Erikka Askeland: Scots and Canadians share closest links

Bless their hearts, one of these gambits is one I have used only rarely if indeed the other vexed subject of immigration comes up. Mainly because while often I meet people enraged by tramworks, it is thankfully rare to meet bigots. The vast majority of drivers I have deep, meaningful 15-minute chats with tend usually to be broadminded sorts, often with a good sense of humour. Except of course when they do insist on talking about trams, for which there is little to laugh about unless it is a bitter, sardonic sort of mirth.

But if there is any disparagement of incomers to these isles, I can often defuse the subject with the fact that although I am white and may sound Irish to some ears depending on how long I’ve been in the pub, that I am an immigrant, too. And unless my interlocutor is an anti-tar sands campaigner – and I have yet to meet a Scottish taxi driver who is angered about the environmental impact of this kind of oil extraction – then there seems little anxiety about waves of Canadians like myself arriving on these shores taking your men and your jobs.

It wasn’t until I relocated to Scotland from England as I moved around the UK that I really felt actually welcome, often being met with warmth and a genuine interest in where I hail from. Part of that is to do with the fact that Scots and Canadians share the understanding of what it is like to have a big, powerful – if somewhat thick – neighbour to the south of them. That is why I often get sincere apologies in the surprisingly rare instances I am mistaken for an American. But another reason why Scots have such amiable relations with Canadians, as I often remark from the back of the taxi, is that so many of them have an auntie in Toronto.

The fun part of this gambit is when the driver looks surprised and says something like, well actually I have an uncle in Hamilton, or Oshawa, or some other town in Ontario, and it happens surprisingly often.

That Scots are abroad is nothing new. But having returned to my homeland for a visit, it is actually quite stunning how much they have made an impact on the culture and landscape of Canada, certainly more so than you might expect in this multicultural country that has absorbed people from across Europe and Asia for more than 150 years.

Digging into the comparatively thin layers of history here, you will more often than not find scraps of tartan. Where I come from, a town in the Okanagan valley in the western-most province of British Columbia, was only incorporated in 1905. But while the Swiss and Austrians took to the place and started making some rather decent gewürztraminer, the recently installed brass plaques on Knox Mountain (named after its former owner, a Scot from Aberdeenshire) show it was a Scotsman who designed the unique floating bridge built across the lake in 1958. This in turn seemed to have put the Scottish brothers that had run the ferry out of business.

The place even has its own lake monster, a sister to that in Loch Ness, called Ogopogo.

And while, like Nessie, there have been few sightings of the Okanagan monster in recent, years, it wouldn’t surprise me if the alderman who thought it was a good idea to install a concrete statue of the beast downtown hadn’t been a Scot who knew what a money-spinner it could be with tourists.

There is some irony in the fact that Scots built the 14,000 mile trans-Canadian railway more than a hundred years ago, and now they can’t build a tram past St Andrews Square. But that would be to cavil.

Perhaps what we need is more Scots, and their taxi drivers, to visit this northern country which welcomed so many, to see what standing their compatriots achieved because of the ambition of what they built and the lasting impact it has had.