Entry Island

I stood then, among the trees, with the sun warming my skin, steam rising off me in the cold air, and I uttered my final farewell to him. ‘Cuiridh mi clach air do charn.’ I’ll put a stone on your cairn. Then I recited aloud from John, chapter 11, the verse that I knew so well by now. ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.’

As I sit here now, writing this, I want so much to believe it, just as I did when old blind Calum recited it over my father’s coffin. But I’m not sure that I do any longer, and all I know is that Ciorstaidh is lost, my family is dead, and Michaél is gone.

Note

It should be noted that although Baile Mhanais, Ard Mor Castle and the Langadail Estate are all fictitious, the events depicted in relation to the clearance of settlements there are based on real events that occurred during the nineteenth century on the Isle of Barra, the Isles of North and South Uist, the Isle of Harris, and to a lesser extent the Isle of Lewis, during what has become known as the Highland Clearances.

The Highland potato famine was real and lasted almost ten years.

The quarantine island of Grosse Île in the St Lawrence River existed as described, and has been preserved today much as it was when it finally closed down in 1937.

The largest Celtic cross in the world was erected on Grosse Île in memory of the five thousand Irish immigrants who died there in 1847. This book is dedicated to the memory of all the Scots who died there too, and to the very many more who went on to help make Canada the extraordinary country it is today.

Acknowledgements

I would like to offer my grateful thanks to those who gave so generously of their time and expertise during my researches for Entry Island. In particular, I’d like to express my gratitude to Bill and Chris Lawson, Seallam Visitor Centre, Northton, Isle of Harris, who have been specialising in the family and social history of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland for over forty years; Mark Lazzeri, Land Manager of the North Harris Trust, for his extraordinary historical knowledge of the land and people of North Harris, and his advice on the stalking, killing and gralloching of a deer; Sarah Egan, for guiding me through the remains of cleared settlements in south-west Lewis; Margaret Savage, née Macdonald, and her mother Sarah, for their time and generosity spent in guiding me around the Eastern Townships of Québec; Ferne Murray and Jean MacIver, both of Lennoxville, Québec, for their hospitality and insights into the Scottish community in the Eastern Townships; Lieutenant Guy Lapointe, Capitaine Martin Hébert, Sergeant Ronald McIvir and Sergeant Enquêteur Daniel Prieur, Sûreté de Québec, Montréal; Sergeant Enquêteur Donald Bouchard, Sûreté de Québec, Municipalité des Îles-de-la-Madeleine; Léonard Aucoin, for his hospitality and help in unravelling the secrets of les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, and allowing me to borrow his house for use in the book; Normand Briand, Canadian Coastguard, les Îles-de-la-Madeleine; Byron Clarke, for his insights into the anglophone community on Entry Island; and Daniel Audet, Auberge La Ruée Vers Gould, for allowing me access to his extraordinary historical records of the settlement of Gould in the Eastern Townships of Québec.