Wednesday 31 October 2007

RENAMING A LAKE


It is not like me to confuse the good Scottish or even gaelic word Loch with that used south of the border. Indeed I understand that there is only one correctly named Lake in Scotland and that is the Lake of Menteith. The reason is that the loch to which I am referring is actually in Canada. While in Nova Scotia I met many interesting people with Cameron connections. Among those was a gentleman called Ian Cameron who told me about a campaign mounted by Camerons in the area to have the name of a lake changed from 5 mile lake to Lochiel Lake in Lochaber district. This was achieved in the early 1980s and now boasts a sign to indicate the name. At about the same time, the late Lochiel (Sir Donald Hamish Cameron) and Lady Margaret visited Nova Scotia and an oak tree was planted at Lochiel Lake to commemorate their visit. There was some discussion about the fact that Lake and Loch are the same word and that this name was in fact Loch Eil Loch or Lake Eil lake. In point of fact the word Locheil is an entity and represents a particular landmark in Scotland. The separate meanings of Loch and Eil are not relevant in this case and so it is quite correctly called Lochiel Lake.

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