New App will bring Clearance sites alive
As part of the Highland Archaeology Fortnight festival of events across the Highlands, Timespan in Helmsdale organised a minibus trip to see the archaeological sites associated with the Clearances in the Strath of Kildonan.
This event was a preview of the new digital Clearances Trail Smartphone App being developed by Timespan to commemorate the instigation of these events nearly 200 years ago and the associated episodes of emigration to the Red River settlement in Canada in 1813 and 1815.
The Museum Without Walls project, based in Timespan, is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Museum Galleries Scotland.
Project manager and leader of the event, Jacquie Aitken, says: “I was delighted that 25 people turned up for the event – some from as far away as Inverness-shire.
“The landscape along the Strath of Kildonan is really beautiful, but many of the sites associated with the Clearances are just out of sight, ie just above the road on the hillside or covered in thick vegetation.
“The new APP trail will digitally record and map these sites and allow visitors to see them for the first time on a screen in front of them, in their car or from the confort of their own home – even in Canada!
The trip ended at Kildonan Church where the group sat on the pews and contemplated about the last sermon held there in June 1813, just before a group of over 80 people left the area for a new life in Canada.
