ARCHIVE images of wild stags wandering into a Highland hostel have been released as the institution celebrates its 95th anniversary.
Marking 95 years, guests have been sharing memories of the deer who became part of Loch Ossian Youth Hostel, on the Corrour Estate in the Highlands, with images dating back to the 1980s being published.
The pictures show stags inside the hostel’s common room after learning to tilt their heads to fit through the doors – a sight many former visitors still vividly remember decades later.
One guest, Vincent Visser, wrote on Facebook: “The stags visiting the common room were magic. So calm, regal and impressive. Windswept, The Chief and Old Fettercairn. They had to tilt their head to fit through the door.”
Current hostel manager Jan Robinson, who has worked at Loch Ossian for more than a decade, shared: “People absolutely loved the deer. There’s no doubt that being in close proximity to a huge wild stag is pretty impressive and quite surreal really.
“In the old days, the stags used to come right into the hostel. Somehow they learned to tilt their heads to get through the doors and people would just sit there completely amazed by them.
“There can be absolutely nobody around here for miles in winter and it gets dark around three o’clock, so actually it was really rather nice having a stag around. It felt like company.
“He was called Damh, after the Gaelic word for stag. I used to ask him what kind of day he’d had at the office and sometimes I’d open the stable door at night and play him a Van Morrison track. I think he quite liked it.”
She added: “We don’t have stags coming into the hostel anymore and obviously people should always treat wild deer with respect, but wildlife is still a huge part of the experience here.
“We have black-throated divers, ravens and deer around the area, and people feel very connected to nature when they stay here.”
The hostel’s stag visits are closely linked to former warden Tom Rigg, who became a well-respected figure among guests during his time at Loch Ossian and was said to have formed an "extraordinary" bond with the deer, according to Robinson.
The hostel first opened on May 24, 1931 and is around a 20 minute walk from Corrour Station – the UK’s highest mainline railway station made famous by appearing in Trainspotting.
Robinson, who is originally from Sheffield and moved to Ossian after living near Ullapool, continued: “People are really longing for tranquillity now. They arrive here and suddenly there’s no traffic, no continual notifications on your phone, no feeling that you constantly have to be switched on.
“It’s silent here and at night it’s properly dark. Then people discover what it feels like to slow down a bit, and they want more of it.”
