In the islands of the Outer Hebrides a slender swath of green called Raasay was home to a remarkable man Calum MacLeod. Calum lived in Arnish, a small isolated township on the northern tip of the island. In the 1920's Arnish boasted a population of over 90 inhabitants, who requested of the government Council a road to link them with the rest of the island, a request which was refused. By the 1960's, when Calum and his wife lived there, the community was reduced to seven families.

MacLeod felt passionately that, however remote, he and the now remaining inhabitants of Arnish deserved a road. The inability to finance the construction left only one option, for Calum to build the road himself. He bought a used book on road building and maintenance and studied it, and then to plan the best route he studied how the sheep made their way across moor as sheep will instinctively find the easiest and most direct route. In 1966 Calum single-handedly began to build his road. When he finished a decade later he had used two wheelbarrows, six picks, six shovels, four spades and five hammers and he and his wife were the only remaining inhabitants of Arnish. Calum's Road is still clearly identified on area maps which include Raasay.

Thistle & Broom's exclusive Calum's Road sweater is Eva Lambert's tribute to a man of great moral and physical strength, tenacity and courage. Offered as a pullover with a thick shawl-like collar, Calum's Road features a complex central cable which represents the road, with all its difficulties of construction. On either side of the 'road' are three fine cables (front and back) representing the six pick ax's and six shovels and then running along either side are Celtic plaits (braids) represent Calum's heritage and the persistent and abiding spirit of the Celtic people. The wool is bleached by the sun, and their diet offered by the seasons and the landscape from Eva's own flock and available in four 'colours' two which come off the sheep naturally (Arthur's Seat, wet and windblown medium brown and Cairngorm, a smoky quartz marled taupe), and two dyed with Indigo (Peat Smoke, a soft grey, and Dunchraigaig, the colour inside a deep cairn) giving the yarn an interesting and subtle tint of smoky blue. Calum's Road is also available in a slightly modified jacket (cardigan) (ladies slightly cropped and fitted) with your choice of buttons made of hand-carved antler or of glazed pottery from one of Eva's neighbours! Each garment is made to order, please allow six to eight weeks for delivery.

Another man of steely Celtic determination changed the way we look at nature. Your purchase benefits re-forestation efforts of the John Muir Trust with their conservancy on the Isle of Skye adjoining the Cuillin Mountains.