The forgotten Scots

CULTURE
Michael Elcock on the Scottish diaspora – and how we disregard it to our own detriment

Part I

Photograph by Graeme Murdoch

Michael Elcock was born in Forres and grew up in Edinburgh. He emigrated to Canada when he was 21 years old and worked in pulp mills, in the woods, on west coast fishing boats and as a ski instructor before becoming a tourism professional. He was chief executive officer of Tourism Victoria. Among his books is 'Writing on Stone' (2006).
     What follows was originally written as a talk delivered to the Saltire Society of Victoria, British Columbia, in April 2009. He has since edited it for more general consumption.

What is a diaspora?
Questions about Scotland's diaspora are being examined now by government in Scotland at a high level – perhaps for the first time ever; certainly for the first time that I am conscious of. Alex Salmond, the first minister, is keenly aware of the existence of Scotland's diaspora, and sees it as a source of great potential; an area that holds considerable importance for Scots and Scotland. Kenny MacAskill, minister of justice, has written two books on the subject ('Global Scots – Voices From Afar' and 'Wherever the Saltire Flies'). Jim Mather, minister of enterprise, energy and tourism has made substantial efforts to connect with Scots overseas since his appointment, as has Mike Russell, minister of culture, external affairs and the constitution. I make these points in order to convey the idea that this is a subject that is in fact quite real in the corridors of political power in Scotland.
     First though we should define what we mean by a diaspora. The current sense of it comes from the Greek – in a word which originally meant 'a scattering of seeds'.
     The word 'diaspora' appears to have first been used (not as a word in the English language of course – so I should probably call it the concept of a diaspora) in relation to the banishment of the Jews from Babylon, when they were thrown out of Palestine. It seems to be generally accepted by scholars that the first mention of a diaspora created as a result of exile is found in the Bible, in Deuteronomy, in the quotation '...thou shalt be a dispersion in all kingdoms of the earth'. The use of the word developed further when the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek. The usage then underwent subtle change as it started to indicate the population of Jews that had been exiled from Israel/Palestine in 607 BC. It was applied again as a descriptor for the Jews who were exiled from Judea by the Romans nearly 700 years later.
     The word is now applied, incorrectly I'd say – although I'm not going to debate that here – to almost 'any group migration, or flight, from a country or region'. Or to 'any group that has been, or has become, dispersed outside its traditional homeland'.

Scotland's relationship to its diaspora
Most of us would probably agree that a nation's greatest asset is its people. Most nations seem to confine their sense of their people, their race or their ethno-cultural group, to a particular geographic area. But not all nations do this. There are examples all over the world, through the ages, of the inclusion of an ethnic diaspora in the thinking and in the economy of nations.
     But one country that has – at least up until the very recent past – conspicuously failed to expand its thinking on this matter, is Scotland. Scots in Scotland rarely think about, or in any significant way connect with, people of Scottish descent around the world.
     Scotland is not a wealthy nation. Her current population is a little more than five million people. There were dreams of riches when the oil boom hit the North Sea in the 1970s, but in reality, as long as Scotland was a part of Great Britain, any wealth from North Sea oil was bound to be subsumed into the general economy of the United Kingdom. Beyond the oil resource, there is little in modern Scotland to create independent wealth, to raise standards of living. Scotland's banks were an example of an Alberta-like boom for a relatively brief period of a couple of decades – but in the end they were all apparently dependent for their success on external factors, factors that were ultimately beyond their control. You can count among these factors big London-based shareholders, pension funds and other similar institutions, national and international.
     One would think that Scotland's reliance for economic prosperity on the Westminster government, on external factors, would be a strong incentive for business and government in Scotland to engage a source of finance and economic support, a source of ideas and energy that has consistently over the centuries displayed a loyalty to Scotland, a loyalty that transcends the kind of self interest and – dare I say it – greed that has characterised some of Scotland's other relationships in this regard.
     I am referring of course to Scotland's diaspora, and it is a great mystery to many people – and especially to Scots overseas – why the country's political leaders have, up until now, paid so little attention to it, and why its captains of business and industry largely continue to do so. After all, factors of economic dependency, of cultural difference and resistance, have been a catalyst throughout the centuries for popular movements for Scottish independence.
     It is estimated that Scotland's diaspora has five million members in Australia, a further two million in New Zealand, and up to 25 million in the United States. In Canada we know that around 4.2 million people are Scottish in origin.
     We know this because an organisation called The Scotland Funds undertook a study in 2007 to obtain as accurate a figure as possible about these diaspora demographics, and particularly as they are in Canada. According to the research that was done here, it was established that Vancouver has a population of 312,000 Scots, Calgary some 189,000, and Toronto a whopping 518,000. It is interesting to note – particularly in light of the influx into Edinburgh over the last 20 years of people from England and from all parts of the Commonwealth – that Toronto arguably has a higher population of Scots than does Scotland's capital, which has a current population of around 470,000 people.
     In any event it goes almost without saying that this kind of market intelligence, especially with names, and perhaps with addresses added to the raw numbers, would be an invaluable tool for Scotland's business and industry in engaging with the diaspora in Canada. Information like this would be particularly useful to companies in Scotland that export Scottish themed products into Canada.

The Hanseatic League was a trading alliance of northern European cities, driven by an association of merchants and traders. The Hanseatic League was founded in the 12th century. Scottish ports like Leith, Aberdeen and Dundee traded freely with continental cities and seaports that belonged to the league. It was common a few centuries ago to find Scottish merchants, teachers and soldiers living and working throughout Europe.
     In 1669 the ship Nonsuch returned to England from Hudson's Bay loaded with furs. This was the catalyst that led to the founding of the Hudson's Bay Company. However it was not until the Union of the Crowns in 1707 that the British Empire – as it was at the time – really opened up to the Scots. It was then that Scots began in significant numbers to move from Scotland to the New World.
     We have lots and lots of examples of this migration in Canada. It inevitably includes Scottish explorers like Alexander MacKenzie and Simon Fraser, and immigrants like the resourceful Orkneymen who were the mainstay of the Hudson's Bay Company's labour force throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. It includes people of extraordinary vision like John A MacDonald of Rogart and Glasgow, Canada's first Prime Minister and the father of confederation. There are many, many others.
     We have more examples in the plethora of Scottish place names all across Canada. Most Canadians could rattle off a couple of dozen without even thinking about it – Airdrie, Alberta; Craigellachie, British Columbia; New Glasgow, Nova Scotia; Inverness, Cape Breton; Calgary and Banff, Abbotsford and Coldstream, Kildonan and Selkirk in Manitoba; Aberdeen and Elgin in New Brunswick; Aberfoyle and Callander in Ontario. Many hundreds of Scottish names have been applied to towns and cities, mountains and lakes, rivers and deltas, sanctuaries and peninsulas across Canada, and up north in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.
     But more important than any of these things I have just mentioned is the reputation for ethics, honesty, and humanitarianism that was established by 20th century Scots like Tommy Douglas from Falkirk (father-in-law of the film actor Donald Sutherland, by the way) – who introduced Canada's universal, publicly-funded health care system – and by Scots like Colonel James MacLeod of the North West Mounted Police in the late 19th century. It is this which lies at the core of Scotland's enduring legacy overseas – this more than anything else.
     MacLeod, from Drynoch on Skye, went to Canada as a young man. He joined the North West Mounted Police when it was founded in 1874, and later established and named Fort Calgary on the Bow River in Alberta. MacLeod was instrumental in bringing peace to a wild, lawless part of the country, and he did so without bloodshed and with little disagreement from the native peoples. His was a very different approach to that of the US authorities to the south.
     Red Crow, the great chief of the Blood Indians, articulated the native view of the principled MacLeod when he made this statement before he signed the Blackfoot Treaty of 1877...'Three years ago, when the Police first came to the country, I met and shook hands with Stamixotokon (Colonel Macleod) at Belly River. Since that time he made me many promises. He kept them all, not one of them was ever broken. Everything that the police have done has been good. I entirely trust Stamixotokon, and will leave everything to him. I will sign (the treaty)...'
     No one in their right mind would question the profound influence that the tiny country of Scotland has had on Canada. According to the historian Trevor Royle, Scotland has been suffering the best part of two and a half centuries of decline. In his seminal work 'The Flowers of the Forest' he suggests that this has become much more acute over the last hundred years.
     So why has this great influence, this connection forged by exploration and toil, by the adoption of systems of education and the law, and by centuries of economic generation and reciprocation – why has it been so neglected when it could be such a force today in a country that in relative terms is struggling economically and socially, as Scotland is?

Several people, who have been active in Scotland in trying to generate interest in just these factors, reckon that the attitudes of the 21st century diaspora towards Scotland are as varied as the reasons that their forebears left. Graeme Murdoch, who is involved with the Cultural Connect project, is one who is often frustrated by the attitude of home-based Scots toward the diaspora. He and his colleague Harry McGrath both believe that this remains an area that is largely unexamined in Scotland. 'There are far too many stereotypes here about Scots overseas,' says Murdoch, 'that they wrap themselves up in misty-eyed tartan, and that they're completely out of touch with today’s Scotland.' Living in some sort of Jacobean dream world perhaps. In Harry McGrath's opinion this is a simplistic and destructive view which has discouraged real engagement with the great majority of people in the global Scottish family. As he puts it, 'The people of Scotland's diaspora imagine Scotland in many different ways – of course they do – but there are an astonishing amount of things that connect them to the home country – far, far more than enough to accommodate just about all of them.'
     Well, I don't know about that. My own experience rather goes against it – so here's a little story. A couple of months ago I was asked a question by Graeme Murdoch, who was working on the current Homecoming Project in Scotland. The question was – 'You are a Scot in Canada. What, if anything do you miss about Scotland? (Is it Irn Bru or porridge or what?) Under what circumstances would you come back? In what ways is Canada
better?'
     I was asked to give an answer to this in about 150 words. Here it is:
     'It's the hills. When I lived in Glen Lochay I was very aware that every fold of the hills there had a story to it – that I was walking in the steps of ghosts. I knew of the ancient weapons quarry up near the top of Creagh Cailleach, knew about the An t-Allt Fuileach – the bloody burn that runs down the hill above Killin. I knew of the crannogs in Loch Tay long before they became something for the tourists. It's the same around Edinburgh, where I did most of my growing up. I love the silence of the Pentland Hills, where you can see a fox or a heron or a hawk. I marvel at a populous city that can have a place like Arthur's Seat to wrap you up in its relative fastness right near its centre.'
     I love the hills here, but I really don't know their stories at all – even though I've lived in Canada longer now than I ever lived in Scotland. Canadians have rarely taken the trouble to include the native people in their histories, rarely folded the aboriginal mythology and legends into the immigrant cultures. I believe that this has impoverished Canada in much the same way that Scotland was impoverished by the failure to teach much in the way of Scottish history and legend, music and literature when I was at school.
     Scotland is the place where a big part of my spirit lives, so yes, I'd go back. But I don't know if I could ever work in Scotland again. Too many native Scottish minds seem to be unable to develop a real understanding of the possibilities of life – unable to develop the creative imagination that needs to be applied to today's workplace, to business and industry. Scotland still needs to learn how to use the talents of its people properly, and more wisely than it does.

To be continued on Thursday