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Glasgow and the western Highlands

The beginning of a journey into the land of our Scottish forbearers

Genealogy is not a burning interest of mine. In fact prowling through graveyards and brittle archival records in search of ancestors seems a singularly ghoulish diversion. But my grandmother, who related to such things, once told me that my name was derived from "souter", the gaelic word for shoemaker. So, in the absence of further research, I can claim a distant kinship to "Souter Johnnie", an 18th century cobbler who quaffed many a dram at the elbow of Robbie Burns.

My in-laws also take pride in their Scottish ancestry. According to my wife her forebearers took refuge in the Highlands after being run out of Ireland for stealing horses.

Tenuous though they may be these ties to the land of heath and heather seemed a fitting excuse to rediscover our Scottish roots.

Attempts to doze our way across the Atlantic proved utterly futile. The seats on our red-eye charter were better suited to a Cirque du Soleil contortion than to relaxation. When we finally touched down at Glasgow International Airport we were thoroughly jet-lagged. The morning rush hour was in full swing and it took another two hours before we arrived at the Forte Crest Hotel in Paisley and crashed until noon.

Paisley is a western suburb of Glasgow, about 10 kilometres from the city centre, and since our car would not be ready until the next day, we checked out the greater Glasgow transit system. A combination of busses, light rail, and subway, it proved to be efficient and easy to use. In less than an hour we were in the heart of Glasgow enjoying a late lunch in St. Enoch Square. By the end of the day we had visited St. Andrews Cathedral, the university, and the magnificent Glasgow Cathedral that dates back to the 13th century. After hours of wandering through a mix of ultra-modern and renaissance neighbourhoods we found a bench in George Square and watched the mood of the city wind down from the bustle of daily business and back up to the beat of evening nightlife. It's only four blocks along St. Vincent Street from George Square to the Drum and Monkey where we joined a lively crowd for jazz, a pint, and a meal in one of Glasgow's many friendly pubs.

Sprawling astride the River Clyde, not far inland from the Firth of Clyde, the port of Glasgow predates written history. The remains of stone-age fishing canoes have been unearthed from the river banks and Celtic druids, who were among the first to settle the area, are believed to have traded with Roman Legions pushing the northern frontiers of their far-flung empire. But it was not until the 6th century that the city of Glasgow began to grow around a cathedral founded by St. Mungo in AD 543. By the 12th century its population was more than a thousand. In 1238 work began on Glasgow Cathedral that still stands on the spot where St. Mungo built his original church. The University of Glasgow was founded in 1415 and by the 15th century Glasgow had become one of the most powerful academic and ecclesiastical centres in Scotland.

During the 19th century industrial revolution Glasgow became a world leader in manufacturing. Lanarkshire coal provided an endless supply of fuel for steam-driven textile mills and thousands of immigrants, fleeing poverty and unemployment in the Highlands, Ireland, and the Continent provided a pool of cheap, unskilled labour. Between 1780 and 1880 Glasgow's population soared from 40,000 to 500,000 and many ended up as sweat-shop labourers housed in dreary tenement buildings. When the textile industry began to flag around 1850 Glasgow turned its industrial might to heavy industry, particularly shipbuilding and the production of locomotives and power tools. Between 1870 and the start of the First World War almost a fifth of the world's ships were launched from Glasgow's yards along the Clyde and a quarter of the world's locomotives originated in Glasgow's steel foundries. The term "Clyde-built" became synonymous with quality and Glasgow ranked as one of the finest and richest cities in Europe.

The heady days that began with the industrial revolution ended after the First World War and the city slumped into a massive economic decline. Munitions manufacturing during the Second World War provided a temporary blip in employment and a few more ships, including Cunard's Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, were launched from Clyde shipyards, but Glasgow never regained its former status. During the 1930s it was officially classed as a "depressed area" and as recently as the 1970s the city was still grappling with spiralling unemployment, poverty, social unrest, and a decaying infrastructure.

Today Glasgow, the largest urban centre in Scotland, is a city in transition – a city in the midst of re-inventing itself from coal-blackened industrial giant to thriving tourist destination and service centre in open competition with its rival city of Edinburgh. The parks and open spaces that lapsed into decline during the economic downturn have been transformed into stunning urban gardens. The rows of tenements along the Clyde are being refurbished or replaced by walkways, cafés, and shops. The university is rated among the best in the world and Glasgow Cathedral, one of the few churches to escape destruction during the reformation, has been meticulously preserved. In 1990 Glasgow won the European City of Culture award and in 1999 it was recognized as the UK's City of Architecture and Design. But the gritty, working-class legacy of Glasgow's industrial past lies just beneath the surface of its new, more genteel, persona.

The Drum and Monkey was still buzzing with talk and laughter when we called it a day. The friendly local couple who joined us for a drink at our table wished us well and we caught the bus back to our hotel. There may be dour Scots but we didn't find any among the chatty, down-to-earth people we met in Glasgow.

The next morning we drove west from Glasgow along the Clyde past rows of still surviving brick and stone tenements. A huge crane that once lifted fully assembled, 175-ton locomotives onto ships for export, is now a stationary landmark – a remnant of Glasgow's industrial past. At Dumbarton we turned north along the shores of Loch Lomond, which resounded to the snarl of jet skis. We decided not to linger on the "bonnie, bonnie banks" and drove on to a place called Rest and Be Thankful. It's only a fork in the road but the view across the lochs and north into the Highlands is classic Scotland.

Compared to those in British Columbia the mountains of Scotland are small but no less rugged. As we wound our way north and swung into Glencoe Valley it was easy to see why the area has become a mecca for rock climbers. The precipitous walls of Glencoe are steeped in early mountaineering lore and climbers still come here to challenge their skills on classic routes that were pioneered decades ago.

But there is also a dark side to the history of Glencoe. We pulled in to Glencoe Village where a memorial and small museum are dedicated to those killed in the Glencoe Massacre, one of the most savage acts of cold-blooded treachery in Scotland's bloody history.

In 1692 William III, in an effort to tighten his grip on the unruly Highlanders, decreed that all Clan Chiefs must swear an oath of submission to the Crown. Maclean, the elderly chief of the Glencoe MacDonalds, got snowed in and was five days late. As punishment, and to set an example, a plan was hatched to secretly extirpate the entire MacDonald Clan. One-hundred-and-twenty soldiers, mostly Campbells, were billeted with and entertained by the unsuspecting MacDonalds. At a specified time 10 days hence the soldiers were instructed to turn on their hosts and slaughter every man, woman, and child. At dawn on the 13th of February the Campbell soldiers, in a despicable breach of trust, began their grisly assignment. But with typical bureaucratic bungling the plan was badly botched. A few of the soldiers relented and gave enough warning for some of their hosts to escape. Thirty-eight MacDonalds, including Maclean, were killed on the spot and an unknown number perished as they fled into a raging blizzard. But enough escaped to tell the tale.

William III became the most hated man in the Highlands and the Campbell name was tainted by the breach of trust and treachery perpetrated by their kinsmen at Glencoe. The legacy of this ruthless act of brutality lives on in the hearts of the MacDonald Clan whose members still gather here on Feb. 13 each year.

Seems some of our Scottish forebearers were a pretty unsavory bunch.