Some fear when Charles Kennedy was laid rest in the graveyard at Clunes above Loch Lochy last week, the Highland Liberal tradition was buried as well.
Certainly one embattled MP left in the former LibDem fastness of the Highlands and Islands, indeed the whole of Scotland, suggests as much.
It would appear Mr Kennedy himself had similar concerns texting his friend Alasdair Campbell, Tony Blair's former spin doctor: "Fancy starting a new Scottish left-leaning party? I joke not."
We have had two new parties comparatively recently in the Highlands. In April 2013 the anti-wind farm Alliance Party of Scotland was launched in Inverness, only to fold in May 2014.
In 1998, the Highlands and Islands Alliance or CÃ irdeas (friendship, goodwill) was launched on Skye to compete on the Highland regional list.
It had some original ideas. One was their MSPs would job share, a family-friendly arrangement (accepted by the returning officer) to allow more women, small business owners and others to stand, with one always in their communities.
But in the end Cairdeas only polled 2,607 votes, fewer than the UK Socialist Labour Party and about a third of the Greens' total.
It is doubtful prospects for a new Scottish party would be much better now. The LibDems and Labour are trying to rebuild, the Scottish Greens are already established players. Cluttering things up and further dividing votes wouldn't seem the wisest course.
But the LibDems do have a long road back in the Highlands. Many voters here still can't understand their leaders recoiling at the prospect of a coalition with the SNP in Holyrood in 2007, but saw it as their patriotic duty to support the Tories in 2010.
The divisive issue of the referendum could have been parked in 2007 with a majority of MSPs then opposed to it. Now the LibDems have also walked out on a coalition with SNP and Labour in the Highland Council.
The leadership nationally seems overwhelmed with an intense anti-SNP sentiment, which would surprise some of their Liberal forefathers. It is hindering the party's search for a positive route through today's political landscape strewn with its own and Labour's wreckage. It's hardly the Nats' fault the LibDems reaped a bitter harvest for sustaining the Tories and austerity.
However there is no doubt Mr Kennedy, suffered horrible cyber-treatment at the hands of certain SNP supporters.
Both parties could do worse than recall how they fought the 1992 General Election in Argyll. At the start, SNP candidate Professor Sir Neil MacCormick, one of the 20th century's most renowned jurists, went round all his opponents' HQs shaking rival party workers' hands, wishing them luck. Ray Michie, the LibDem victor, similarly set a tone of civility.
The two friends debated robustly but their shared decency and integrity was greater than their differences over Home Rule/Independence. Scotland was the lesser for their passing, and it is hard not to feel a little more of what they represented was also buried at Clunes.
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