Media Releases >
Media Releases Archive
> Project digs up B.C.'s Scottish roots
Project digs up B.C.'s Scottish roots
Document Tools
September 7, 2004
Letters from British Columbia's Scottish community have been pouring into Harry McGrath about his latest project. The coordinator of Simon Fraser University's Centre for Scottish Studies (CSS) is overseeing an oral history project called Scottish Voices From the West-The Story of Scots in Modern British Columbia. McGrath is soliciting and recording interviews with Scottish emigrants and their descendents. Once transcribed, the interviews will be available as web documents, CDs and MP3s, providing the public with vivid accounts of BC's rich Scottish heritage.
“The few remaining Scottish societies left in Vancouver have told us they are worried about their history dying with them. Most of the societies' members are now quite elderly,” says McGrath, a Glasgow native. The meeting records of Scottish societies have given McGrath numerous leads on who was who in B.C.'s Scottish community. “We're focusing on capturing stories about individual Scottish emigrants and descendants who've played key roles in building B.C.,” emphasizes McGrath.
So far, he and his colleagues have conducted 14 of 200 scheduled interviews. Among the intriguing yarns transcribed so far are those from Mary Macaree and Margaret Shelton. Macaree and her late husband David authored 103 Hikes in Southwestern British Columbia in 1973, a book that remains a hiker's bible. Mary, now a West Vancouver resident, emigrated to B.C. in the 1960s from Luthermuir in Aberdeenshire where her family ran a farm. The Macarees were also pioneer teachers in Prince George and Fort Fraser.
A letter from East Vancouver's Margaret Shelton laments the fact that Scottish history pays too much attention to the accomplishments and tales of Scotland's upper and middle class, and not the working class. The daughter of a Glasgow native and WW1 veteran, Shelton recounts why her father was stripped of his war medals. “If you know your history,” writes Shelton, “you'll know that our troops…had to fight in their kilts. [My father] was cold.” To stay warm, Shelton's father donned a dead enemy soldier's long underwear. That cost him his medals.
-30-
(electronic photo available)
Websites:
SFU Centre for Scottish Studies, www.sfu.ca/scottish/