James Jerzy McGoogan

My favourite Scottish holiday tradition has long been The Ba. That’s the lunatic game the Orcadian Scots play at Christmas and New Year’s.  A couple of hundred players, mostly young men, take over the streets of Kirkwall and participate in this rugby-like game that involves carrying a cork-filled leather ball, “the ba,” either up the main street or down it. Each team has dozens of players, no limit, and some of them harbour grudges. But the main difference from rugby is that there are no rules – none. Anything goes.
So maybe I should clarify. I love the idea of someone else participating in The Ba, whose disputed origins are lost in the mists of time. But no, I cannot recommend that tradition to Canadians who wish to embrace the Scottish dimension of the holiday season that is almost upon us.  I am thinking mainly of my one-year-old grandson, James Jerzy McGoogan (pictured above), to whom I dedicated my book How the Scots Invented Canada. Do I want him ever to play in The Ba? No, I do not.
By comparison, Hogmanay is tame. This Scottish celebration starts on New Year’s Eve and runs through the next day and sometimes longer. Scotland’s national poet, Robbie Burns, once revelled in Hogmanay festivities that spun out of control. . . . [Read more by clicking here.]

 With Scotland at my shoulder. . . .

When I write history, I try to wear my research lightly. And for my last five books, I have been blessed with an outstanding editor, Phyllis Bruce at HarperCollins Canada, who catches me up whenever I let my reading show. “Lighten up,” she writes in the margins. “Too academic!”
 


 In my new book How the Scots Invented Canada, the bibliography runs to sixty titles. Highlights include three collections of essays, a meditation, and a couple of surprises. In The Scottish Tradition in Canada, edited by W. Stanford Reid (M&S, 1976), I found thirteen scholars coming at Canadian life from fourteen angles. . . .
The expose continues here.

Ken & Cameron at the Atwater Library

So this was the scene at the Atwater Library in Montreal, just before our hero explained How the Scots Invented Canada. That's Cameron Stevens, the Piper Major of the legendary Black Watch regiment. We're facing a goodly crowd that proceeded to do the right thing . . . i.e. they bought every book that was there to be sold, and even one that wasn't. And they filled out more than a few entries, as well, in hopes of winning that voyage through the Scottish Isles. I told the audience, truthfully, that Sheena won us a trip to Scotland last year when her business card got pulled from a jar. So, yes, Virginia, it can happen to you. The Atwater event preceded a fun occasion at Bishop's University, and a two-hour interview with a BBC film crew working on a three-part series about Scots in Canada. Then came Ottawa, where I donned my Public Lending Right cap, and home, where CBC Radio turned me loose on unsuspecting listeners in 11 cities across Canada. Down time is for sissies.

Folks have been clamouring for an update. Maybe start with the fabulous reviews in The Toronto Star and January Magazine. The two are radically different, but both made me blush and tingle. Cut to this afternoon and "The Willow" in Hudson, Quebec, where we talked and taped for two hours. This was in aid of a three-part BBC series that will begin airing in February. And it followed hard on radio interviews at CJAD (Montreal), CBC Radio (Quebec), and CJMQ (Sherbrooke). At the Atwater Library in Montreal, the piper major of the Black Watch, Cameron Stevens, piped me to podium -- a special treat. Lynn Verge at the library orchestrated a wondrous event (sold all stock). And in Sherbrooke, at Bishop's University, a terrific audience turned out thanks to Mieke Koppen Tucker, an old friend -- and they bought a truckload of How the Scots and more than a few of my Arctic books. Multitudinous folks entered to win that incredible free voyage around Scotland with Adventure Canada, which is co-sponsored by HarperCollins Canada (which has done something fabulous and exemplary with a revolving homepage). Meanwhile, almost 100 people have checked out the interview at Book Club Buddy.

Yes, it's really happening. Adventure Canada and HarperCollins Canada are sponsoring a fabulous contest to celebrate the publication of How the Scots Invented Canada. You can win a free voyage through the Scottish Isles -- that's a free berth for one, plus a discount for a companion. How cool is that! I will be sailing on this expeditionary cruise as an author-historian. Along with other resource people, I'll give talks and slide-show presentations. As always, we will use Zodiacs to go ashore at different locations. And I promise that, if called upon, I will lead the charge to the nearest pub or whisky distillery. That's the kind of guy I am -- always willing to go that extra mile. Check out How the Scots and see for yourself.

Bonus: Here's a review that turned up in The Edmonton Journal . . . .

Well, geez, already I like the Book Section in tomorrow's Globe and Mail and the paper's not on my doorstep yet. First we discover Roy MacSkimming writing about How the Scots Invented Canada:
"There’s indeed much fun here, as well as instruction (Scots always like that), and your name doesn’t have to begin with Mc or Mac to savour this book." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/how-the-scots-invented-canada-by-ken-mcgoogan/article1758926/

Then we find Kathleen Winter talking about Lady Franklin's Revenge: "What I love about this book, aside from McGoogan’s elegant, lucid and impassioned writing, is the turmoil between the lines." You gotta love it.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/the-human-core/article1758785/
Next stops: Montreal and Sherbrooke. More details to your right under What's New.

So how cool was that? We had a bagpiper precede me to the stage, we had publisher Phyllis Bruce of HarperCollins Canada produce a bottle of champagne, and we had Matthew Swan announce a fantastic contest involving the book and my next voyage with Adventure Canada. The book is How the Scots Invented Canada. The occasion was the Toronto launch at the Dora Keogh Pub. And the contest will involve sailing through the Scottish Isles, though details won't be announced until next week. For the rest, revelers ended up singing Northwest Passage, and Ben McNally Books moved 50 copies of the opus -- a sell out! Here, in a photo by Peter Rehak, you see Matthew capping an array of gifts with . . . wait for it . . . a can of haggis. Maybe you had to be there.