Planting Thistles: Scottish Islander Colonization in Late Victorian Canada

Uncovers the failed Victorian-era plan to transplant Scottish crofters into British Columbia settlements.

At the height of the Victorian age, governments on both sides of the Atlantic targeted Scottish crofters from the Outer Hebrides as ideal colonists, proposing settlement schemes in British Columbia and on the prairies that were to bring benefits to the region and the settlers themselves. Within six years, these plans were considered tragic failures. Planting Thistles explores the motivat...