HarperCollins, Toronto, 2010
431 pp., illus., $29.99 hardcover
At first glance, it seems cheeky to suggest that the Scots “invented” Canada. After all, the First Nations, the French, the English — never mind the groups that came later — can all be said to have played no small part in making Canada what it is today.
The title of Ken McGoogan’s book is an attention-getter, all right. But even if you don’t buy the argument that “a handful of Scots and Scottish-Canadians invented one of the world’s most pluralistic countries,” it’s interesting to read little-known tidbits about the people McGoogan puts forward as our inventors.
Apparently, more than half of our prime ministers have had Scottish blood. Certainly, there’s no argument about the Highland origins of Confederation’s founder — John A. Macdonald — who was born in Glasgow. But some of our Scottish leaders have had rather un-Gaelic-sounding names. John Diefenbaker, born in Neustadt, Ontario, was in fact descended from Selkirk settlers on his mom’s side. The book has a photo of Dief looking nifty in his kilt and tam-o’-shanter.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau is also not normally thought of as a Scotsman, yet his middle name — Elliott — belongs to a maternal line of Scotsmen who emigrated to New England in the 1700s and later came to Canada as United Empire Loyalists. McGoogan points out that Trudeau was much closer to his mother than to his French-Canadian father. No photos have turned up of Trudeau in a kilt, however.
McGoogan presents scores of examples of how individual people of Scottish origin influenced Canada in politics, science, the arts, literature, commerce, and other areas. He even goes back to 1398 to demonstrate how a little-known Scot named Prince Henry Sinclair was probably the first European, after the Vikings and Basque sailors, to set foot in what is now Canada.
McGoogan — a former newspaper journalist who specializes in writing popular history about Canada’s North — rests his argument that Scots invented Canada on this: The eighteenth-century Scottish enlightenment — which was rooted in Calvinist Presbyterianism that required believers to become literate so that they could read the Bible for themselves — came about at the same time as Scotland’s economy was rocked by the Highland clearances. Many highly educated people found themselves with no prospects in the mother country, so off to Canada they went. Scotland ended up exporting its brightest and its best.
Those who emigrated tended to be young and ambitious. A high level of literacy produced people who thought for themselves at a time when notions of egalitarianism were gaining ground. McGoogan points out that this sense of equality led Scottish-born explorers like John Rae to learn from the indigenous people, rather than assume superiority.
As McGoogan himself points out, the idea that the Scottish enlightenment had far-reaching effects is not completely new. In 2001, American historian Arthur Herman — a Norseman by ancestry — gave the Scots near divine powers in How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything In It. Since Herman’s book devotes only a few lines to Canada, McGoogan — whose own family tree extends to Scotland — decided the Canadian connection was ripe for elaboration.
The result is a book that gives a thumbnail sketch of almost every Canadian of note with any Scottish blood — from famous feminist Nellie McClung, to retail giant Timothy Eaton, to medicare founder Tommy Douglas. It’s a long list.
Today, about 4.7 million people in Canada claim Scottish ancestry. They’ll probably like this book.
— Nelle Oosterom (Read bio)
Nelle Oosterom is the Senior Editor of Canada's History magazine.