Posts
Monday, Jan. 24: With Robbie Burns Day looming, Our Hero chats about Scots with Sheila Rogers on The Next Chapter, CBC One, 1 p.m.
Tuesday, Feb. 8: Toronto Reference Library. 1-3 p.m
Saturday, Feb. 12: Winnipeg, Manitoba Historical Society. Featured speaker, 46th annual Sir John A. Macdonald dinner.
Thursday, Feb. 17. Markham. U of T Lecture Series. 1 p.m.
Thursday, Feb. 17. Toronto, St. Andrews Society. 8 p.m.
Saturday, Feb. 19. Toronto, Royal Scottish Country Dance Society. Tartan Ball, guest of honour.
Wednesday, Feb. 23. Oakville. U of T Lecture Series. 1 p.m.
Friday, March 4. Toronto. U of T Lecture Series, 1 p.m.
Before turning mainly to books about arctic exploration and Canadian history, Ken McGoogan worked for two decades as a journalist at major dailies in Toronto, Calgary, and Montreal. He teaches creative nonfiction writing through the University of Toronto and in the MFA program at King’s College in Halifax. Ken served as chair of the Public Lending Right Commission, has written recently for Canada’s History, Canadian Geographic, and Maclean’s, and sails with Adventure Canada as a resource historian. Based in Toronto, he has given talks and presentations across Canada, from Dawson City to Dartmouth, and in places as different as Edinburgh, Melbourne, and Hobart.
1 comment:
Just started on How the Scots Invented Canada. I've also read Herman's book. Both are fascinating. And as you suggest, yours is more biographical, his a bit more academic.
My parents were married in the new Kirk in Alloway and I grew up in Thurso where my bedroom window looked over the Pentland Firth towards the Old Man of Hoy.
I'm not completely certain, but I rather think purists wouldn't let you get away with calling Burns' Cottage a croft (page 5). For me, a croft is pretty consistent with the Highlands and Islands, not south Ayrshire. But as I say, I'm not sure. My great-great-grandfather is buried next to Burns' father. So rather like your wife I have "connections."
My surname is quite distinctly Orkney and Caithness, and when I emigrated from Scotland to Canada in the 1960s, Cormacks were strung out all across northern Canada, but rarely in southern Canada, representative I suppose of the HBC's taking on Orcadians two and three hundred years ago as its ships revictualled in Kirkwall. Now, over 40 years later, I notice that in places like Vancouver and Toronto there are scores of us!
Let me know what you think of my croft remarks.
James Strathearn Cormack
Vancouver
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