The future of the past

Small independent museums keep local history alive.

By Kate Smith

Behind a glass cabinet in the centre of Ullapool Museum is a hand crafted model of the Hector, a ship that departed Lochbroom in 1773 taking with it a cargo of 170 souls on an ill-fated voyage to the New World.

For more than 200 years this fishing village in Wester Ross has borne witness to the changing life of the Highlands of Scotland, a story of population loss coupled with economic and demographic change.