Rambling around Scottish Highlands? Canada is always in your face
Here we have the church at Kildonan, Scotland, in the heart of the Highlands. Most of the Selkirk settlers who emigrated to the Red River Settlement in Canada in 1812 and 1813 had attended this church. Among those who sailed to Churchill, Manitoba, was George Bannerman, a great-grandfather of once-prime minister John Diefenbaker. In 1968,…
Read MoreJohn Rae Centre will celebrate Orkney, the Arctic, and the Inuit
I do love this image created by Orcadian photographer James Grieve. He has combined photos of the Stromness statue of explorer John Rae and the Hall of Clestrain, where Rae was born in 1813. Having visited the Hall a few times over the years, I still most vividly remember the first time, in 1998, when…
Read MoreCreative nonfiction workshop is coming to U of T in July
So on the left we see the image that accompanies my all-time, second-most- popular blog posting: The night Leonard Cohen taught me that Magic Is Alive. And you know how some people can’t get over their own jokes? I still find this one pretty funny: ‘Obscure’ Canadian writer declines to don kilt for CTV appearance. My…
Read MoreBlast from the past (1985): Atwood talks about The Handmaid’s Tale
Wow, three decades and change: whoosh! Where did those 32 years go? Back in 1985, when Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale, I interviewed her and wrote as follows. . . . then included the piece in Canada’s Undeclared War: Fighting Words from the Literary Trenches. Call it “a feminist 1984″ and Margaret Atwood won’t argue.…
Read More50 Canadians Who Changed the World: this really happened!
Hard to believe that four years have passed since we boarded a west-bound train called The Canadian in Toronto. We were celebrating 50 Canadians Who Changed the World – both the book and the individuals so designated, most of whom are alive and thriving — by following in the tracks of those who linked this nation…
Read MoreThe Canadian future of Scotland links UK, Quebec, China, Estonia
The Canadian future of Scotland? The 23 links below show how this idea played out. Do we have a take-away? Well, apparently you can write more than a dozen books, each of them running between 90,000 and 140,000 words, and find yourself beating through a starless night to find an audience. OR you can spin off…
Read MoreScotland to join Canada? Ken, do you remember Turks & Caicos?
A savvy interviewer will always hold the toughest questions until near the end of a conversation. So it happened this morning on CTV’s Your Morning. Host Lindsey Deluce waited until the final moment. We had been talking about why Canada should invite Scotland to become this country’s eleventh province. Then she said, “Ken, do you…
Read More‘Obscure’ Canadian writer declines to don kilt for CTV appearance
Ken McGoogan, identified recently by the BBC as an “obscure Canadian writer,” has declined to don his kilt to appear on CTV’s Your Morning show. McGoogan, who recently caused an international ruckus by suggesting that Canada invite Scotland to become this country’s 11th province, was quick to add that nobody at the flagship TV show…
Read MoreAuthor’s “previously unthinkable” ideas surface in the UK’s Independent
The U.K.-based Independent has served up a slick, professional rewrite of the BBC piece on my “previously unthinkable” ideas, drawing also on my column in the Globe and Mail. Gotta love it! But does anybody know how to monetize this kind of thing? Newfoundlanders, especially, will enjoy the newspaper’s situating of the city of St.…
Read MoreBBC Trigger warning: “previously unthinkable” ideas “may shock some”
From BBC North America: As Scotland pushes for a second referendum on independence, one man is asking the previously unthinkable – if you’re going to quit the UK, why not join Canada? Canadian writer Ken McGoogan says the unorthodox alliance makes sense. “I think it would be terrific for both Scotland and Canada,” he says.…
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