It was during one of our many journeys to Scotland that we found ourselves driving toward the northern tip of the mainland. The road to Durness wound through moors and heather, past lochs reflecting a restless sky. There, where land meets sea and time seems to slow, we discovered a hidden gem: the Loch Croispol Bookshop & Café, affectionately known as Food for Thought.
The name could not have been more fitting. The small, whitewashed building overlooking the waters near Balnakeil felt like a lighthouse of the mind, a refuge for travelers seeking warmth, conversation, and the company of books.
Behind the counter were Kevin and Simon, the most welcoming booksellers we happened to meet in Scotland. Their passion for literature and local culture filled the air as richly as the scent of coffee and scones.
For us, this remote corner of Sutherland, at the very edge of the world became a beacon of friendship and discovery.
Two Books That Crossed the Sea
Kevin and Simon surprised me and MairiUna with books that have remained among our dearest treasures. I am still thrilled about these:
After the Hector by Lucille H. Campey and Voyageurs, a novel by Margaret Elphinstone.
We left the shop carrying not only pages but possibilities: stories that would continue to guide us, like distant lights across the sea.
Inside After the Hector, the words of Lucille H. Campey echoed the wind-swept coast they had just left behind. She wrote of the Scots who, driven by hardship and hope, crossed the Atlantic in search of a new life in Nova Scotia, literally “New Scotland”
The Hector, a modest wooden vessel, sailed from Ullapool in 1773 with 189 Highland emigrants aboard. Their destination: Pictou Harbour, on the northern coast of what was then a British colony, and their journey: a perilous passage through storms, disease, and uncertainty.
Lucille H. Campey recounts how these settlers, many from Sutherland and the Hebrides, carried more than possessions. They brought their language, music, faith, and a deep familiarity with the sea.
The Gaelic words they spoke, the songs they sang, and the stories they told would later echo across Cape Breton’s cliffs and Pictou’s harbours. Their courage transformed isolation into community, hardship into heritage.
“The ship Hector became a symbol of Scottish perseverance,” writes Lucille H. Campey. “For those who followed, it was a reminder that the voyage across the ocean could lead to a new beginning.”
From the Highlands to the Harbours
They are many invisible threads connecting Scotland’s rugged coastlines with those of Nova Scotia. In the fishing villages of the Hebrides and Sutherland, life had always been shaped by the sea. That same bond took root in their new homeland. Pictou, Arisaig, Inverness, all names borrowed from the old country, became settlements where Gaelic prayers and fiddle tunes mingled with the cry of gulls. The settlers might have left Scotland’s cliffs behind, but they carried her coastline in their hearts.
Gaelic culture did not vanish in the crossing. In fact, Nova Scotia remains the only place outside Scotland where Gaelic has been spoken continuously for more than two centuries. Today, its echoes still resound in music festivals, storytelling circles, and the voices of teachers and students at Colaisde na Gàidhlig, the Gaelic College in St. Ann’s, Cape Breton.
“Language,” wrote Margaret Elphinstone in Voyageurs, “is the last thing you pack when you leave home, and the first thing you unpack when you arrive.”
Her novel, which follows a Scottish boatman’s journey through the Canadian wilderness, captures that sense of in-between worlds belonging to two places at once, guided always by the rhythms of water and wind.
The bookshop was, in its own way, a lighthouse guiding readers through the stormy seas of history toward the calm waters of understanding. I can still picture the smiles of our hosts, the glow of afternoon light filtering through the windows, and the quiet joy of knowing that we were, somehow, part of this great continuum of seekers and storytellers.
A Light That Never Fades
From the far north of Scotland to the shores of Nova Scotia, the light continues to shine , through words, through culture, through friendship. Whether kindled in a lighthouse or a bookshop, that same flame of curiosity and courage endures.
And for those of us who wander, read, and write, from MairiUna in France and Iain/Margaret in Scotland to me in Quebec , it is a comforting thought indeed: that across the vast Atlantic, we are all guided by the same light.
Love and Light,
Janice
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