Did you know Scots have been involved in Canada before most of the world even knew it existed?

Nearly a thousand years ago (1010 AD) Thorfinn Karlsevni was exploring the east coast of Canada with two Scots amongst his crew. Unfortunately their names were not recorded for historians to discover only the fact they came from Scotland. Some five hundred years later Jean Rotz (the son of Scotsman David Ross) was involved in mapping the giant St Lawrence River.

New Scotia is simply a Gaelic form of New Scotland named after the huge number of Scottish Highlanders who settled there and still boasts the largest Gaelic college outside of Scotland and the only one in Canada.

One of Canada’s most famous regiments was “The Kings First American Regiment” founded in 1776 fought in their traditional kilts to the sound of Scottish Bagpipes. It was this regiment that beat George Washington at the battle of Brandywine with most of the regiment setting in New Brunswick. (In 1843 there were over 30,000 recorded Scots living in New Brunswick.)

Although most people now think of Quebec as being French Canadian…..

Scottish Highlanders however should be credited with the rapid development of the company. In 1799 it was recorded that four of five Hudson Bay Company employees being Scots bringing with them their culture of being prepared for hardship and hard work. In addition due to their total lack of class consciousness they were able to mix freely with the Native Americans/First Nations and built close relationships for trade …