Did People From The Isle Of Lewis Emigrate To Quebec?

The first Hebridean Scots to occupy the Eastern Townships of Quebec in any numbers, went there in 1838 from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Conditions in their homeland were deplorable and they may have seen Canada as "the Promised land." This first group of settlers from the Isle of Lewis came from the village of Mealista on the west side of Uig and were settled by the BALC (British American Land Company) in the township of Lingwick which was in the region known as the Upper St. Francis District. They arrived only "with the clothes they wore, sometimes a piece of furniture, the tools of their trade, and their beloved Bible" (McLeod, 1977:1)They did not benefit from assisted passages and payed their own fares.
They gradually spread into other areas and townships.
The Lewis people tended to stay in groups and by the end of the C19 they made up around a third of the population of the Eastern Townships of Quebec.

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There is still a large concentration of people in the Thunder Bay area who are descendants of Lewis people who emigrated in the 1920s. Scots Gaelic is also still thriving as a language in Nova Scotia.

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