Quest by Canoe - Glasgow to Skye

As short book, of only 183 pages, this book starts out telling us of a failing business, and ends with a chapter on how to ‘solve the highland problem'. In between in an ambitious voyage by canoe.
The author and his companion are obviously passionate about Scotland. Their failure publishing venture was a periodical for Scottish youth to encourage them to adventure, and have an interest in Scotland - to forgo their Cowboys and Indians and become clansmen, save for their kilt in clan tartan, research their clan territories. Called Claymore it was a tuppenny weekly, and it steadily lost money. They ceased publication at the ‘urgent request of their printer' to whom they owed a sum of money not repaid for several years.

And so to a new venture - a voyage by canoe. With some advertisers who still owed them money, they made deals for equipment, and negotiated with a gym owner to train them into shape to undertake this. They obtained state-of-the-art canoes - Lochaber a three piece design with a cable securing the ends, which are sealed ballast tanks, to the central portion.

Departing from Bowling, on the Clyde (due to the Harbourmasters rules preventing them from leaving from Broomielaw in Glasgow), and ending at the Isle of Skye some 3 months later. Not that it was a 3 month journey, as they stopped regularly and often for numerous days. I admit to being almost completely in the dark with the geography of Scotland, but certainly the names of the places they stop or pass evoke a sense of mystery to me - Bute, Fionn Phort, Cairnbaan, Dorus Mor, Oban, Scallasdale, Muck, Eigg, Rhum, Mallaig, Airor, Kyle of Lochaish, amongst others. For me it conjures up the rugged landscapes and complex coastlines - shrouded in mist.

On their voyage they share the history of the places they visit, the people, some clan history, they share some of the landscape, the farming and industry.

Published in 1950, this book explains a journey taken pre-war, 1934 (my info taken directly from a review by Sarah). It does mean there is some retrospective information added to the book (a photo of the author in a house 14 years after his visit by Canoe; some discussion about a trip to another place two years after; a photo of the authors companion in a newer canoe, a year after the voyage).

It was an short interesting read, a snapshot in time, but with some forward thinking proven to have been accurate.
My copy is the Travel book Club edition, it contains a number of black and white photographs which add well to the narrative. I understand this book was also published as ‘Too Late in the Year”, which is what they were told by all the naysayers when they departed.

3.5 stars, rounded down to 3.