Anti-Colonial Science: A Course Journal. Vol. 3, 2025. https://ojs.library.dal.ca/acs/

Language and Land: Mi’kmaq and Gaelic in Cape Breton

Leah Chambers

I spent most summers in Cape Breton, NS, where I would visit my family’s house on the Cabot Trail in Wreck Cove. Each summer, I would hear stories about my relatives, who were lobster canners, church ministers, and carpenters, who had settled in Wreck Cove after leaving their homes in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in the mid-1800s. My maternal great-grandparents (and great-great grandparents) were native Scottish Gaelic speakers, and there are estimates that 50,000 Gaelic speakers lived on Cape Breton Island in the middle of the nineteenth century.¹ Gaelic originated in Scotland, and it is one of approximately 4,000 Indigenous languages that currently exist.

The region where my family settled is called Unama’kik in Mi’kmaq, and the people there have spoken Mi’kmaq, an Indigenous language, for thousands of years. Throughout the twentieth century, efforts to suppress Mi’kmaq in Cape Breton coincided with efforts to revitalize Gaelic. The recognition of Gaelic and the simultaneous attempts to eradicate Mi’kmaq highlights a complicated relationship between two Indigenous languages and the history of colonization in Cape Breton. I will provide a brief history of the varied treatment of these two languages and highlight some attempts to revitalize the languages, using Lee Maracle’s Conversations with Canadians to guide this reflection.

Gaelic, English, French, and Mi’kmaq were and continue to be spoken in Cape Breton, but the recognition of these languages has been disproportionate. Census data on Indigenous languages in Canada began in 1991, and in 2021, there were 5,505 Mi’kmaq speakers in Nova Scotia, with the majority in Cape Breton.² Additionally, the population of Scottish Gaelic speakers decreased from 50,000 in the nineteenth century to 305 in Cape Breton, according to the 2021 census.³ Gaelic and Mi’kmaq experienced significant decline in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In Conversations with Canadians, Lee Maracle describes European settlers’ appropriation of Indigenous land, knowledge, and language. She says, “during the colonization of Canada, both land and knowledge were appropriated – that is, expropriated without permission to access the item and no permission from its original owner to use or benefit from the item.”⁴ Although the Peace and Friendship Treaties between Indigenous people and settlers did not give up Indigenous rights to land, in 1832 and 1833, six Indian Reserves were created on Cape Breton Island.⁵ The establishment of reserves in Cape Breton coincided with a boom in Scottish immigration to the Island, and land across the Island was parcelled and sold according to European notions of property ownership. This process is an example of the appropriation of land that Maracle writes about in Conversations with Canadians. She says, “I am interested in reclaiming and rebuilding the systems that existed prior to the arrival of a handful of powerful European men on our shores,” recognizing the complex relationships and distribution of power and wealth amongst settlers.⁶ Most Scottish settlers in Cape Breton who encroached on the already small land allocation for Indigenous inhabitants were not wealthy. Still, the system for land ownership disproportionately negatively impacted the Indigenous peoples.

The Shubenacadie residential school opened in 1934 and was the only residential school in the Maritimes. Maracle describes one harm of residential schools: the appropriation of Indigenous knowledge by cutting off Indigenous children from the knowledge of their families and communities.⁷ Maracle says, “Residential school separated us from the understanding of our national systems, and during our absence Canada established many borders that would serve their increasing privilege and theft entitlement.”⁸ The establishment of reserves and residential schools are two examples of efforts to suppress Mi’kmaq, and they highlight Maracle’s claim about the appropriation of Indigenous land, knowledge, and culture.

Four years after the Shubenacadie residential school opened, Colaisde na Gàidhlig was opened by a “local community who wanted to create a memorial for the Gaelic speaking pioneers of Cape Breton.”⁹ As Mi’kmaq children were taken from their homes and banned from speaking their language, there were efforts to promote the revitalization of Gaelic. One reason why the Mi’kmaq language was suppressed, while the Gaelic language was revitalized in twentieth-century Nova Scotia, is differing perspectives of ownership; Maracle says, “Our languages have names for songs, for stories, for knowledge – none of the words translate directly into property.”¹⁰ When settlers arrived in Nova Scotia, they brought new languages and displaced the land’s original inhabitants. It is now clear that language, land, and knowledge are deeply interconnected, and the forcible displacement and relocation of the Mi’kmaq to reserves and residential schools also suppressed language.

Efforts to revitalize Mi’kmaq and Scottish Gaelic are underway, with Mi’kmaq language classes in K-8 schools on reserves and community-based initiatives to revitalize Gaelic, such as those offered at Colaisde na Gàidhlig (the Gaelic College) in Cape Breton. Maracle highlights the importance of language in a short passage about an argument with her ex-husband, who exclaimed, “what is it with you people fighting over names?”¹¹ She responds to him, saying, “all we owned was our stories, our songs, our names – this is our private, clan, family wealth.”¹² Reclaiming language is one example of reclaiming wealth that has been appropriated. Maracle’s Conversations with Canadians highlights how the appropriation of land is also the appropriation of language, knowledge, and culture.

I called my great aunt to research this reflection, and she told me about a recent Gaelic prayer event at the Membertou Heritage Park, hosted by Bradley Murphy a young singer-songwriter who has been hosting events that bring Gaelic and Mi’kmaq speakers in conversation with each other across Cape Breton.¹³ It seems that younger generations are increasingly interested in learning the languages that were appropriated or forgotten, in turn regaining knowledge that was stolen. My reflection has traced the history of land and language in my family and connected this to the way that, in the very same place, Mi’kmaq people were stripped of their land and their language.

Bibliography

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1. “Gaelic in Canada | St. Francis Xavier University,” May 11, 2023, https://www.stfx.ca/department/celtic-studies/gaelic-canada.

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2. Statistics Canada Government of Canada, “Indigenous Languages across Canada,” March 29, 2023, https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/as-sa/98-200-X/2021012/98-200-X2021012-eng.cfm.

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3. Statistics Canada Government of Canada, “Knowledge of Languages by Generation Status, Mother Tongue, Age and Gender: Canada, Provinces and Territories and Economic Regions,” Table 98-10-0619-01, December 4, 2024, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810061901.

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4. Lee Maracle, “Conversation 10: Appropriation,” in My Conversations with Canadians (Toronto: BookThug, 2017), 99–122.

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5. Andrew Parnaby, “The Cultural Economy of Survival: The Mi’kmaq of Cape Breton in the Mid-19th Century,” Labour / Le Travail 6 (2008): 69–98.

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6. Maracle, “Conversation 10: Appropriation,” 109–10.

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7. Maracle, “Conversation 10: Appropriation.”

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8. Maracle, 111.

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9. “About The Gaelic College,” Colaisde na Gàidhlig / The Gaelic College, November 23, 2018, https://gaeliccollege.edu/about/about-the-gaelic-college/.

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10. Maracle, “Conversation 10: Appropriation,” 120.

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11. Maracle, 100.

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12. Maracle, 100.

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13. “Creative Spirit: Mi’kmaw–Gaelic Relations & Storytelling,” How We Thrive, February 27, 2024, https://www.howwethrive.org/season-4/creative-spirit; “Ùrnaigh, Òrain, Bàrdachd, Is Beannachdan (Prayers, Songs, Poetry, Blessings),” AllEvents, accessed February 12, 2025, https://allevents.in/sydney/ùrnaigh-òrain-bàrdachd-is-beannachdan-prayers-songs-poetry-blessings/200027736079440.

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Copyright (c) 2025 Leah Chambers

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