Hugh Breac Mackenzie bio photo

Hugh Breac Mackenzie

Highland Farmer

Hugh Breac Mackenzie greeted the news with mixed feelings, but he had always wanted to become a father. His own father had provided him with a role model, in the sense that he knew that if he did the opposite of what Da did, he would be bound to be a great father.

Image credit: I believe this image is Public Domain, from “Working Men of Central Russia: “Antropological Study on Males of Vladimir, Yaroslavl and Kostroma Governorates” by Nikolay Y. Zograf, published 1892. This gentleman is apparently Petr Sobolev: “Blacksmith, age unknown, born in Romanov, Yaroslavl”. Various images from the book at imgur


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Book 1

Chapter 3: Year of the Sheep

(Scottish Highlands, 1792)

The granny-to-be was overjoyed at the news of the new addition, but in keeping with her no-nonsense nature, her first reaction was, 'What? Another mouth to f...

Chapter 7: Insurrection in the Highlands

(Scottish Highlands, 1792)

The seed for the insurrection had scarcely been put into the all too fertile soil of discontent, had not even been watered by illicit brew, than it had sprou...

Chapter 8: Pictou

(Canada, 1773)

Hughie dear boy, the letter began, I am writing to you from Pictou in Canada, where I have been these last few years. I am writing to tell you that I never m...

Chapter 11: Inverness and Cromarty

(Scottish Highlands, 1795)

‘We are at the dawn of a new age,’ he said with an almost religious fervour, ‘soon the country will be unrecognisable, it will be the age o...

Chapter 13: Strathnaver

(Scottish Highlands, 1800s)

One night Mam surprised everybody by telling the young pair that if they stopped fighting, she would tell them a story. Hugh did not remember her telling him...

Chapter 15: Dunrobin

(Dunrobin, Scotland, Early 1812)

On that cold spring afternoon, with scattered snow still covering the tops of ridges, Sir John Sinclair sat in his coach dressed in his finest, feeling that ...

Chapter 17: Clearance

(Highlands, 1800s)

What happened next was something nobody was prepared for. A few weeks later, Hugh had gone to Golspie and was drowning his sorrow in a tankard of ale at the ...

Book 2

Book 2 Chapter 9: Atlantic

(Crossing to Canada, 1800s)

They had all told her that for an unmarried mother, life in the Highlands was going to be unbearable, and urged her to go to Canada with John Robert.