Book Description

Robert MacDougall's The Emigrant's Guide to North America, written in Gaelic and published in 1841, attempts to give an accurate picture of Canada. Set up to provide a practical background for Highland Scots coming to Canada, it includes all the information MacDougall feels will be necessary -- including preparation for the trip. The book also serves as a type of travelogue, describing particular sights and sounds found on the way to his ultimate destination, Goderich, in the Huron Tract. This translated work retains the unmistakable speech patterns, images and rhymes of the Gaelic language. Robert MacDougall's quirky, opinionated personality speaks clearly, seeking to dispel some myths about Canada of the time by telling the "truth." This book deserves to be read by a wide audience. "I don't know where else you could find such riches of information and observation, so compactly presented, about this exhilirating and trying time in our past. Or get so fresh a sense of a real man of that time, with his energy and sweeping opinions and flourishing rhetoric. The translator and the editor have done a splendid job." -- Alice Munro>