  

My tour guide told me that the folklore surrounding the Loch Ness monster originated in the Book of Kells, which dates back to the sixth century.  The text was written by Irish monks in Scotland.  One particular monk named Saint Columba was trying to spread Christianity to the country when he first encountered the beast.  He was bathing in the loch when he saw the monster and vanquished it with the holy cross.  

People back then didn’t have satellites, or even world maps that were accurate and finished.  Due to their lack of information, the masses were more easily scared by what they didn’t know, and, thus, they were more easily manipulated.  If Columba spread tales of a monster lurking in the lake, he might inspire fear in a few of his neighbors.  Conveniently, Columba knew the solution to combating the beast.  If the locals put their faith in a stranger named Jesus, their family would be spared from this aquatic killer.  Stories like this not only sell tickets, but Bibles as well.  

I didn’t want to believe this hoax was created to take advantage of gullible people.  I wanted to believe there was some other-worldly, pre-historic creature swimming under the surface.  I’ve preferred many fictional lands over my own.  The life I live in my head is often fuller than the one before my eyes.  It would be nice for reality to even the score.       

Most bodies of water make liars out of us.  Any fisherman could attest to that.  But his lake in particular holds great power over the imagination.  These waters have been scoured, and the depths have been probed numerous times.  If the monster truly exists, don’t you assume somebody would have found it by now?  

Despite this rationale, people still pay £13 for an opportunity to answer this question themselves.  But I wonder if tourists truly capitulate to these folk tales?  Do they really believe their naked eyes will prove superior to Google’s satellites?  Or are they merely stoking the fire and keeping the folklore alive?   

The Loch Ness monster captivates us because the belief in the creature can mentally transport us to times that no longer exist.  Michael Crichton conceived of a world that brought dinosaurs back to life.  There’s bound to be others who’d love to see that happen, even if their reasons are merely to see something exciting because there is so much banality in our surroundings.  Much of popular sight-seeing is mental archaeology:  a big game of pretend.  

Maybe if I stare hard enough at this lake, I can unearth the monster.  I can’t summon the creature to rise from the deep, but the image of Nessie bubbles to the surface of my mind.  Nessie is real if you want her to be.  She helped spread Christianity, and now she’s reviving the tourist industry in northern Scotland.  Like Santa Claus, the Loch Ness monster is a convenient construct created by humans.  She’s an imaginary friend who has made too real of a difference to her surroundings.