ROOTS

You have been so patient as I sorted through, and put captions on all my pictures from Scotland.  As usual, I took several hundred photos, so it's taken me awhile  ...

10 glorious days in Scotland ... I was surprised at the impact it had on me.

I had decided to go because I work in a Scottish church and so wanted to understand a bit more about the roots of the large number of Scots in our congregation.

Roots!  What was unanticipated was the stirring up of my own roots, of my own childhood, and of the significance of the large Scottish settlements in Eastern Canada.

I reintroduced myself to what is Scottish in me: my mother had roots in the Sinclair clan; the Craigs came from Aberdeen and were a prominent sept in a clan.

                                                 Sinclair Red Modern

Signs I looked at, tombstones I read, street names, storefronts, towns or cities I passed through or stayed in, all bore the names of children I had gone to school with in Lennoxville, or names of patients of my father or of neighbours, or of cities and towns familiar to me in Eastern Canada.  At first it was uncanny and then the feeling of being "at home" flooded me.  The roots of so much of my childhood were here in the ground of the Highlands.   Inverness, Murchison, Matheson, Murray, Grant, Brown, Allcorn, Burns, McGilvery, Campbell, Glengarry, Calgary, Banff, Gordon, Stewart ....

I was curious, then moved and troubled when I finally understood what the Highland Clearances were all about.  To see remains of crofters' stone houses, crumbling stone walls where once there had been a farm, sheep grazing by the hundreds, reminded me of the horror the ancestors of my friends and many Canadians lived through, as they were forced off their farms and made to leave, and the land was cleared for the raising of sheep.  So many emigrated to Eastern Canada and settled there.  Their culture, language and food colours much of Ontario on the Quebec border, and of the Eastern Townships, where I come from.

Another surprise was how I reacted to the hills, the open spaces and panoramas with few if any people in them.  It was like a breath of fresh air and I drank it in deeply.  I hadn't realized how much I missed this aspect of Canada, living as I do here in a city, and in a little country with one of the most dense populations in Europe.  The Scottish Highlands fed my thirsty soul.  Again, I felt "at home".

I got a fresh insight into the Scottish Reformation: heard lots about John Knox, saw monuments to Reformation martyrs, learned more of the Scottish story but also saw remains of cathedrals and churches that the newly Reformed people tore down.  So fascinating for me from Quebec to see that the majority of the churches in Scotland are Reformed/Presbyterian, coming as I do from a Roman Catholic province.

I had beautiful weather and I saw Scotland at its best  Stunning scenery, quiet forests, sparkling lochs, green fields where sheep grazed, heather-covered hillsides and solid Scottish architecture.

 

 

And my new friends - my hosts - became fast friends.  Isabella Burn took the time from her busy schedule to walk me around St. Andrew's; Brian and Karsee Parr in Dundee let me enter right into their family fun and daily schedule; Laura and Murray McCheyne in Inverness drove me to the North Sea and to Loch Ness, hiked me up a mountain and let me right into their family life too; James and Jyl Murray helped me better understand the story of the Clearances, drove me to Ullapool and shared their beautiful home hidden away amongst the hills and the sheep.

 

                                "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof."

                                                           "Haste ye back"

                                                    ... and I WILL go back!