Last week’s column about the Grey-Bruce area’s Gaelic heritage appears to have struck a chord. I’ve been getting phone calls from readers who expressed a heartfelt interest in the subject because of their Scottish Highland ancestry, and a strong desire to share their family history. That included whatever they knew about that tragic episode in Scottish history known as The Scottish Clearances and the crucial but now little-known role it played in bringing their ancestors to this area. Continue reading
General Interest
Gaelic in The Bruce, and a Painful Heritage
I was passing some time in the quiet room of a local medical facility recently when a small book on a little-used bookshelf caught my eye. It was a copy of the Bruce County Historical Society’s Centennial Book, published in1967.
What’s With the Weather?
Out west on the Canadian prairies they’re praying for the rain to stop falling. Here in Grey-Bruce and much of southern Ontario we’d like nothing better than a few old-fashioned rainy days. Continue reading
How Not to Grow Strawberries
I’ve always had a lot of respect for traditional farm families, those people who have devoted their lives to the backbreaking and often heartbreaking job of trying to scratch a living from the ground, day after day, year after year, sometimes generation after generation. A good part of my childhood was spent living with and amongst such people, and I’m sure it taught me a lot about what life is all about for most people who live on this earth: hard work, the planting of seeds, and plenty of hopes and prayers that the sweat of one’s brow will be rewarded with a bountiful life-supporting harvest. I believe those things apply to any honest work a person might take on.
History of Black Settlement in Grey-Bruce
A project to develop a new school curriculum about this area’s long-neglected history of black settlement is a great idea, of course. Better late than never. But I can’t help but wonder how those early black settlers might feel and what they might say, knowing it would take so long for their presence to be celebrated with such interest. I have an idea, based on a brief conversation I had many years ago with an angry man in a place called Amber Valley, an historic black settlement in northern Alberta. But more about that later. Continue reading
Finding Hope Ness 