Seeking stories of connections to Inverness or the Highlands

By Jen Hill

Inverness Bid Team: Left to right, Bryan Beattie, Sophie Boyne, Alice Prentice, Leah McBain, Michael Lewis, Lily Kelman, Emma Racionzer, and Highland Council Convener, Cllr Bill Lobban.

Do you have a story that connects you to Inverness or the Highlands?

Inverness and the wider Highland region have been long-listed for UK City of Culture 2029, and is the only Scottish entry among the nine contenders. It is also the first bid to represent an entire region rather than a single city.

As part of the bid, the Inverness Highland 2029 team is gathering stories from people whose lives have been touched by the Highlands including those of us overseas.

For Canadians with Highland roots, that connection can run very deep. Perhaps your family came from Inverness-shire, Ross-shire, Sutherland, Caithness or elsewhere in the Highlands. Maybe you’ve travelled back and found a place that felt strangely familiar?

Or perhaps it’s something much smaller: a family story, a song, a ceilidh, a landscape, the smell of peat smoke, a particular village, or a memory that has stayed with you.

They’d love to hear those stories!

By gathering international stories, the team aims to demonstrate to the judging panel how Highland culture continues to resonate globally through migration stories, cultural traditions kept alive in Canada, such as ceilidhs, Highland dance, and bagpiping, and any travel memories from Canadians who visited the region.

While there is no official, hard deadline for Canadians to submit their stories, the judging panel is currently reviewing the submissions and will announce a shortlist of up to four locations in October 2026, so we’d encourage you to try to get any material submitted soon.

The Scottish-Canadian connection is very much part of the Highland story, so it would be wonderful to have some voices from Ottawa and across Canada represented.

To share your story with Inverness Highland 2029, please follow the link below.

https://invernesshighland2029.co.uk/