Finding Scotland in Nova Scotia
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EXAMPLE of media enthusiasm from The Chronicle Herald.
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HARRY MCGRATH with Kim Dickson, Marketing and Communications Director New Glasgow, Ann MacLean Mayor of New Glasgow, and Graeme Murdoch
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DAVE MACINTOSH, Artist in Residence at Hector Heritage Quay in Pictou.
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By HARRY-MCGRATH
We were looking for signs of Scotland in Nova Scotia and, according to the taxi driver who transported us from the airport into Halifax, we would find them "almost everywhere." The taxi driver turned out to be a prophet.
Photographer Graeme Murdoch and I recently travelled to Nova Scotia to launch the "This is who we are" photography project which, as I mentioned in April's column, is intended to foster links between same-name communities in Scotland and in Canada.
It took less than a day in Halifax, however, for us to realize that we had to add another dimension to the project to avoid leaving anyone out. The depth of interest we found there had us adding "Find Scotland in Halifax" as a photographic challenge to the already established same-name communities theme.
The first indication that we had struck a chord in Halifax was a message from CTV saying that they were "intrigued" by the project and wanted to film us at Pier 21, Halifax's famous disembarking point for new immigrants to Canada.
We had already spent some time examining photographs provided to us by the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh of Scots who were processed through Pier 21, and were taken by how young and full of hope they all looked.
Now we were able to see the prams supplied by the local Red Cross to those who arrived with babies or young children and examine the pictures of the ships, many with Scottish names, which took people there.
The piece was broadcast on CTV's "Live at Five" with one of the presenters commenting on how much interest it had generated and then explaining his own Scottish heritage.
The CTV coverage uncorked Scotland in Halifax. People stopped us on the street to explain their own connections to Scotland and promised to send photographs or come to Scotland for our exhibitions and other events in Homecoming 2009.
The Halifax Chronicle-Herald ran a follow up news item which generated more momentum. We even found ourselves invited to the local Masonic Hall to photograph the enormous painting of Alexander Keith of Caithness that adorns one wall there. Keith was Mayor of Halifax but is better known for the brewery that he founded. His product still tickles Haligonian thrapples today.
From Halifax we roamed the length and breadth of Nova Scotia.
In Antigonish we were told about the Scottish Gaelic programme at St. Francis Xavier University. In Pictou we discovered untold Scottish riches gathered around the Hector Heritage Quay which centres on a full size replica of the ship which brought sick and impoverished Highlanders from Loch Broom in 1773.
Though fairly well acquainted with the Hector story, I was amazed by a map that showed how far back towards Scotland the ship had been blown in bad weather before turning and making again for Nova Scotia.
There was an eerie echo of this episode in 2004 when Hurricane Juan picked the Hector replica from its moorings and dashed it against the Pictou shoreline.
In Digby, near Annapolis Royal, where Sir William Alexander arrived with Scottish settlers in 1622, we met Junior Theriault MLA, Mayor Frank Macintosh, John Demings the editor of the Digby Courier and Ian Russell who emigrated from the Stirling area of Scotland only four years ago. All of them knew of the area's historic connections to Scotland and were keen to add contemporary ones.
The same-name communities theme was not forgotten and we eventually found our way to New Glasgow where the entire town seemed to be waiting for us.
New Glasgow was founded by Scottish settlers in 1784 and named after Glasgow in Scotland. Remarkably, the two communities shared a dependence on shipbuilding and both faced the problem of replacing shipbuilding with other ventures when it was no longer a viable industry.
We had breakfast in New Glasgow with Mayor Ann MacLean, wife to former premier of Nova Scotia Russell MacLellan, and discovered how this remarkable woman had revived the fortunes of New Glasgow by focusing on the retail, service and financial sectors.
She had even been to old Glasgow to look at town centre revitalization which is her next major project for New Glasgow. And the town motto, "New Glasgow Flourish", is derived from "Let Glasgow Flourish", a contraction of the prayer of St. Mungo which he offered up in the hope of enhancing the prospects of the Scottish city.
In New Glasgow the library took on "This is who we are" as a community project and the Strait School Board committed to involving teachers and students.
Both local papers turned out to photograph and interview us and the town historian took us around the ancient graveyards where some of the people from the Hector are buried.
All we could do to reciprocate was promise to return to old Glasgow and engage the community there. The photographic results of the relationship between old and new will be exhibited at Europe's largest public library, Glasgow's Mitchell, during Homecoming 2009.
And so back to Scotland, exhausted but exhilarated by the reception given to us and our project in Nova Scotia.
Next up in Canada is the cluster of Scottish named towns in Southern Alberta - Calgary, Banff, Airdrie, etc. - and an invitation from the St. Andrew's Society of Calgary to join them at the Calgary and Canmore Highland Games and introduce the project to 18,000 people a day.
In the meantime we are off around Scotland - to Inverness, Banff, Calgary Bay, Glasgow, Edinburgh - to drum up enthusiasm here. If Auld Scotia reacts the way Nova Scotia did to the project, there are exciting days ahead.
[More information on the "This is who we are" photography project is available at www.culturalconnectscotland.com.]
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