Musician and Artyness columnist Liza Mulholland is travelling around Canada and North America as part of a trip delayed by Covid, working on an arts project remembering another long-ago journey ...
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There’s one thing for certain, the life of a freelance musician is never dull!
I’m writing this from Toronto and by the time you read it, I’ll be in Detroit – all part of a long-planned research trip, delayed by Covid and at last under way now that Canada and the US have fully reopened.
Getting here was an adventure is itself – our flight got caught up in Hurricane Ian and I freely confess it was ever so slightly terrifying! Ninety mile an hour winds buffeted the plane horribly, as the storm raged north up the Atlantic.
No meals were served for hours as the crew remained seated, and no tea or coffee was available during the flight due to the dangers of handling hot drinks.
For the anxious, not even a stiff dram to calm the nerves.
Thankfully we had an experienced pilot at the helm, controlling the situation admirably and diverting the flight up over Greenland to escape Ian’s wrath.
Things settled out and the remainder of our now longer flight was much better – though still no coffee, which for me was tough!
Why this journey? Well, 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the sailing of the SS Metagama, a ship which carried 300 emigrants from the Isle of Lewis to Canada, including my maternal teenage grandparents, followed by two further ships in 1924 – in total, 1000 young Hebrideans. Coming on the back of WWI and the Iolaire disaster, devastating for the islands.
Many worked initially in Toronto and wider Ontario, though my grandparents went on to Detroit, where they met – through the Lewis Society of Detroit – and married, and where my mum was born, before returning to Scotland during the Depression.
I’m working with writer, Donald S Murray (pictured), and other musicians on a live concert to tell the story of that emigration, covered at the time by the world’s press, launching in Stornoway in April 2023, with further shows including our own Eden Court Theatre.
Donald is also working on a novel on the subject and I’m writing my own family story, and in following my grandparents’ footsteps in Toronto and Detroit, I hope to learn more about their lives, tell their story, as well as reflect on the impact of that mass emigration on the island of Lewis.
We’re both finding immense inspiration from being here, to feed into our writing and musical compositions. I’m gutted though to miss Ness Book Fest, having liased with editor Catriona Murray for her talk in Simpsons at 4pm on Saturday on the new edition of Lewis Bàrd Murdo MacFarlane’s poems and songs.
Murdo was my mum’s uncle and emigrated to Canada in 1924 on the Marloch, composing songs there, including his famous Fàili Fàili, containing the telling line ‘Chan eil cèilidh air a’ phrèiridh’ (‘There’s no cèilidh on the prairie’).
Murdo’s homesickness brought him home to Lewis a few years later.
