The latest edition of History Scotland provides proof, if proof were needed, that emigrating to Canada was a good move for young Scots a century ago. The magazine’s Scots in Canada Special took a look at Canadian Army enlistment documents from the First World War. They show that Scots who enlisted in Canada were both heavier and taller than their brethren who joined up back in Scotland. The authors of the article speculate as to why that might be. A healthier diet and better housing are obvious answers. The figures suggest the Scots quickly caught up with their Canadian born contemporaries in terms of height and weight after a couple of years in Canada, though they were slightly shorter on average.
On the other hand, the magazine argues, perhaps the Scots who went to Canada were already in better shape than the Scots who remained at home. A case of Canada creaming off some of the best of Scottish manhood. Certainly, food for thought there.

I was reading a book recently about big business in Canada. What struck me was how much of it involved smoke and mirrors. Companies were taken over using money that didn’t exist. Bending the rules and pushing the envelope strayed on far too many occasions into criminality. Company executives seemed to decide that the law didn’t apply to them. That got me thinking me about the teetering world of high finance. Conventional wisdom seems to be that to prosecute white collar crime would cause a catastrophic loss of confidence in financial markets. I remember hearing a former City of London broker admit on the radio a couple of years back that he and all of his colleagues regularly broke the law. I thought at the time that criminal prosecutions might have actually restored confidence: I don’t remember any. Now it seems that the bankers learned nothing from the financial crisis triggered by the US mortgage market collapse – except that the “too big to fail” ploy might not work again. Perhaps it’s time to call the cops.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve read two articles having a go at the Hollywood movie Braveheart. What is it about that film that gets under the skins of Englishmen so? Maybe they’re not used to being portrayed as the bad guys. Though I don’t think many Bollywood historical epics have many good things to say about the Raj either.
The English critics accuse Braveheart of being historically inaccurate. William Wallace did not father a child with the Queen of England. He didn’t win a battle when the Irish mercenaries in English service met the Scots halfway across the field and started partying. Englishmen kidnapping Scots brides to satisfy their lust was not a major cause of Wallace’s fight. King Edward I was not a medieval Darth Vader. Wallace did not hunt down and kill all the Scots nobles who sided with the English. The Scots didn’t wear the style of kilt seen in the movie and many didn’t wear kilts at all.
I say, take a chill pill. It’s Hollywood. The basic facts are there. Wallace did fight the English, many of the Scottish nobility did side with the English, Wallace did defeat the English, was defeated in turn when Edward/Darth Vader showed up in person and Wallace did die a barbaric death for a crime he wasn’t guilty of – he owed no allegiance to Edward and therefore couldn’t commit treason.
Hollywood follows in the tradition of the Viking sagas and medieval ballads. Exact historical accuracy takes a back seat to capturing the essence of the story. And, anyway, who do the Braveheart nay-sayers cite as their sources. Why, English propagandists. There is much we will never know about Wallace. It was a complex time. Hollywood doesn’t do complex. 

An inquiry has just confirmed that Afghan journalist working for the BBC, Ahmed Khpulwak,  was shot dead last July by a United States soldier who mistook him for a suicide bomber. War reporting is inherently dangerous and accidents can, and will, happen. But the incident raises some concerns. US troops have killed several journalists in the past few years but they never seem to kill US journalists. Why is that? Have US journalists been lucky so far? Or do they know enough about the training and abilities of their own military to be super-wary of it? Will it take the death of a US journalist to force an improvement in US military training and end the killing of their foreign colleagues. So-called friendly fire attacks on British troops in both Gulf Wars revealed that US pilots were so badly trained that they were unable to recognise the armoured vehicle of allied nations – vehicles that bore no resemblance to any the Iraqis had in their inventory. I’ve wracked my brain and I can’t recall a single recent incident in which British or any other western troops have killed a reporter. Perhaps the law of averages and the size of the US military means American troops are the most likely to be involved in “friendly fire” attacks on fellow soldiers and journalists. Or perhaps there’s something else going on.

Even before the Royal Regiment of Scotland was created, Canada had more kilted infantry units than Scotland. OK, so the Canadian units were reservists but the fact is that units such as the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada from Vancouver, the Calgary Highlanders and the Black Watch of Canada from Montreal, all point to a proud Scottish military tradition in Canada.
Scots soldiers played a major role in conquering Canada from the French in the 1760s. Only a few years later the Scottish veterans of that campaign and their sons helped repel an American invasion. There was even a regiment called The Royal Highland Emigrants, which included amongst its officers the husband of Highland Jacobite darling Flora Macdonald.
During the First World War, Canada’s kilties captured so much of the glory accorded to the Canadian Corps that after the war several militia units assumed Scottish identities. No fewer than 15 Canadian reserve units have either Highander or Scottish in their names. And even although Canada’s ethnic make-up has changed dramatically in the last 40 to 50 years, Canadian soldiers still don the kilt. I remember meeting some Canadian Seaforths when they were on exercise here in Edmonton. None of the guys I met  was even of European descent but they were all proud to parade in the kilt. And come to think of it, I’ve never been on an overseas Canadian military base that didn’t have at least one piper.
So, I’m looking forward to the September/October issue of History Scotland which celebrates the Scots in Canada. I’m told that not only does it look at the Canadian/Scottish military tradition but also at the Orcadian contribution to opening up Canada’s west to European settlement. There’s also a piece on Canada’s old Gaelic-speaking communities. I remember a Scottish teacher who spent her summers on Cape Breton in Nova Scotia saying she could tell where in the Highlands and Islands folks’ ancestors came from by the type of Gaelic they spoke.