A fitting tribute to Isle of Skye mountaineers

Trust joins Sconser community in celebrating monumental fundraising success

The Trust are delighted that the Collie Mackenzie Heritage Group have met their final fundraising target and that plans for a statue on Trust land commemorating two pioneering mountaineers will now go ahead.

Following Trust purchase of the Sconser estate in 1997, the community put forward the idea of a monument celebrating the friendship and achievements of local man John Mackenzie, and the mountaineer Norman Collie.

Born in Sconser in 1856, Mackenzie was a keen explorer as a boy, famously climbing Sgùrr nan Gillean at the age of ten. By the time he met climber and scientist Professor Collie in 1886, he was already established as a guide and credited with numerous first ascents. Despite very differing backgrounds, the two became good friends and pioneered many of the technically challenging routes in the Cuillin range that mountaineers still enjoy today.

Raising the money for the statue itself was the final piece in a puzzle that has involved landscaping enhancements at the Sligachan Gateway, including the undergrounding of electrical cables, a new carpark, stone seating and interpretation. A true community initiative, The Heritage Group has worked with local schools, artists and relatives to capture and celebrate the achievements of the pair for well over a decade.

Early on, local sculptor Stephen Tinney created a scale model as a way of visualising the final piece. Most recently, this found its way to the Trust’s Wild Space centre in Pitlochry as a small part of a much wider fundraising effort.

The full sized bronze statue has now been commissioned and is set to be unveiled at a ceremony on site next to the Sligachan Hotel in September 2020. The location marks the route into Trust managed Glen Sligachan, a path that Mackenzie trod thousands of times in his work as a hotel pony boy, and later as Scotland’s first professional mountain guide.

Congratulations to the Sconser community and the Collie Mackenzie Heritage Group!