N.B. group wants to erect Scottish monument

A Campbellton group feels that its Scottish heritage has been neglected and is looking to correct that oversight.

James Thompson, president of the Caledonian Society of Restigouche, said his group wants to build a monument to recognize the hundreds of Scottish settlers who were forced to leave their homeland during the Scottish Clearances in the early 1800s.

Four hundred of those people came to New Brunswick.

"I feel it's my role to promote and preserve our Scottish heritage," he said.

Thompson said the setting for the proposed monument along the Restigouche River is appropriate.

"I thought it was a perfect place with the river in the background because the Scots always settled around water," he said.

Sculptor Tim Schmalz, of Kitchener, Ont., has created a scaled-down version of what the 30-foot bronze monument could look like.

It features a St. Andrew's cross with a stream of settlers emerging from a ship where the cross intersects.

"I have some that are very weary, tired. Some that are forlorn, some that will express triumph and excitement," Schmalz said.

He said it would likely take him two years to complete the monument.

"Right now we're just in the design stage. One of the ideas we had is to collect old pictures of ancestors who came over so that these hundreds of figures just won't have stylized, invented, made-up faces, but actually have real faces of real Scots who came over,"Schmalz said.

"We want to try and make this as symbolic and as meaningful as possible."

The estimated price tag to erect the monument is close to $200,000, Thompson said, and he's been appealing to Scottish groups around the world for financial help.

He's confident that donations will come pouring in as excitement about the monument grows.

"If everything goes to plan, it will be the largest Scottish monument in Canada," Schmalz said.

Earlier this year, the Irving familydonated money forthe restoration of a statue of Scottish poet Robert Burns in Fredericton when the city couldn't afford to pay $80,000 for a flood-proof base.