Calums Road an inspiration

[Uinneag]

Calum Macleod was a crofter who lived at the north end of the island of Raasay. After years of trying to get various local authorities to build a road to the area, one spring morning, Calum took out his wheelbarrow, a pick, an axe, a shovel and a do-it-yourself guide to road construction and started building a road himself.
For almost all his life, Calum MacLeod lived in the north of the Hebridean island of Raasay, where he worked as a crofter, postman and tender of the Rona lighthouse. Yet, due to clearance and neglect. The population of northern Raasay dwindled during his lifetime to just two people – Calum and his wife.

Calum had an idiosyncratic response to this decline. One spring morning, he took his homemade wheelbarrow, a pick, an axe and a shovel, trundled south from his crofthouse down a narrow, rutted bridle path, across rough hillsides, along the edge of hazardous cliff-faces, through patches of stunted hazel and birch and over quaking peat bogs. Then, alone in an empty landscape, he began to build a road. ‘With a road,’ his former neighbour Donald MacLeod said, ‘he hoped new generations of people would return to the north end of Raasay.’ It would become a romantic, quixotic venture; an obsessive work of art so perfect in every gradient, culvert and supporting wall that its creation occupied almost twenty years.

Inspired by the efforts of Calum MacLeod of Raasay, (whose story I am sure you all know), the people of the villages near Kuntaur in the Gambia are building their own road supported by The Gambia Horse and Donkey Trust.

READ ON FOR HOW YOU CAN HELP!

· DO YOU PLAY TRADITIONAL SCOTTISH MUSIC?

· DO YOU KNOW THE TUNE 'CALUM'S ROAD' by DONALD SHAW? (No matter if you don't!)

· WILL YOU HOLD ONE SPONSORED EVENT TO HELP RAISE MONEY FOR THE GAMBIANS TO BUILD THEIR OWN 'CALUM'S ROAD'?

· WOULD YOU LIKE TO ATTEND A GINORMOUS OPENING CEILIDH IN THE GAMBIA (TBA)?

If the answer to any of these questions is 'YES', and we hope it is, please join us by emailing us your details and ideas for FUNDRAISING events to Hazel Macaulay

We'd like to create a ceilidh trail from Raasay to the Gambia.

Information and online donations to The Gambia Horse and Donkey Trust.

You can also contact Mairi Leach on [email protected]

Now that would be a ride
From Calums road Isle of Raasay to Calums Road in Gambia

I'm up for it

 

[Deleted account rno]

When I started readin' this, I thought you'd enrolled Calum into daen the back o' yer hoose...

 

[Big Jets]

Read the book no long ago ,he was a bit of a man,was never at a doctor or a dentist in his puff,had a wee tear in my eye when his auld wife found him sittin in his barrow.Good stuff a man who would not take know for a answer

 

[Big Jets]

Take it North Raasay will be full of English Cnuts now Auld Calum has built the road.Sounds like a Adventure Johnny any charity do,s you pit on I would gladly give you a shillin or two ,all the best .

 

[Rushy]

This reminds me of the story of....

.....Korczak Ziółkowski a sculptor who dedicated 43yrs of his life to a project which saw him living in shack on a cold mountainside pretty much in poverty, and working by hand for most of his life. His work, which is to this day being carried on by his children, recieves no government funding and has no completion date BUT when finished will be the largest sculpture in the world and will almost certainly never be exceeded. I heard about it 2002 and thought it was a bit interesting but you have to go to the visitors centre to get the full story and understand the scale of his hardship, dedication and achievement before it really sinks in. I've put some pictures at the bottom of the page .

Here's his story;

In 1939 Ziółkowski's marble sculpture of Ignacy Jan Paderewski won first prize at the New York World's Fair. The fame as well as his familiarity with the Black Hills prompted several Lakota Chiefs to approach him about a monument honoring Native Americans. Chief Henry Standing Bear of the Lakota wrote him, saying, "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know the red man has great heroes, too."

Korczak met with the leaders shortly afterward and began planning a monument. Over the next few years, he conducted research and began planning the sculpture. He also met Ruth Ross, a young art enthusiast, who would later become his wife.

Korczak put the project on hold when the United States entered World War II. He volunteered for service in the United States Army and was wounded in 1944 at Omaha Beach, in Normandy, France.

In 1947 Ziółkowski moved to the Black Hills, and began to search for a suitable mountain for his sculpture. Korczak thought the Wyoming Tetons would be the best choice, where the rock would be better for carving, but the Lakota wanted the memorial in the sacred Black Hills on a 600-foot (180 m)-high mountain. The monument was to be the largest sculpture in the world. When completed, it would be 563 feet (172 m) high by 641 feet (195 m) long. Crazy Horse's head would be large enough to contain all the 60-foot (18 m)-high heads of the Presidents at Mount Rushmore.

On June 3, 1948, the first blast was made, and the memorial was dedicated to the Native American people. In 1950 Korczak and Ruth Ross, who had become a volunteer at the monument, were married. Work continued slowly, since he refused to accept government grants. He raised money for the project by charging admission to the monument work area.

Korczak continued his work on behalf of the Lakota Indians until he died of acute pancreatitis at the monument site in 1982. He was buried in a tomb at the base of the mountain. After his death, his wife Ruth took over the project as director of the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation. Seven of his ten children have continued the carving of the monument or are active in the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation.

To get some idea of scale the model in the pictures is at the visitors centre about a mile away from the actual mountain and you can take a bus ride to the base of it. Since the opening of the visitors centre work moved on a lot more quickly (relatively speaking) due to the profits from it. However, there is still no completion date and it took 50yrs to complete the face !

Its amazing that people like Calum & Korczak can even think about embarking on a project that just seems never ending/impossible.

Ooops sorry about the thread hijack Johnny
.
.

 

[wully]

It is a great wee book about a great man.

We were going to go over and see Calums Road when we were at the Skye Pairty but the weather was too shyte.

Next year

BTW- dinnae fancy a run all the way to the Gambia but up for some of it.

( the easy bits, natch)