This Is Who We Are – photographs from the journeys to find out

For Argyll has published a feature article – This Is Who We Are – on the exhibition of that name, the most inspirational of the main Homecoming Scotland 2009 commissions. Its creators are Graeme Murdoch, a photographer and former art director for a series of national newspapers and Harry McGrath, an academic and Coordinator of the Centre for Scottish Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver (pictured left, with Harry on the left and Graeme on the right).

The exhibition brings together images from a selection of Scottish diaspora communities in Canada – in Nova Scotia, Alberta and British Columbia.

The journey described in the feature – from Vancouver to Calgary, Airdrie, Canmore, Banff, Craigellachie, Coldstream, Mont Currie and back to Vancouver – was one of several the two men made in putting this exhibition together.

What follows here is a series of photographs taken on these journeys by Graeme Murdoch and captioned by him. Together they catch something of the flavour of the rich variety of experiences the two men encountered as they tracked the seeds planted  by the Scots in Canada.

THE ROAD EAST:  after a long flight from Edinburgh we headed east from Vancouver. Now we are in Western Canada driving hundreds of miles on the Trans Canada Highway through rainforests, snow capped mountains, and arid plains to places where Scots have been before and left a trail of toponyms – Calgary, Banff, Airdrie, Coldstream, Craigallachie, Abbotsford – for us to follow. Ahead of us is Mount MacDonald, named after John MacDonald, Canada’s first premier. Beyond, the Rockies, and our destination, Calgary. (Photo: Graeme Murdoch)

CALGARY, ALBERTA: the petro-capital of western Canada. The original settlement became a post of the North-West Mounted Police (now the RCMP). Originally named Fort Brisebois, after NWMP officer Éphrem A Brisebois, it was renamed Fort Calgary in 1876 by Colonel James Macleod after his home on Mull. The day after we hit town we appeared on CTV live noon news. ‘I had no idea that Calgary was named after a place in Scotland’,  said Ian White, CTV anchor man. Our story was launched. (Photo: Graeme Murdoch)

AIRDRIE: the open plains of Airdrie in Alberta. (Photo: Kori Sych)

BEAR CUB: we were eager to see bears, and did in British Columbia, but our friend Pam Doyle, the writer/photographer on the Canmore Leader sent us this picture of a bear cub making a dash for the woods. (Photo by Pam Doyle)

IONA: East Bay, near Iona. This was the first major Scottish Settlement on Cape Breton Island (Photo by Derek Campbell)

CAPE BRETON CHURCH: snowy kirkyard in Inverness County, Cape Breton. (Photo: Derek Campbell)

SIGNS: Scotland is everywhere in Canada. This is the north shore road in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. One name not on the sign is Knoydart which is a small hamlet near Lismore. (Photo: Graeme Murdoch)

LISMORE, NOVA SCOTIA: The sun lit church cemetery of ST Mary’s RC church. Two lines from a poem on a panel by the church state:
“A narrow creed drove Scotmen o’er the sea,
Their hearts were Mary’s and they would be free.”
by Rev. A. A. MacKinnon

Lismore was once called Bailey’s Brook after John Baillie, a disbanded soldier from the 82nd Regiment, who settled at the mouth of the brook. It is a settlement of Highland Catholics beginning in 1788. (Photo: Graeme Murdoch)

PICTOU:  It is 5.30am and I wake to the first clear sky since we arrived in Nova Scotia. This is the graveyard on the point outside town where many of the descendants of the settlers who arrived on the Hector in 1773 are buried. The names on the headstones are testimony to Pictou’s  motto: “The Birthplace of New Scotland”. There are Grants, Frasers, MacDonalds, Mackintoshes laid to rest here. (Photo: Graeme Murdoch)

Copy right on all the photographs above resides with the named photogrtaphers and are reproduced here with permission.