What The Heck Is Hector?
Our motorhome is 30 feet long. To the four of us, with six weeks ‘down’ and three to go… that’s cramped!
But imagine 189 people who were traveling from northern Scotland to Canada in the hull (windowless storage area) of an 85 foot cargo ship for eleven weeks. At the award-winning Hector Heritage Quay in Pictou, interpreter Sinda Dobson recounted the plight of Pictou’s settlers in descriptive and passionate terms.
Sinda informed us that in the 1750′s, the northern Scots were living under British rule. They weren’t allowed to wear their clan tartans, their kilts, and they weren’t even allowed to comfort each other with pipe music.
FACT SCRAP: Women secretly hid a little piece of tartan inside the waistbands of their skirts to remind them of their Scottish heritage. Plus, the British forbade bagpipes because they thought they could be used to disguise dangerous weapons!
They were told that they had to leave their land. When John Ross told them they would have free passage, free land and free food for a year, if they moved to Canada, they sold their most valuable asset – their cattle – to ensure a place on the ship. It turned out they were disappointed on all three counts. As Sinda puts it, “They left with nothing except their ferocious tempers and their family names.” Unfortunately, they would be sailing on a Dutch-built cargo ship called The Hector. It was very old and was built to carry cargo, not people. It was damp, crowded, dirty and constantly creaking as if it would fall apart. The people (representing 30 different clans) were terrified and begged the captain to allow a piper on board to keep their spirits up.
The captain was a kind man, and allowed the piper to take the journey, but he warned the people that they would have to feed him out of their own scarce rations. When the ship hit a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, the ship was driven so far off course that the people ran out of food and had to survive on the scraps that they had thrown away earlier.
Finally, the Hector arrived on the shores of Pictou in September of 1773 after eleven weeks at sea. The people were hungry, sick, and badly prepared for the harsh winter which lay ahead of them. It is the Mi’Kmaq (Micmac) natives who – after they recovered from their initial fear – emerged from the forest and showed the Scots how to hunt, fish, chop wood and survive the winter.
This event marked the beginning of the Scottish migration to Nova Scotia and has earned Pictou its reputation as the “Birthplace of New Scotland.” Today, historians are building a real size replica of the Hector on the docks behind the Heritage Pier. They expect to launch it in a year 2000 celebration. To learn more about the Hector and Pictou history, visit the museum website.
Canadian Association of Journalists
