Highanders have made their mark in Glengarry, Eastern Ontario. This is shown in this edited version of an article by Ken McKenna which appeared in the Glengarry News, 2nd June '99.
On Sunday, 9th May '99, Glengarry was visited by a group of Gaelic language teachers from Scotland, Ireland, Nova Scotia and the U.S., led by Dr. Paul Birt, Chair of the Department of Celtic Studies at the University of Ottawa. The teachers were at Ottawa U. for a conference on the teaching of both Scottish and Irish Gaelic. Our visitors arrived by bus at the Glengarry Pioneer Museum in Dunvegan: it was not yet open for the season. But curator Brenda Kennedy rose to the occasion and greeted the 15 visitors at the main building, the Roxborough Township Hall. What interested them most was the local Belden Atlas of 1879: the four Glengarry townships of Lancaster, Charlottenburg, Lochiel and Kenyon are shown in detail and the names of the 3,000+ farm owners are listed. About 90% of the names are Highland and, as Marianne McLean says in her book The People of Glengarry, any non-Highland people in the area at that time would have been "awash in a sea of Gaelic."
After a visit to the Kenyon Presbyterian Church cemetery, which one visitor described as having "more Highland names than the graveyard in Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye," we set off for St Raphael's Church. Our visitors were intrigued by all the Gaelic place-names along the way as we zipped past Laggan, the Glenelg Road, Fassifern, the Lochiel Road, the Eigg Road, both the Glen Nevis and the Glen Roy Roads and finally on to St Raphael's, where Msgr. McDougald escorted the party around the ruins. Our visitors were shown Angus McRae's tombstone with the inscription "noted Gaelic singer". We showed them where Big Finnan-the-Buffalo McDonald was buried together with his native wife. I pointed out that although Finnan had little formal education, he spoke English and French and several Plains Indian languages as well as the Gaelic.
Our next stop: St Andrew's Church in Williamstown; this was originally Presbyterian, founded under the inspiration of John Bethune, the first Presbyterian minister in Glengarry. When I told the group some stories about the friendship between "Big Bishop" Alexander Macdonell and John Bethune, and how they had often shared in ministering to the early pioneers in peace and harmony despite their very real doctrinal differences, our visitors were impressed. This respect for the beliefs of others continues to be part of the Glengarry tradition. Then it was off to St Andrew's West with its log church, the Blue Chapel, and St Andrew's Catholic Church, with the graves of both Simon Fraser the explorer and John Sandfield Macdonald, a Prime Minister of Upper Canada. Before the visitors left for Ottawa, Dr. Birt thanked us for a wonderful tour and agreed to return later in the summer for our Gaelic Festival, Feis-Glengarry, in Dunvegan.
Kenneth McKenna's excellent book on early
Glengarry life, Highland Paths
- people and places, and the
Scots areas from whence the settlers came - is available, as is a
cassette recording of the
Glengarry Gaelic
Choir.
A Day Out in
Williamstown, Glengarry - Simon Fraser
Plans are in hand for a family-oriented
visit (own vehicle and/or minibus) to Williamstown, north of
Cornwall; the trip will include a lecture and video about Simon
Fraser the explorer, a visit to the Nor'wester Museum and probably a
visit to St. Andrew's Church. Both Ken McKenna of Dalkeith and Don
and Merle MacLeod of Maxville have been assisting. With further help
from Bob Campbell, and David Garnet Anderson, a Guardian of the
Society, an interesting day is expected. A Saturday (or Sunday) in
late-May or early June is proposed. Further details -
Hugh
Reekie -
613-728-5343.
The Winter
Lecture - Saturday 12th February, 2000 -
The Old Town Hall, Main St. at Hawthorne, Ottawa - 40 persons
attended the event;
The Hon. Flora
MacDonald, one of the Guardians of
the Society, gave the presentation
The Auld Alliance in
Canada. It is hoped that the
full text will be available to the society in due course.
Ms. MacDonald gave many anecdotes which mentioned the judgements made by Scots soldiers in the British Army which set the tone for the Canada we have today. She also mentioned that her grandfather, a Cape Breton clipper-ship captain, spoke French in addition to his native Gaelic; he also learned Latin and Greek but made no conscious effort to learn or speak English.
As
background, Ms MacDonald wrote: In
1295 Scottish nobles rebelled against English domination over their
country and entered into a defensive alliance with the French who
were also at war with England. And so was born the Auld Alliance
which was to form the basis of foreign policy between Scotland and
France for more than 300 years. That relationship was transferred to
Canada with the arrival of some of the first European settlers --
Jacques Cartier's lead ship was reportedly piloted by a man from the
Isle of Skye. Since that time many events critical to Canada's
emergence as a nation have been engineered jointly by sons of
Scotland and France in the New
World.
Obituary - Lancelot
Rotchell - a dedicated Society member
Born in India of an English father and Scots mother, Lancelot Rotchell passed away in Eastern Passage, near Halifax, NS, in early February 2000, aged 86. A noted horseman with UK military service in India and North Africa, Lance moved to Canada in 1955. He sang in the Ottawa Welsh Choir and was active in Scottish dancing; a member of the St Andrew's Society of Ottawa for many years, he served on the Executive and designed the Society's thistle-based insignia. His wife Jean pre-deceased him; he is survived by a sister in Australia, nephews in Barbados and a married stepson in Nova Scotia.