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KEN MCGOOGAN
Canada, Scotland, Arctic 2016

Showing posts with label Celtic Lightning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Celtic Lightning. Show all posts
Let's take back Arctic history in Scotland

Let's take back Arctic history in Scotland

March 14, 2018
Faithful readers (hi, mom!) will recognize this image of Abbotsford from my book Celtic Lightning.  The historical novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) created this castle-like residence, now a museum, 40 miles south of Edinburgh in the Scottish Borders. Sheena shot the photo a few years ago, when last we visited.
End of March, I have a fighting chance of getting back to Abbotsford, thanks to a new "friendship bridge" that extends between the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.  I have fallen heir to a whirlwind, four-day speaking tour, and one of the places I will visit is Galashiels (see image below), which is three miles from Scott's creation.
My presentation is entitled Let's Take Back Arctic History: The John Rae Story. I argue that the  orthodox or 'official' version of Arctic exploration history focuses almost exclusively on Royal Navy officers, omitting the contributions of Canada's indigenous peoples and fur-trade explorers like that peerless Scottish-Orcadian John Rae.
Those who have read Fatal Passage or Dead Reckoning will know where this is going. Anyway, if you find yourself in Scotland on May 26, 27, 28 or 29, you can catch my song-and-dance, successively, in Dumfries, Galashiels, Ayr, and Helensburgh. No, no, please don't feel obligated to attend in more than one venue, or two at most, and by no means should you make a special trip from Canada -- not unless you are flying on points. Hope to see you in Galashiels!

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Ken McGoogan
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'Obscure' Canadian writer declines to don kilt for CTV appearance

'Obscure' Canadian writer declines to don kilt for CTV appearance

April 15, 2017
Ken McGoogan, identified recently by the BBC as an "obscure Canadian writer," has declined to don his kilt to appear on CTV's Your Morning show. McGoogan, who recently caused an international ruckus by suggesting that Canada invite Scotland to become this country's 11th province, was quick to add that nobody at the flagship TV show -- or anywhere else, for that matter -- had asked him to wear his kilt. "But a debate has been raging in my mind," he said. "Finally, I took a stand. I respectfully declined.'"
The author, whose recent books include Celtic Lightning and How the Scots Invented Canada, contends that the BBC allusion to his obscurity was gratuitous and hurtful. He is on record as preferring "insufficiently celebrated." McGoogan will appear on the CTV show, which is hosted by Ben Mulroney and Anne-Marie Mediwake, this Wednesday (April 19) at 7:45 a.m.
The author is taking an equally hard line as regards his illustrated presentation at the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse. Slated to talk about Celtic Lightning, McGoogan said, "Yes, I will also elaborate my Scottish proposal. But don the kilt to perform? No. As I told the voices in my head, you do have Scottish roots, but also Irish and French. People would accuse you of over-representing. Who do you think you are?" McGoogan will speak at the Schoolhouse in the heart of historic Toronto on Tuesday, April 25.
Four days later, during the nation-wide Authors for Indies celebrations, McGoogan will appear kiltless, though not without trousers, at Book City in the Beaches. He pledges to wear his kilt, however, to give a St. Andrew's Night presentation in Embro.  About that, more anon.

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Ken McGoogan
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Let's invite Scotland to join Canada

Let's invite Scotland to join Canada

April 01, 2017
Let's invite Scotland to join Canada.
The time to act is now. The Scots aren't happy with the Rest of Britain. They aren't happy politically with Britain's shift to the right. They aren't happy with Brexit, and with being piped out of a multinational alliance they don't wish to leave.
The Scots want to hold a second referendum on independence, but they're hitting a brick wall.
Time to extend an invitation. Would the Scots consider becoming a province of Canada? With a population of 5.3 million, Scotland would become our third largest province, after Ontario (13.9 million) and Quebec (8.3 million).
Canada's federal system of government already accommodates one officially "distinct nation." We could easily welcome a second.
These days, distance is no barrier. Scotland is closer to Canada (2085 miles) than Hawaii is to California (2471 miles).  And culturally? Well, I've already made that case in How the Scots Invented Canada and Celtic Lightning.  Yes, you can see where this is going: first we invite Scotland, then we call for Ireland. Is anybody with me?

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Ken McGoogan
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A Real Canadian can pretend to be Irish on St. Patrick's Day

A Real Canadian can pretend to be Irish on St. Patrick's Day

March 10, 2016
Gotta love a column by Peter Shawn Taylor that turned up today in the Waterloo Region Record -- one week in advance of St. Patrick's Day. Faithful readers will appreciate that I am a man without bias, ahem, but I do believe Taylor hits his stride when he invokes Celtic Lightning and, all right, paraphrases Our Hero. "With more than a quarter of Canadians tracing their ancestry back to Scotland or Ireland, McGoogan claims these ancient Celtic precepts were gradually inserted into our cultural DNA and have today come to define Canadians of all backgrounds. From this perspective, anyone who celebrates their Irishness on March 17 — whether genetically valid or not — is simply acknowledging the inherited meaning of Canada. McGoogan's theory thus offers some important lessons for those who attack Canada's history or feign outrage whenever anyone "appropriates" the symbols of their ancestors.
"The striking lack of complaints from Irish voices over the culture appropriation of St. Patrick's Day — particularly when the popular stereotype tends to emphasize drinking, fighting and swearing — reflects those admirable Celtic attitudes of good cheer, open-mindedness and inclusivity. All are welcome to join in the fun. Surely that's healthier than shouting "racism" at the drop of a hat.
"Every culture should similarly seek to define itself on the basis of accomplishment and aspiration as opposed to victimhood. Those many waves of Scottish and Irish peasants faced plenty of discrimination, poverty, marginalization, colonialism and hardship when making their way to Canada. As McGoogan points out, Sir John A. Macdonald, the father of Confederation, was a third-generation refugee whose family was evicted during the Highland Clearances of the 1700s. And while religious strife was once a defining characteristic of Ireland and Scotland, any sectarian connotation to St. Patrick's Day (or Robbie Burns Day for that matter) has long since been swept away by an all-embracing Canadian mosaic. It is the party that remains.
"If you want to know what it means to be Canadian, just pretend to be Irish on St. Patrick's Day."
You can read the whole column by clicking here. Go ahead. You know you want to!
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John A. Macdonald made mistakes . . . because he had lost Thomas D'Arcy McGee

John A. Macdonald made mistakes . . . because he had lost Thomas D'Arcy McGee

November 26, 2015


Again this morning, on CBC radio, we heard the now familiar attack on John A. Macdonald: how in building the Canadian Pacific Railway, and not incidentally laying the foundations of Canada, Macdonald mistreated the native peoples. There is no disputing the allegation. But I would suggest, and do so in Celtic Lightning, that this was a direct result of the disaster that happened on April 7, 1868. 
That was the date on which, after participating in a late-running session in the House of Commons, the most eloquent democrat ever to emerge from the Irish diaspora was ambushed on the steps of his Ottawa rooming house. Thomas D’Arcy McGee was shot to death by a Fenian sympathizer. In Celtic Lightning, I speculate about how different Canadian history might have been if D’Arcy McGee had escaped assassination. I write:
"Historian Christopher Moore reminds us that D’Arcy McGee had outlined a plan 'for a separate province to be set aside for the native nations on the plains of the far North West. He had begun to imagine a new country where none existed.' 
How would McGee have responded to the Indian Act of 1876, which set up residential schools and aimed to assimilate indigenous peoples? He did have the ear of Macdonald. And given that he was a champion of minority rights, and had envisioned the emergence of a separate province for First Nations peoples, he might well have sought to subvert that Act. 
"Also, McGee was staunchly Roman Catholic. He had led the battled against Orange-Order intolerance. How would he have responded to the judgment against Louis Riel? Would he have been able to prevent the hanging?
"Richard Gwyn has described John A. Macdonald was 'the one irreplaceable man' of Confederation. I would suggest, rather, that he was 'one irreplaceable man.' To my mind, and from the perspective of today, there was one other. In retrospect, we can see that Macdonald needed D’Arcy McGee. One of the great tragedies of Canadian history is that a Fenian assassin removed the Irish statesman before he had finished his work. "
Above all, that work would have included a much different relationship with the First Nations peoples.



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Haven't we forgotten the French? In Celtic Lightning?

Haven't we forgotten the French? In Celtic Lightning?

November 23, 2015
The question is fair enough. In writing Celtic Lightning, and exploring the origins of Canadian nationhood, did I neglect a crucial element? Given that I am one-quarter Quebecois, with pur laine roots stretching back to the early 1600s, I could hardly forget Canada's French Fact. But I also view myself as a realist. And I can no longer cling to the cozy old narrative of  how Canadian
nationhood arises out of a French-English rapprochement. Yes, I refer to the Confederation Story, which highlights the political alliance between John A. Macdonald and George-Etienne Cartier.
Few people appear to have noticed, but that narrative is dead. It ended with a whimper on Nov. 27, 2006. That was the date when, under Stephen Harper, the Canadian House of Commons passed a resolution recognizing that “the Quebecois form a nation within a United Canada.” Basically, one partner has withdrawn from the rapprochement. We have gone through a divorce. What? Are we supposed to keep telling the same old story of a happy marriage?
If the Quebecois constitute a distinct nation, what happens to the rest of us? What happens to the idea of Canadian nationhood? We find ourselves driven to engage, yet once more, with that perpetual Canadian question: Who do we think we are? One answer, currently fashionable, is that we should embrace our identity as a Metis nation. Alongside that idea, Celtic Lightning presents a numbers-based alternative. It suggests that we recognize our Scottish and Irish heritage as seminal.  
Celtic Lightning emerges out of the view that Canada is postmodern: one state, multiple identities. It also recognizes that of those 29 million Canadians who do not identify as Quebecois, almost one-third claim Scottish or Irish ancestry. By celebrating “Celtic” heroes and heroines as having played a crucial role in establishing this country's bedrock values, the book recognizes a forgotten dimension of Canadian nationhood. 


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Celtic Lightning strikes: 'engaging, readable, entertaining, overdue'

Celtic Lightning strikes: 'engaging, readable, entertaining, overdue'

November 02, 2015
Reviews turn up in Toronto, Glasgow, Winnipeg, & Victoria . . .
The Globe and Mail: "Celtic Lightning is engagingly personal. We follow McGoogan and his wife as they travel enthusiastically throughout Scotland and Ireland, from Grace O’Malley’s Connemara and Jonathan Swift’s Dublin to the Dumfries of Robert Burns, and even to the St. Andrews castle where John Knox was captured and sent to France as a galley slave. . . . [McGoogan argues that we should] look carefully at the great figures in Irish and Scottish history, because, in his prologue’s fighting words, they 'shaped the values on which we have built
a Canadian nation.'  This poses two great challenges. The first, obviously, is to blend the two strands of history, Irish and Scottish. This, he achieves brilliantly. . . .The range is fascinating, from Robert the Bruce to The Chieftains, and he avoids a strict Irish-then-Scottish rotation. For example, “Democracy” features the lives, and the Canadian influence, of Sir John A. Macdonald, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, John Knox, Robert Burns, Daniel O’Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell. The reader will find it hard to argue with his specific proposal that McGee and Macdonald formed a vital link in creating Canada, and his general belief in the importance of Irish and Scots to the country. -- Douglas Gibson 

 The Scotsman:  "[McGoogan] describes Celtic Lightning as 'cultural genealogy,' an exploration of the values and ideas that Scottish and Irish immigrants took with them from their homelands. . . . The result is as engaging mixture of history, memoir, and travelogue as McGoogan explores his own Scots-Irish roots and visits historic sites across Ireland and Scotland . . . . There is no disputing his bottom line. The sheer number of Burns statues, Irish pubs and other trappings of Celtic culture in Canada offer compelling evidence that values and ideas can cross oceans -- and the centuries."  -- Dean Jobb

The Winnipeg Free Press: “Like a latter-day Pierre Berton, Ken McGoogan would like history to be fun. Celtic Lightning is his latest effort at carving a niche for himself in the field of 'pop' history, bringing a delectable dish of thoughts and anecdotes and just enough facts to make us feel a little wiser. . . . . McGoogan credits British author Richard Dawkins for the 'cultural genealogy' idea that pervades the thinking behind Celtic Lightning. But the engaging prose, which made books like Lady Franklin's Revenge so readable, is McGoogan's own, enlightening as it entertains." -- Dave Williamson

The Victoria Times Colonist: “The way we think, as well as the things that we say and do, are influenced by the forces around us. The early European arrivals in Canada planted the seeds, certainly, and helped shape our government and our way of life . . . . McGoogan’s work takes a long overdue look at the forces that helped to shape this land.” -- Dave Obee

(Photos of Oscar Wilde and William Wallace statues by Sheena Fraser McGoogan)
 
 
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Ken McGoogan
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Seeking unsolicited advice? 'Don't quit your day job'

Seeking unsolicited advice? 'Don't quit your day job'

October 24, 2015

Meanwhile, at University of Toronto . . . .

Creative Writing, School Blog
With his latest book, Celtic Lightning: How the Scots and the Irish Created a Canadian Nation, author (and instructor at the School) Ken McGoogan plunges into the perpetual debate about Canadian identity: Who do we think we are? He argues that the Celtic ancestors of more than nine million Canadians arrived early enough and in sufficient numbers to shape the Canadian nation. Ken has published a dozen books, among them How the Scots Invented Canada, Fatal Passage, and Lady Franklin’s Revenge. He has won the Pierre Berton Award, the UBC Medal for Canadian Biography, the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, and the Canadian Authors’ Association History Award. Ken voyages with Adventure Canada as an author-historian, and has taught creative and narrative nonfiction at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies for more than a decade.
Lee Gowan, head of the Creative Writing Program at the School of Continuing Studies had a chance to ask Ken some burning questions about writing and teaching.
Lee: Last summer, you gave a talk at the Summer Writing School entitled Top Ten Things Every Writer Should Know. What was your number one tip?
Ken: Number one? Don’t quit your day job. In 2015, the Writers’ Union of Canada published a survey of Canadian authors. Today, on average, we are making 27 per cent less than in 1998. If we relied solely on writing-related earnings, 80 per cent of authors would be living below the poverty line. Our average income: $12,900. Median income: less than $5,000. In the United Kingdom, things are even worse. The incomes of British authors have dropped 29 per cent in the last eight years. Less than 12 per cent of them make their living by writing, compared to 40 per cent in 2005.
Why are things so tough? We all know the digital revolution is transforming the book industry, wreaking particular havoc among independent booksellers. When a writer sells a book to a traditional publisher, he or she receives an advance against royalties based on projected sales. If a book is projected to sell 5,000 copies, the best advance you can hope for is $15,000, and that would be spread out over a couple of years. Wait, what about grants? Doesn’t the Canada Council offer grants worth $25,000? Indeed it does. But a writer can only receive two grants in any four-year period, which works out to a maximum of $12,500 per year. Most granting agencies have similar conditions. And landing a grant is ridiculously difficut. Too many applicants, not enough funds. Until you write a “breakout book,” think of writing books as a vocation. Don’t quit your day job.
Lee: What’s the best part about teaching Creative Writing at the School of Continuing Studies?
ken in tarbertKen: Best part: you’re working with people who want to learn what you’re teaching. They’re interested and motivated and that makes all the difference. These days, I teach online and also in the week-long summer school. Moving to online forced me to clarify and organize my thoughts. I could no longer skate by on my good looks and one-liners (ha ha). Also, ten weeks is just about right. Some courses run sixteen weeks, but in my view, that is too long. I like the summer school for different reasons: mainly, the intensity. It is amazing how much you can accomplish, and how well you can get to know each other. Finally, I am proud to be associated with University of Toronto, one of the leading universities in North America.
Lee: As an instructor at the School, you meet people at different stages of their development as writers. Tell us about a memorable experience of sharing your knowledge with students.
Ken: Working online, I have especially enjoyed interacting with writers based in Japan, Uganda, Seattle, or Singapore. Quite a number of my students have gone on to graduate studies, and a few have published books. Usually that comes later. In class, I get people to write on the spot. When I see a really creative response to a particular exercise, I get a kick out of that. Last summer, one writer knocked my socks off with a double-whammy, incorporating a point-of-view lesson into an exercise on plotting. Last month, when I launched Celtic Lightning in Toronto, I was thrilled to see more than a dozen former students turn out.
Lee: Has teaching at the School had any impact on your writing?
Ken: I believe that, by compelling me to think about craft (e.g., what is wrong here?), teaching at U of T has done so, yes. I see the result when I compare my latest book, Celtic Lightning: How the Scots and the Irish Created a Canadian Nation, with How the Scots Invented Canada, which I published in 2010. I do love that earlier work. But I think the new one is broader, deeper, more original, and better crafted. It is broader because it treats both Scottish and Irish figures. It is deeper because it does not confine itself mainly to those who have lived in Canada, but goes back to the 1100s and beyond. It is original in arguing that (1) Canadian historians have been wrong to assume the limitations of geographers; that (2) genealogists provide a better model for historians; and that (3) Richard Dawkins has introduced a mechanism that explains the transmission of values and ideas through generations and across oceans. Is the book better crafted? I believe so, and think that teaching has forced me to refine my craft, and to consider, for example, how best to incorporate personal presence and use it as a unifying device. You see the end result, I think, in Celtic Lightning. But that, finally, is a matter for readers to judge.
Thanks so much to Ken McGoogan for sharing his story with us.  Visit Ken’s website and Twitter to learn about upcoming classes and events.
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Ken McGoogan
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Our Hero battles federal election AND the world's indifference

Our Hero battles federal election AND the world's indifference

October 13, 2015

Here we see Our Hero atop Spy Hill in Westport, Ontario.
This is the morning after he had wonderful fun participating in the Westport Writers' Festival. Our Guy looks to be leading a charge. Truth to tell, he sees himself as engaged in a two-front war. The first front is the usual one any writer faces: the world's indifference to the new book -- in this case, Celtic Lightning. The second is an accident of timing: the federal election is taking up soooo much time and attention. Surely we all know what has to be done? Even so, the battle goes well. The ground war, which involves readings, presentations, talks, and signings, has found me skirmishing in Toronto, Westport, Calgary and Winnipeg, with Fort Erie, Cambridge, Montreal, Halifax, and Hamilton looming in the near future. The air war is all about media, of course, and here we want shock and awe. Are we getting it?
Well, the Global TV Morning show scored a palpable hit. But probably the biggest bang came from that wonderful five-star review in the Globe and Mail, the headline of which said the book offers "an engagingly personal look at how the Celts shaped Canada." Two more notable strikes? What about that Q&A in the Vancouver Sun, in which we credit the "influence of Scotland, Ireland for what makes Canada." And let's not forget Celtic Life International, which got out early with another excellent Q&A. Bottom line? Party on!
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Thomas D'Arcy McGee could have saved Louis Riel

Thomas D'Arcy McGee could have saved Louis Riel

October 08, 2015
So here we have Louis Riel's tombstone. It's located in the Cimetiere de la Cathedrale de Saint-Boniface. From the Fort Garry Hotel in the heart of Winnipeg, I walked through the VIA-Rail train station, crossed over the Red River on Esplanade Riel, and made my way along the river to the tombstone. I was especially keen to visit it because in Celtic Lightning, I suggest that the Riel tragedy would have evolved and ended differently if Thomas D'Arcy McGee had NOT been assassinated. Basically, I make the case that, while the pragmatist John A. MacDonald was, famously, 
one irreplaceable man, the visionary McGee was another. He was the one who brought Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into Confederation. He called for a separate province for First Nations people, and he led the struggle against Orange Order intolerance. As an Irish Catholic, and a champion of minority rights, McGee would have opposed the hanging of Louis Riel. And, because he had the ear of MacDonald, he might well have saved the Metis leader. Standing at the gravesite, I found myself  wondering how different Canadian history might have been.

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Celtic Lightning: what happens at the Toronto launch . . . .

Celtic Lightning: what happens at the Toronto launch . . . .

October 02, 2015
Our Hero and Patrick Crean. A writer and his editor. With HarperCollins  Canada, we launched Celtic Lightning last night at Ben McNally Books in Toronto. Photographer Peter Rehak took the above shot. We signed a few books (right photo: Sheena Fraser McGoogan). And (below) Havard Gould made me do it . . . ? Author and ex-publisher Douglas Gibson spoke on behalf of The Canadian National Trust for Scotland Foundation, which brought in a superb piper (Michael MacDonald) and also the Highlander Brew Company . . . and the rest is cloaked in discreet silence. What happens at the launch stays at the launch.
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Well, hello Vancouver! Wonderful to surface where I did my MFA. . .

Well, hello Vancouver! Wonderful to surface where I did my MFA. . .

September 25, 2015
Author Q&A: Ken McGoogan credits influence of Scotland, Ireland for what makes Canada

Author Q&A: Ken McGoogan credits influence of Scotland, Ireland for what makes Canada
Vancouver Sun September 25, 2015

In his new book Celtic Lightning, Ken McGoogan looks at the influence of Scottish and Irish immigrants on the new Canadian nation. McGoogan has written a dozen books, including 50 Canadians Who Changed the World and How the Scots Invented Canada.

Q Why did you write Celtic Lightning?
A I wrote this book to rectify an omission. I have always been intrigued by that perpetual Canadian question: Who do we think we are? Some have suggested that surviving against the wilderness created our national character. Others have argued that the French-English divide is our defining characteristic. We have heard that we are a Metis nation, and even that the idea of a national narrative is obsolete. What is missing from this discussion? The influence of cultural genealogy. We have failed to track our formative history across the Atlantic. More specifically, we have neglected the influence of the Scots and the Irish, who arrived early enough and in sufficient numbers to shape our Canadian nation.
Q In making your case, you tell the stories of numerous individuals. What led you to this storytelling approach?
A Back in the day, when I was taking my MFA in creative writing at UBC, and writing a novel as my thesis, I believed that fiction and non-fiction were radically different genres. In the 1990s, when I began publishing books, I kept the two separate, producing one non-fiction book and three novels. Meanwhile, I earned my daily bread as a literary journalist. With Fatal Passage (2001), I applied the craft I had learned from reviewing and writing fiction to a non-fiction narrative. Bingo! The book won a number of awards and inspired a docudrama. It registered in the real world, and continues to sell especially well in Canada and the U.K. Through my next five books, I built on what I had learned from writing that book. Today, I find myself specializing in narrative non-fiction.
While writing How the Scots Invented Canada (2010), and investigating my own ancestry (Scottish, Irish, French), I realized that an ocean is an artificial barrier. Thanks to digital technology, we readily cross any body of water and go back five generations, seven generations, nine. We trace our personal stories to people who lived centuries ago. Why don’t we do the same with our collective history? Instead of accepting the limitations of geography and sociology, why not follow the example of genealogy?
I found support for this in the work of Richard Dawkins. He argues that memes, or ideas and values, are transmitted from one person to another through time and across space. More than nine million Canadians claim Scottish or Irish heritage. In British Columbia, the numbers are typical: more than 20 per cent claim Scottish ancestry, and 15 per cent Irish. Did the ancestors of more than one-quarter of our population arrive without cultural baggage? No shared attitudes and beliefs, no common vision? Impossible. They gleaned their values from their leaders and heroes. And they brought them across the Atlantic to Canada.
Q What are the values that have shaped this country?
A In Celtic Lightning, I identify five foundational values: independence, democracy, pluralism, audacity and perseverance. I show how they flourish in this country, and trace their evolution in Scotland and Ireland through separate parades of heroes and heroines: Robert the Bruce and Theobald Wolfe Tone, Daniel O’Connell and Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift and James Boswell, Flora MacDonald and Grace O’Malley, the Pirate Queen. I argue that these figures rightly belong to Canadian history, and that the two parades come together in Canada.
Q How do these foundational values make Canada different from, say, the United States?
A Canada is more similar to the United States than to any other country, and that is partly because Irish and Scottish immigrants played a crucial role in shaping both. Other demographic factors account for many of the differences. English puritans had a much greater presence in the early U.S., and in that country today, we see far more Christian fundamentalism. The largest linguistic minority in the U.S. is Hispanic (17 per cent); in Canada, it is French Canadian (22 per cent). More differences. Also, slavery never took hold in Canada the way it did in the U.S.
But I am ranging outside the book. In Celtic Lightning, we encounter James Douglas, a.k.a. the Father of British Columbia, who embodied a distinctly Canadian ideal of pluralism: half-Scottish, half-West Indian, he married an aboriginal woman and battled American expansionism. And we meet that Irish-born visionary Thomas D’Arcy McGee, one of the most underrated Canadians of all time. After living in the U.S., he realized that Canada tolerated religious difference in a way that the larger country never would. He denounced the American doctrine of manifest destiny, and envisaged a separate Canadian province governed by aboriginal people. If McGee had lived, the story of Louis Riel would have played out differently. But he was assassinated by Fenians — Irish Republican Americans incapable of appreciating his greatness.
            
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Original source article: Author Q&A: Ken McGoogan credits influence of Scotland, Ireland for what makes Canada
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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.