Tartan Week Event,This is who we are-Part II
This is who we are
Canmore officially embraced its Scottish roots with the mayor proclaiming April 6 as Tartan Day in 2010.
In 2011 Canmore went a step further to promote Tartan Week in town. Cultural Connect Scotland along with the Canmore Highland Games and the Canmore Folk Music Festival presented This Is Who We Are — Part II a photographic exhibit at the Civic Centre in honour of the heritage in Canmore.
Cultural Connect Scotland's Graeme Murdoch brought a photo exhibit to help Canmore residents and Canadians understand the strong ties that bind our two great nations, reflected in the many names that Scotland has given to so many of the places here.
There are over 1,000 places in Canada that have received their names from Scottish places.Scottish people have played a lead role in the founding of Canada. The first two prime ministers after Confederation, Sir John A. Macdonald and Alexander Mackenzie, were both Scots.
Statistics Canada's 2006 census estimated there were 4,719,850 people of Scottish decent in Canada, the third most common reported origin after English and French.
"Canadians I've met in my time here are more aware of their heritage than possibly any other country in the world," he said. "For instance if you mention Tommy Douglas to any Canadian, they know who he is, but if you mention Tommy Douglas to anyone in Falkirk (Scotland) where he came from they haven't got a clue who he is."
Murdoch and another founder of Cultural Connect Scotland Harry McGrath took three trips to Canada (their second trip brought them out to Canmore, Alberta) where they continued to find connections, and living synergies, between the two countries.
The material they found during their journeys formed an impressive collection that was sent on tour in Scotland in 2009.
Murdoch brought the reflection of that collection-- to present to Canadians-- essentially the flipside of the collection that went on tour in Scotland.
They've gone to places in Scotland that are the origins of the names of places in Canada (Banff, Canmore, Airdrie and Calgary, for example) and brought back their stories. To accent the synergies, Murdoch brought videos of stories that might be of particular interest to Canadians.
The exhibit itself is printed on fabric. It is light-weight, and mobile, and will reside in Toronto until Murdoch`s next trip to Canada when he intents to bring it farther a field in the country. The beautiful banner will be left with the Office of Scottish Affairs in Toronto until Murdoch`s much anticipated return.
Greetings from Scotland
The last time I was here was for the Highland Games in 2009 when I was collecting images for the project that Harry McGrath and I had devised for Year of Homecoming back in Scotland.
So on St Andrews Night in 2009 the First Minister of Scotland the Rt Hon Alex Salmond closed the first part of the ‘This Is Who We Are’ exhibition at the Scottish parliament in Holyrood following its tour of Scotland with a request that the exhibition return to Canada. The Presiding Officer of the Scottish parliament Alex Fergusson and the Deputy High Commissioner of Canada Claude Bouchet said the same. So, Tartan Overlord your wish is my command and I am here to serve. However it cost 250 bucks of excess baggage costs to bring the exhibition over so you will be hearing from me when I get back.
So whit’s it a aboot I hear you ask?
Talking to my old friend Alistair MacLeod author of No Great Mischief one April Thursday in Toronto over a glass or several of Highland Park I am reminded of Alistair’s eloquence about dislocation. I prefer dislocation to diaspora which has become a much overused word back in Scotland.
When I travel, whether to Malawi, India or Canada – especially Canada which I have grown to love almost as much as Scotland – I leave Scotland physically but not entirely emotionally and so like Alistair I begin to think of these new places in terms of the Scottish landscape and the people…but not in a distant way. I may be absent from my native landscape but when I am in Canada I feel I am still back in Scotland. Especially with a dram in my hand.
In creating this exhibition many hands and eyes came to the story. It is the effort and expression of a crowd; children up and down Scotland and Canada, my professional pals who have worked with me for many years. Myself, of course, who will go anywhere at the drop of a bunnet and it is no geographical inconvenience for me to be here in Canada, I assure you.
The appearance of a photographer on the landscape or at your door is often alarming but I hope you will agree that the subjects in this exhibition are clearly at ease with our intrusion. What we have here are glimpses of lives in Scotland and Canada which together form a mosaic of life. We attempt to reach into the hearts of the subjects portrayed and present them still beating on these panels and this is just the continuing account of a lasting friendship between our two great nations.
Where next? Well, more of Canada – I intend to be back in Septemebr if not before – and there are many Scots in Australia but I fancy eastern Europe next as I have heard about a whisky bar in Odessa in the Ukraine and there are many 1000s of Scots migrants in Poland. Then there is outer space where there has to be a few Jocks.
So thank you Canmore and especially Sally Garen and Beth Vandervoort from the Highland Games office, Beth’s husband Randy for keeping the beer flowing, Carol Picard and John Martland from the Folk Festival, and Chris Bartolomie, and Heather May from the Town of Canmore Civic Centre.
Haste me back
Slainte
Graeme Murdoch
