Roaming freely since 1952
Normality has resumed and over the last month we have welcomed our lovely visitors to our site in Glenmore and have also caught up with a few of our cows and calves. They’re all looking well and have had a good summer out on the free range!
Amy
A Christmas Eve tradition of my family is to go see the reindeer parade in Kingussie. When I was younger I often got to go on the sleigh, of course to my delight. Last year Fiona surprised me and I got the chance to pull the front of the sleigh with Akubra and Poirot. This year I had a feeling it would happen again and it did! However, Fiona did give me a warning in the lorry this time. She is known to surprise you…
As a Christmas present to my family this year, I decided to take them up the hill to see the reindeer. The Centre is closed on Christmas Day but the reindeer in the enclosure still need to get their feed for the day. Fiona said if no one else said they’d do it; I could with my family. After a bit of persuading they agreed, and I took a couple from my family and a few friends up the hill. You can’t get a better Christmas than that! All photos here are taken by either myself, my dad or my brother.
When we got to the enclosure, we had all the reindeer on Cairngorm waiting for us. The girls who were on the free-range were asking for a wee bit of extra food too. We picked up the food for the reindeer in the enclosure and headed up the hill. It was a frosty morning and cold, but it was so beautiful. The sun even came out for a while which was lovely. We were all wrapped up but of course the reindeer were very well insulated with their winter coats. We usually feed the reindeer in the hill enclosure a couple of times a day depending on what time of the year but since we were only feeding them once we had a lot of food to take. Thankfully the team on Christmas Eve took it all up to the bins on the hill so we didn’t have to carry it all the way up.
We wandered around the hill introducing the reindeer and answering questions all about how awesome they are. We also had our friends Lorriane and Massa too and they were just amazed. It’s so nice to show people that you know where you spend a lot of your time and where you just love to be. I’m sadly coming up to my exams so I will be cherishing my time with reindeer, Christmas definitely wrapped it up so nicely.
We then headed over to see the free ranging reindeer and I hadn’t seen any of those guys in such a long time, so it was so nice to see them. I was rusty at identifying them, so I had to get my trusty back up plan of a photo from the board in the office which keeps track of the whole herd.
The girls on the free range haven’t had a chance of hand feeding for quite a while due to them being on the free range for the past year or so. Some exceptions for a couple of the breeding females. They can sometimes be quite wild and excited when they haven’t been around people for a wee while. I turned around to swap bags with my mum as I had an empty sack and she had a full bag of hand feed. As I turned, I saw my mum standing there whimpering. Ryvita, a 14-year-old female with no antlers, had her nose right up against her bag. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. Sadly, no one was quick enough to get a photo or video of the moment of her being scared out of her mind.
For my Dad’s Christmas present, (which he didn’t know at the time as I’m a very last-minute person who left it too late,) was an adoption of Vanilla. You can find out what you get if you were to adopt a reindeer here. We’ve been in the hills together quite a few times and when we’ve come across a few reindeer, she’s usually always there. She’s such a beautiful girl and every time he always gets a good photo of her, so I thought they’d be a good match.
Sadly, not everyone was able to make it on the 25th so I promised to take them up another time. That just happened to be on the 3rd of January. I took my brother and his girlfriend up the hill on a very snowy day. It feels like magic when you’re with the reindeer in the snow, kicking the snow up to get the lichen and deer grass, or them walking in the snow easily while all the humans are falling in streams and falling down snowholes. Although in typical Maisy fashion, I faceplanted off the boardwalk in front of a whole group of visitors.
I sadly had not learnt my lesson and buried my hand feed bag underneath the snow because the reindeer kept pestering me when holding it. I’m not saying any names, but it wasn’t Dr Suess, Cowboy and Tub. I then had a hard time trying to get their big noses out of the bag within all the snow, if you know anything about trying to get a Christmas reindeer nose out of a white bag it’s hard considering their brain is controlled by their stomachs. Which is the same with me, I’ll be honest.
The reindeer look magnificent in the snow when it all just sits on their nose, and of course it doesn’t melt because they are so well insulated that they don’t let the heat out to melt the snow. However, all the humans do not look magnificent and are bumbling around in the snow trying not to fall in a snow-covered burn. Unfortunately, yes, three of us did fall in the same burn at the same time.
They couldn’t get rid of me that quickly. As the next day I came back up to Glenmore the to go up a Meall a’ Bhuachaille with Sanna and Echo the dogs. The best hill in Scotland and some of the best snow I have ever seen up there. So much fun although, so much more energy goes into walking in deep snow especially at some points I was sinking above my hips and the dogs kept vanishing under all the powder.
Maisy
Daisy
Now we’re in the middle of winter, it’s hard to imagine the hills in summer time. But I found these photos on my phone from a day off in August and thought I would share them in a blog.
I was off for a walk with a friend around Cairn Gorm. During our walk we saw three groups of free-rangers, in different places on the hill which was really wonderful. The first group consisted of Orinoco, Nuii, Vanilla and Solero. The second group was Helsinki, her calf River and Brew. The final group was Sundae, her calf Salsa and Mississippi. My friend Hannah was visiting for the weekend and she had come on a Hill Trip to see the reindeer the day before so it was a real treat for her to see some of the girls out free-ranging. We also had my friend’s dog with us, Foss, so we had to take it in turns going over to see the reindeer whilst one of us waited with Foss at a good distance. We all had a wonderful walk and seeing the groups of free-range reindeer certainly made my day.
Lotti
November has whizzed by. Even more so because I took a week off at the beginning of the month. Don’t worry though, this blog has just as many photos in as normal!
When I left at the end of October the rut was still underway for a couple of our breeding bulls. On my return the rut was well and truly over, and sleigh training had started! One reason I love this job is that every season is different with new things happening every few weeks.
Hopefully you’ll enjoy this snapshot of November. The snowy days were some of my favourites!
Ruth
April has been a glorious month! The first half of it was wall-to-wall sunshine for what felt like weeks on end. The reindeer were on the move quite a lot so it meant some big walks getting them each morning keeping us all fit. By the middle of the month we brought some of our (hopefully) pregnant reindeer into the enclosure so it’s been a busy time with reindeer everywhere: on the free range, in the enclosure, in the Paddocks, and of course over with Tilly at the farm. The Paddocks was very busy during the holidays with visitors and even though the Exhibition isn’t ready yet we’ve got a wee quiz for kids, lots of information boards to read, and of course four beautiful reindeer on display! Hopefully everybody who visited had an enjoyable time.
Very excitedly we’ve also had our first calf of the season!! A lovely wee boy who is doing incredibly well. Hopefully the May photo blog will be packed full of calves!
Ruth
Turns out a lot of my picture taking when it comes to the herd is usually done in the winter. But who can blame me as the environment on Cairngorm chops and changes so much, you almost receive whiplash! On the run up to Christmas, we had a herd of females out free ranging which consisted of yearlings, two year olds and a hand full of our retired girls. This meant that we would occasionally head out to feed the free rangers and here is a picture of Alba from such a trip- she’s looking rather magestic if I do say so myself.
The weather takes a turn a couple of weeks later and here is a picture of Akubra ladened with snow in the morning and a picture of Borlotti on the feed line in the afternoon once the weather had settled. Any eagle-eyed readers will notice a little snow bunting in the picture which turned out to be super tame, trying to pick up the remains of the reindeer food and almost landed on my head!
On the 23rd of November the weather was pretty severe. Myself, Lotti, and Sheena made and attempt to feed the herd in our hill enclosure where we couldn’t see (even with ski goggles on) and hardly could stand up. It was that wintery that snow had started to freeze onto Lotti’s hat! For anyone that knows Lotti, she has a pretty frosty exterior, which she is taking quite literally here.
Cheer is very aloof in character and has recently realised that the hand feed that us herders carry around on the Hill Trips is rather tasty! This has been quite the success for us herders as Cheer will often come up to us looking for food.
We’re jumping another couple of weeks here with a picture of lovely Mochi out on the free range. I am sure the girls had been sauntering over the ski road prior to this picture, so we decided to move them to higher ground so they weren’t causing chaos. You can also see Winnie and Juniper in the same trip.
Finally, we are finishing with pictures from a beautiful day we had during January. We had trudged through quite a depth of snow, falling into lots of drainage ditches on the way out to feed the free ranging reindeer, for them not to come over to meet us. It had been two days since they had last been fed by us herders, so we were expecting a little more enthusiasm from them. But just before we were going to turn back for our lunch, the reindeer started making their way down to us which meant we could kick back, enjoy the sunshine and views and wait for the herd to make their way over.
Amy
February has been a great month as we moved into our NEW Reindeer Centre. We opened the doors to the public on the 8th of February for the very first time – hoorah!
The Hill Trips have been running as normal every day (apart from one where we had to cancel due to wild weather!) and we’ve been taking visitors to the free ranging herd here on Cairngorm. We’ve also had reindeer on display in the Paddocks for the February half-term holidays. The entire herd is now back out free ranging in the hills, split between two locations. I love this time of year – getting out to see the reindeer in their mountain home every day is an absolute privilege.
Here’s a selection of photos just taken on my phone over the last month.
Ruth
November has been a very mixed month for me in terms of work! Here at home I’ve been on the hill working with the herd, taking lots of people up to meet the reindeer on Hill Trips, and spending most afternoons sleigh training or working though the gazillions of adoptions that are coming in ahead of Christmas. I’ve also been on road with Christmas teams doing parades in Dumfries and as far south as Wilmslow. The reindeer were super and made me incredibly proud. Biggest shout out to Akubra who pulled the sleigh like an old pro in his first public events!
Ruth
My involvement with the reindeer goes back 30 years when Tilly and Alan were my neighbours and Alex and Fiona where still very wee.
I came up to the Highlands to work at Badaguish Outdoor Centre for people with additional needs before I was due to start a nursing degree . I never left – I fell in love with the mountains, and then a reindeer herder!! And now the reindeer.
My wonderful friendly golden retriever Rosie used to end up at Reindeer House after following any walker passing by my house down at Badaguish. Tilly would phone me and I would often end up there socialising, helping out, then for dinner and end up walking home with Rosie after a wee whisky or two!
I eventually went to university but not to study nursing. I did a Honors Fine Art degree in 2004.
Over the years I have kept in touch with Tilly and the reindeer, volunteering, an extras pair of hands or legs walking out onto the mountains to help herd in the girls for calving or just going up to spy the herd in the summer months on the mountain.
Several years ago, I got a call to work with the team and use my artistic talents for ‘Christmas Fun’ (weekends in December when Santa visits the Paddocks). By this time Fiona was all grown up and coordinating all things Christmas and the herd on Cairngorm along with her mum and the team. Now I am just a regular part-timer in the team.
So, when I am not a reindeer herder you might find me working in my studio at home as an artist, working on some colorful wild abstract paintings. These days I also work on some reindeer crafts, inspired from my trip to Jokkmokk, Sweden in 2020 with fellow reindeer herders Fiona, Joe, and Olly where we stayed with friend Sofia, Mikel Utsi’s great niece. Inspiration for art was everywhere. The snow, visiting herds of reindeer, northern lights, traditional cloths, and traditional food.
That part of Sweden is the capital of Sami culture in Sweden holding the Sami winter festival, which involve reindeer racing, reindeer parades, and all things Sami culture. And I had a wonderful time in the Sami Museum viewing the traditional arts on show. This was very much my inspiration for small reindeer art and crafts for the shop.
Sheena