As a history student at Â鶹AV, specifically one with an interest in military history, getting to work with the Black Watch and the 78th Fraser Highlanders was the perfect opportunity. I applied for the position because of an interest in potentially pursuing archival studies in the future – this was a chance to get hands-on experience in that setting and to learn what working with archival documents would be like. The Black Watch Museum and Archives deals with history the Black Watch of Canada, Canada’s oldest Scottish regiment, while the 78th Fraser Highlanders organization works to make information about the 78th Frasers (who fought under General Wolfe at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham) publicly accessible.
Over the course of my internship with these organizations I had the chance to engage in a variety of different archival and research initiatives. With the Black Watch I sorted and indexed documents, measured posters, scrapbooks and boxes to estimate future storage space requirements, and performed photo identification in the McCord Museum’s Notman Archives. These jobs gave me the chance to discover several historical artifacts different from anything I had ever seen before – one highlight was finding two hand drawn trench maps of an area near Ypres, dating to the First World War. While in the photographic archives, I also came across several negatives that, while unrelated to my research, were still impressive to see. These included original photographs of late 19th century monarchs such as Queen Victoria.
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Meanwhile, my work with the 78th Fraser Highlanders was centered around the Descendancy project, which seeks to document the important role of these Scottish soldiers in Quebec’s history. After the regiment disbanded in Quebec, many soldiers acquired property and married local women, and their descendants played important roles in the rest of the colony, and later province’s, history. Collaborating with my other intern, who created a new online database for the information, I moved over 2000 records of the descendants of the original Frasers onto a website where researchers or people interested in their personal ancestry will be able to easily access them. Uploading each record involved copying and reformatting the original information to make it clear and legible outside of the original location in a private spreadsheet. While interning with the organization, I was also able to consolidate the online file storage system onto a single platform, was I was given the opportunity to translate some 18th century letters contemporary to the Highlander’s service in Canada. Mostly containing the complaints of a local priest about the behavior of the Scottish officers, these letters were both a highlight of my experience and an incredible window into the life of a long departed (and very frustrated) religious official.
However, the summer was not without difficulties. Organizing the Black Watch’s archives meant dealing with over one hundred years of material, some of which was either illegible or undated. Some documents existed as multiple copies, and, for storage reasons, it was decided to only keep one or the two of them. Navigating this was difficult, as often I felt underqualified to make such a decision, but I was lucky to inherit guidelines from previous interns that underlined how to make the decision. Further, by using a system where documents to be discarded are checked by multiple others working in the archives, I had a fallback mechanism if any mistakes were made. Concurrently, my challenge with the 78th Frasers was of a different nature, combating the monotonous reality of spending weeks working through spreadsheets and double-checking information. However, by setting clear targets of how many records I would be uploading each day, I was able to progress faster and finish the task with manageable levels of difficulty.
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Overall, the internship was an incredible experience. I was able to get outside of the classroom and to apply historical knowledge in the workplace, to manage archival documents, and to engage with important parts of the history of Montreal, Quebec, and Canada. I want to thank the St. Andrews Society of Montreal and the McEuen Scholarship Foundation, who funded this opportunity. Thanks to their support, I was able to spend my summer following my interests and learning about Canadian military history. A special thanks to Bruce Bolton, my supervisor, who despite being retired and running several not-for-profit organizations, always found time to check in on my progress, provide help and advice, and quizÌý
me on regimental history.
