Being able to work with the Black Watch Museum and Archives through the generous funding of the Arts Internship Awards has been the experience of a lifetime. I am doubly fortunate to have the great honour of being afforded this opportunity for the second time, which has allowed me to continue my work from last summer uncovering exciting materials from the largest regimental archives in Canada. I have enjoyed the experience of the past two summers so much that I have decided to make the Black Watch the subject of my Master's thesis in history, which I will begin writing in the Fall 2022 semester. I hope to use the unique experience of the regiment as a means of investigating Scottish-Canadian identity, and look forward to meeting any future interns during the course of my research!
Perhaps the greatest and most welcome change from last summer was being able to work in-person at the Maison Louis-Joseph Forget, one of many opulent Golden Square Mile mansions that now serve as workspaces. Designed by Maurice Perrault in the Second Empire style, the house now hosts numerous organizations including the Macdonald-Stewart Foundation and St. Andrew鈥檚 Society. To admire its architectural beauty on a daily basis was a real privilege, and one would have trouble finding a more spectacular office鈥擨 was certainly never in a rush to leave at the end of the day! Working at the Maison Forget also allowed me to meet many of the interesting people who work there, such as the troops of the 78th Fraser Highlanders reenactment group who would often be preparing for upcoming events.
For the duration of the internship, my primary task was to index and photograph scrapbooks compiled by members of the regiment throughout its storied history, though most were from World War I and World War II. Together with my co-intern, Ben, we digitized over fifty scrapbooks, all of which were then made accessible online. This involved several challenges that proved great learning experiences, including how to create a new numbering system for indexing purposes, finding a way to efficiently digitize scrapbook pages, and learning how to upload documents using the Internet Archive; a not-for-profit digital library used by 缅北强奸鈥檚 Rare Books and Special Collections. It was a joy working with Ben and solving these issues as a team, and seeing our progress both in person and online has been a great source of satisfaction.
Making these materials accessible to the public is what I鈥檓 most proud of us having accomplished, as last summer I felt it was a shame that only researchers could have access to these scrapbooks and the treasures they contain. They really are the highlight of the regimental archives, containing war trophies, dried flowers from the battlefield, and letters from ordinary soldiers and famous individuals alike. One particularly sobering find I made was a proclamation issued by German occupying forces in France during World War I, informing the residents of Valenciennes that anybody caught keeping carrier pigeons would be punished by death on suspicion of treason鈥攎ost likely brought back by a Black Watch soldier who helped liberate the town in 1918.
A highlight among these scrapbooks was a fifteen-volume series compiled by a young Montrealer during World War I, whose older brother 鈥淭ed鈥� was fighting with the 42nd Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He kept track of his brother鈥檚 movements through newspaper clippings, and it took several weeks for us to finish the series. Interspersed between these clippings were souvenirs sent home by Ted, such as dirt from the Somme, Christmas letters and postcards. It felt as though we got to know him through the scrapbooks, and share in the anxiety that his family must have felt for him through the pages. This made it especially difficult to learn that Ted was wounded only weeks before the Armistice was signed, and unfortunately succumbed to his injuries in early 1919.
These experiences of working in an archive and handling primary source documents are invaluable to any aspiring historian, especially those who are interested in military history and the Scottish connection in Canada. I have learned so much in such a short time, and will forever cherish my time spent working with the Black Watch throughout graduate school and beyond. As my internship draws to a close, I am ever grateful for the support and generosity of my supervisor-turned-bagpipe instructor Bruce Bolton, and to the Arts Internship Office for making this all possible.
