Braemar Castle in Scotland – Photo c: Scotiana 2006

Sometimes a place enters our lives long before we understand why it matters. For me, one of those places is Braemar.

Last month, while writing about Lady Saltoun and the ties of kinship that connect Scots across generations and oceans, I found myself returning to a familiar thread in my own family story.

My Scottish grandmother. My father. My uncle Bill. A restaurant on St-Lawrence Boulevard in Montreal. At the end of that story, I wrote that some threads simply have more threads to follow.

Well, dear readers, apparently Braemar was not finished with me yet. 😉

Long before I knew anything about Jacobites, Highland clans or castles in the Cairngorms, Braemar was simply the name of my father’s restaurant.

Back in the days, my dad, Jean-Paul Dugas, owned and operated the Braemar Restaurant at 8440 St-Lawrence Boulevard in Montreal. I was in my pre-teens when I had my first little job there.

I delivered orders, washed dishes and made sure the refrigerators containing bottled beverages were always full. I particularly liked making deliveries because customers sometimes gave me tips, money which, quite predictably, I spent on magazines and books.

At the time, I never thought to ask: Why Braemar?

Isn’t it strange how some of the most interesting questions in our lives occur to us decades after we should have asked them? Fortunately, I eventually did ask Daddy. He explained that the restaurant already carried the name when he acquired it from my uncle, William Blyth, Uncle Bill to us.

Uncle Bill had been born in Hamilton, Scotland, near Glasgow, and he loved Braemar. He travelled there often and, even after moving abroad, returned to Scotland and to Braemar whenever he could. So a place he loved in the Highlands found another home, on a restaurant sign in Montreal.

When I first wrote about this story on Scotiana in 2012, I thought I had finally answered my question. Now I realize I had only opened the door.

If you arrive in Braemar today, in the magnificent landscape of the Cairngorms National Park, Braemar Castle immediately looks as though it belongs to another age. And indeed it does.

The castle was built in 1628 by John Erskine, Earl of Mar. Although described as a hunting lodge, its position had a more serious purpose too. The increasingly powerful Farquharsons were close neighbours, and relations between the Earl of Mar and the clan were not exactly what we would call peaceful.

In 1689, during the first Jacobite rising, it was attacked and burned by John Farquharson of Inverey, known as the “Black Colonel.” Later, after the 1745 Jacobite rising, the castle was rebuilt as a government military garrison.

Over the years, Braemar Castle became a family home and gained royal connections through the history of Royal Deeside. One of its more unexpected chapters involves Frances Farquharson, an American fashion editor associated with Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

A friend of the celebrated designer Elsa Schiaparelli, Frances brought touches of modern elegance and vibrant pink into the ancient Scottish castle.

The castle’s more recent history is equally inspiring. In 2007, it was leased to the community of Braemar for fifty years. Local volunteers helped restore it and reopen it to visitors, ensuring that this remarkable building would remain a living part of the area’s heritage.

For me, however, Braemar Castle is also part of a much more personal story as it’s name travelled from Scotland to Montreal. Many years later, I finally stood before Braemar Castle and photographed it myself. Only then did I begin to understand how a place can be inherited without anyone owning it.

Sometimes, a place travels through a family because someone loved it enough to keep its name alive.

Braemar Castle’s story is therefore more than a history of stone walls, Jacobites, soldiers and family homes. It is also a story about memory, migration and the quiet ways Scotland continues to live across the ocean.

Have you ever discovered that the name of a place, a house, a business or a family tradition in your life had travelled from Scotland?

Share in the comments below!

Janice | Scotiana Team Member

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