As a kid, Bruce McCowan enjoyed looking through his grandmother McCowan’s stash of Scarborough history – an old scrapbook, a family photograph album and so on. But he only took a history course up to grade 10. Sporting a Canadian flag on his backpack and hitchhiking in the UK in 1974, he told a “lorry” driver, “my family came to Canada from Lesmahagow in Scotland”. The lorry driver said – “we’ll be going past there in a couple of minutes”. “That’s nice” Bruce thought at the time. And on they went to Glasgow. “Well, now that I’m here in Scotland, I might as well take some time to look into the family background and their circumstances.” Since then, off and on, he has done a good deal of research and writing on various themes in connection with the lives of ordinary Scots and their descendants in Canada. One of his recent books (as Editor) is We’re Not Here to Put in Time: Ramblings on a Scottish-Canadian Work Ethic, With William David “Bill” McCowan (his late father). Bruce particularly enjoys digging so deep as to reveal and discuss historical myths, such as “it was the wealthy landlords who launched Scotland’s agricultural revolution”.
Sessions:
Friday Workshop: Scarboro’s First Burns Supper: Values of the Immigrants (A Living History Snapshot of Jan. 25, 1834)
