GC44

Thousands of Scots went over but they prefer there cheese deep fried, like there Mars bars!!!

Silken

Lol I must confess I didn't get that. I'm afraid British humour sometimes does escape me. I'm presently looking up a few pics to post so you all can see who I'm telling you about.

Silken

I see it says you are going to Manitoba? Do you have family there? Make sure you get goooooooooood winter clothing. lol

GC44

Hopefully going to Manitoba. No, we don't have family there but both me and my wife have job offers so we are on the LMO emotional rollercoaster.

(LMO is one of the options for emigration to Canada).

Silken

Well I will tell you this. It's a prairie province so it's basically flat and damn cold! lol So I'd be taking some time now to knit up some cozy icelandic sweaters for the winters ahead. Make sure you get some good warm boots, preferably with a very good lining. You want WARM clothing for winters there. Because Winnipeg is notorious here for its bone-chilling winters.

Silken

Yes, we got most of the Scots and the U.S. got most of the Irish. I'm always telling the Americans that too! lol

I have a friend in Washington state and one in Nova Scotia and he has begun to call my Nova Scotia friend "Roger, the Nova Scot" to poke fun at things Canadian. But that's ok because we like to put a bee under his bonnet by calling him "a closet Canadian" (and he really is but would die before admitting it.)

GC44

We were out there last August for a couple of weeks, definately flat where we hope to be. Talking to the locals, they say winter ain't such a big issue as long as you are prepared. However I'm sure that the first one will still come as a bit of a shock. All part of the adventure.

Silken

Ok, so I said I'd throw up a few pics to illustrate what I've been saying...

Here's my great-grandparents, James Hodgson Sr. and his wife Ann (Sumbler) Hodgson and their two oldest sons, both born in England. They boarded the ship Empress of Ireland in 1912 when Ann was pregnant with their youngest son, my grandfather, James Arthur Hodgson Jr. They came to first work on a farm as servants here in Ontario and then later purchased their own land where they had a house for themselves and one close by for Ann's parents and they ran a family farm.



Now this is Ann's parents, James Sumbler and Mary (Ventress) Sumbler. Mary was blind and the mother of seven by the way. I think it must have taken a lot of courage to leave everything you knew behind and make the voyage at that age! This pic was taken while still living in England so they were obviously not young when coming here. Some of their children stayed behind (so I must still have quite a few relatives in England) and some began to follow over and dispersed throughout the country, mostly in Ontario though but some to other provinces as well.

Silken

Well that's the thing, if you prepare properly, you will do fine. Even in the arctic regions of the country, the Inuit get by fine in the cold but they use sealskin which keeps them remarkably warm and dry. So if you choose the right kind of outerwear you'll be fine. But ya, do expect some climactic culture shock when the first winter hits. You're at least lucky that the Canadian winters are not nearly as bad as they used to be. We have much easier winters than we used to I'd say.

Silken

Had to share this one of the boys hanging out here in Ontario with their old Ford!

Tangram

Oink would be one of those, god bless him.

Silken

Here's "Uncle Jack" Sumbler who was a bobby in England I guess (looking at the pic) and in the second shot with his wife and daughters. They went further north in Ontario, started up a business and I believe he was mayor of a mining town here. His wife's name was Annie (Armitage) Sumbler by the way.





I have a stack of these old memoriam cards that were lovingly kept in that big old wooden suitcase from the voyage with their family photos, letters and postcards. It appears that families back then would send these out whenever someone died. This is the oldest one I have... 1866.

Oink

Ah that's so sweet of you to think that.

Silken

Well this forum doesn't seem to be bad at all when you check out the U.S. forum. lol OMG, snide remarks galore, people just being arrogant and nasty there on both sides. I sat and read one thread that was 30 pages long just to follow the arguments to the BITTER end. lol

Here's what I found funny though. At least in this forum I've seen some good, positive remarks about things, not everything is negative by far. But I could hardly find any positive remarks in that one. It was really odd!

lmartin999

Its the 97th annual memorial for the Empress of Ireland this weekend:

http://www.salvationarmy.ca/2011/01/...l-may-29-2011/

Mount Pleasant cemetery in Toronto.