Birth Place
Judique, Victoria County
Raised by his grandparents on a small farm in Judique South, A. J. MacDougall's youth was spent surrounded by the traditional music, language and culture of Gaelic Cape Breton. Descended from emigrants from Strathglass and South Uist, MacDougall is the former Warden of Inverness County and a retired Executive Assistant with the Provincial Government. Speaking slowly, and with deliberation, he vividly recalls his grandmother singing Gaelic songs at the spinning wheel and neighbours telling long stories during evening visits. Despite having spent much of his working life in Halifax, MacDougall always found opportunities to speak Gaelic - he boarded with a fluent speaker there for fifteen years. Today, MacDougall teaches Gaelic in community classes in Judique, Port Hawkesbury and Creignish, one of the only native speakers from the area to do so in recent years, and has taken an active role in the maintenance and promotion of the language in his home community. - Shamus
Interviewed by Ronald MacKenzie and Father Allan MacMillan
Camera operated by Frank King
April 11, 2008
Disc One
Total Play Time: 40:08
00:28-08:50 introductions; are all connected to South Uist Listen
08:53-17:27 past times, spinning frolics, weaving Listen
18:00 the neighbours helped each other; everything they ate they grew themselves
24:05 stories in South Uist
31:40 work that AJ has done
35:00 the first people who settled in Judique
Disc Two
Total Play Time: 20:02
00:00-01:34 bait for traps Listen
02:05-10:22 difference between then and now, farming, cutting wood Listen
10:36 today there are no farmers in Judique, no visiting, no helping your neighbour
15:09-20:02 Christmases past; New Year's Eve Listen