My wife and I were driving on the southeast side of the Loch, between Dores and Foyers. It was an overcast day, maybe four in the afternoon, when we spotted this huge animal, slithering across the road about 200 meters ahead of us. The body was 1.5 meters (5 feet) in height, and I estimated its length at 7-9 meters (25-30 feet). Its color could be called a dark elephant grey. We saw no tail, but later concluded that the tail must have been curled around alongside. It did not move in the usual reptilian fashion, instead, its body shot across the road in jerks. Although I accelerated towards it, it had vanished by the time we reached the spot.

—MR. F.T.G. SPICER, LONDON, 22 JULY 1933

Chapter 9

Drumnadrochit, Scottish Highlands
Scotland

Seventeen years… and the village hadn't aged a day.

Drumnadrochit is the first in a series of Highland communities that push west from Loch Ness's Urquhart Bay up the River Enrick and into Urquhart Glen, Glen Affric, and Glen Cannich.

To the two hundred thousand tourists who visit Drumnadrochit each year, the town is the epitome of Highland commercialism, bustling with hotels and guesthouses, European bed-and-breakfasts, tubs of colorful flowers, friendly people, restaurants and bars, quaint shops, and private mountain lodges that overlook the Loch. More important, Drumnadrochit lies near Castle Urquhart and its mysterious deep- water bay, making it the Loch Ness monster capital of the world. The village is home to two competing Loch Ness Monster exhibits, and now John Cialino's soon-to-be-open resort.

To the 813 residents who depend upon tourism to earn their wages, Drumnadrochit is six months feast and six months famine, a pattern that follows the extremes of tourism and the length of its days. Because the Highlands are located so far to the north, summer days at Loch Ness can run from three in the morning until as late as eleven at night. Conversely, midwinter days are reduced to six-hour slots, from nine-thirty in the morning to only three in the afternoon. Living in Drumnadrochit was like living in Alaska, only with more moderate temperatures and less snow, old world charm and nosey neighbors, everyone seeking a livelihood among some of Mother Nature's greatest works.

To a young Zachary Wallace, growing up in a Highland village so far from civilization meant antiquated textbooks, third-run movies, wrath-of-God sermons, and closed-minded teachers. It meant excessive schooling in farming and the ways of crofting, and hanging out at the petrol station with friends. It was stealing the gnomes from old lady Dougall's garden and living in a place few outsiders could spell, let alone pronounce, and its isolation from the rest of the world seemed to impose a ceiling on my ability to garner knowledge about the rest of the world… at least until I was old enough to sneak bus rides into Inverness.