In my mind, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia is the next best thing to Scotland and that’s where I’ll be for the next couple of weeks. Although GreatScot! blog posts may be a little more infrequent than usual, rest assured that I will keeping an eye out for interesting tidbits to post from time to time during my vacation.
For those who may not be familiar with Cape Breton Island, it is an island at the northern tip of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. As it was largely settled by Highland Scots emigrants, Cape Breton has a rich Gàidhlig history and many aspects of that culture are still evident today. The Celtic musical tradition is especially strong and there are still places where Gàidhlig is routinely spoken. I’m looking forward to the chance to practice my limited Gàidhlig vocabulary and see if anyone can understand me.
Here are a few pictures I took from my trip last year and a video from a music festival that I attended at Colaisde na Gàidhlig (The Gaelic College).
Chisholm’s Cottages, Troy, NS
Port Hood Island
Hills of Mabou
Colindale Rd
Christy’s Look off
Cabot Trail
Cabot Trail
Cabot Trail
By the way, I found out yesterday that I am indeed attending the Outlander Premiere in San Diego on July 25, so readers can definitely look forward to Great Scot! blog posts covering the event. I’m very excited to be meeting more Outlanders and having the chance to see both the first Outlander episode and attend the Q&A panel with Ron, Diana, Sam, Caitriona, Tobias, Graham and Lotte.
Stay tuned, exciting times ahead!
In the meantime, don’t forget to enter the inaugural GreatScot! giveaway. Click here to enter.
When last we met, Retreat attendees were giving the new Outlander Behind the Scenes feature a rousing standing ovation. Alas, that was the end of the official presentations of the Outlander Retreat weekend. Last up in the official events schedule was the Afternoon Mixer.
Nibbles and Natterings
Exiting the main hall to the skirl of bagpipes and still on a tremendous adrenaline high from all the fantastic tidbits and visuals of the last hour, I found myself facing a banquet worthy of Castle Leoch and Mrs. Fitz herself.
Spread worthy of Mrs. Fitz
Outlanders were hungry!
Bagpiper
For the next two hours, Outlanders mixed and mingled with each other as well as with Diana and many of the Random House and Starz reps. It was a beautiful affair and Diana was beautiful and gracious as she moved from group to group. I think just about everyone had a chance to chat with her if they were patient. I had one very important question I had been wanting to ask and this was finally my chance. I knew that Diana had been listing the annual DragonCon event as tentative on her appearance schedule for a while, but I was finally able to confirm that she won’t be able to attend the event this year because of commitments in the UK. While disappointed for myself, hopefully you readers in the UK will be able to experience the DG phenomenon in person for yourself.
As for the food, there was definitely some noshing going on. I had several bites that were delightful. My favorite was probably the smoked salmon on oatcake, but the shepherd’s pie bite was very good too. I also tried the lavender fudge, and while it was good, I just seem to have a problem with lavender. I can’t imagine why. 😉
Soon, though, all the food was eaten and slowly but surely everyone began to hug and bid each other farewell. I found I really had to drag myself away. Well in all honesty @LallybrochLaura had to drag me away, otherwise I might still be there. I just didn’t want the magic of the weekend to end. My last sight as I climbed the steps and stepped away from my magical weekend was this one of Kristin Matherly.
I think she may have had the best idea of all. How much better can it get than a nice sunny spot and a great book to read?
A Meal with a View
Luckily for me, there was one last event on my unofficial Outlander Retreat agenda. A few friends and I planned a post-Retreat dinner in the revolving Sky City restaurant at the top of the Seattle Space Needle. As we were just a bit early for our reservation, Laura and I took the opportunity to visit the Space Needle Observation Deck on what had to be one of the most beautiful days in Seattle that I have ever seen. Hardly a cloud in the sky and you felt you could see forever.
Space Needle
View towards Safeco Field
View towards West Seattle
View of Downtown Seattle
At dinner, the food was superb but the company even more so. It was a wonderful chance to sit down and really discuss all our feelings about the day and share with each other our favorite memories. You could actually feel friendships clicking and solidifying as we enjoyed our food, conversation, and revolving view. All too soon though, it was time for even that last remnant of the memory-filled day to be over. We all headed back to our hotels for the night and then back to our respective home cities and daily lives.
Final Thoughts
Unfortunately, like the Outlander Retreat weekend, it is time to wrap up my official Outlander Retreat blog posts. As I reflect on all the happenings of the last days, I find that it already seems to be fading into mythical status in my mind.
Did I really meet Diana Gabaldon?
Were all the online friends I met in person for the first time this weekend really as awesome as I had hoped they would be?
Do I really have in my hands the book that I have been waiting almost five years to read?
The answers to all these questions is yes. But even now, as I sit here composing this blog post, I find that I don’t want to let the weekend go. For lack of any better words of my own, I’ve decided to include here one of my favorite songs by Scottish singer/songwriter Dougie MacLean titled ‘Caledonia’. For those who may not know, Caledonia is the Latin name given to Scotland by the Romans, and in this song MacLean is singing about being homesick for Scotland after a weekend with friends. I find this song fits my feelings perfectly because, after this magical wonderful weekend, I find myself homesick for Outlander. And just as soon as I hit publish on this blog, I will be diving right into that magical world once more. Don’t be worried if you don’t hear from me for a bit, I’ll be in my favorite fictional world.
OK. I’ve only had 3 hours of sleep but I’m back up and totally jazzed about finishing this blog post. Why does this never happen when I get 3 hours of sleep on a work night? But, yet again, I digress. Where did I leave off?
A moment in the sun (of Diana’s presence)
Oh, yes! Lunch! But wait, there was this other little thing that happened before lunch. As a part of signing group D, I waited my turn to get Diana to personalize my brand new copy of MOBY! Happily, the line moved pretty quickly as attendees were limited to having their copies of MOBY personalized with just their name. Being the lovely gracious woman that she is, Diana signed my copy for me in the Acknowledgements section where my name appeared. I was thrilled to have another few moments to have her sign the book, thank me for my help, and have my picture taken.
Almost there!
My moment with Diana!
‘S e do bheatha, Diana!
Still basking in the glow of my moment with DG, I headed up to grab some lunch. Some of us who have blogs and fan sites had deliberately maneuvered our way into the same signing group so that we could have lunch together and plot strategies for getting new subscribers for Starz. This is important: New subscribers will be one of several key drivers for the success of the Outlander TV series and determine whether it is renewed for subsequent seasons.
Entering the Armory food court, I found it to be a hub of activity. Apparently, in addition to our own event, there was also some kind of Filipino cultural celebration being held. Skirting the resultant crowds, I scoped out my options and settled on Pies! I figured a savory meat pie would be the closest meal I could come to one that Jamie and Claire likely will eat in MOBY. The Cheeseburger Meat Pie was delicious. (I really wanted the English Meat Pie, but there weren’t any ready when I ordered and besides, I was afraid that would brand me a Sassenach forever.)
Cheeseburger pie
After our strategy session wrapped up and lunch was devoured, we headed back down to the Fisher Pavilion for the continuation of the afternoon events.
Highland Fling
First up on the roster of afternoon activities was a demonstration of Scottish dancing. Seattle’s Royal Scottish Dance Society delighted attendees with their performance of Scottish country dances in both soft and hard shoe. I was also delighted to hear several tunes that I recognized as staples in the Cape Breton, Nova Scotia musical repertoire. Cutest of all were the littlest costumed members of the group. I caught some lovely pictures and a few short videos to give you a taste.
After the dancing, I spent the next hour pleasantly conversing with many Outlanders I heretofore had only known through social media while valiantly ignoring the siren call of MOBY from the depths of my Random House tote bag. Next up was the hour for which we had all been waiting. It has to be something good if a sign like this shows up, right?
So several people have asked me today if I was planning to write anything for #WorldOutlanderDay. I wasn’t really planning to, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I do have a story to tell. I may even admit to my darkest, most shameful Outlandersecret.
In the beginning…
From reading many reminiscences today, I’ve realized that many, if not most, Outlander fans can point to the exact month and year they first read Outlander. I’m not like that. I’m pretty sure I picked up my first copies of Outlander and Dragonfly in Amberat a Barnes and Noble somewhere in the mid 90s but I couldn’t say when. And although I know how strongly Diana objected to them being there, I likely would not have ever found the books in a bookstore if they had not been in the Romance section. Anyway, I bought them and took them home. And they sat on my shelf for days, months, dare I say, years. I know I tried to start Outlander several times, but I never seemed to make it past the magic first 100 pages. Finally, in the midst of a paperback book-reducing frenzy, I did something I can’t believe I’m admitting in public: much less in an Outlander-related post, I traded Outlander and Dragonfly in at a used book store.
I know, I know. I can hear the gasps and screams of outrage already. I have no real excuse. Looking back, I can only come up with a couple of reasons why I think Outlander didn’t “click” for me back then. First, I was pretty young. I was only 23 or 24 and was still pretty much living in the bosom of my family and I think I just had a hard time relating to Claire. Second, although I’ve always been a huge fan of historically based fiction, neither WWII nor the Jacobite period had ever numbered among my favorite historical time periods. Somehow both these factors, plus never making it past the first 100 pages, doomed me into making a tragic mistake. Most of you will be quite relieved to note however that now, when I recommend Outlander to others, I make them sign a blood oath not to stop reading before magic page 100.
Seeing the light–
Luckily, unlike so many other things in life, I was offered a second chance. I was attending a music festival in Wilkesboro, NC, ( not too far from the fictional location of Fraser’s Ridge) when I started chatting with a weaver who was exhibiting her wares in the arts and crafts tent. As we were talking about different historically set books we had read, she asked me if I had read Outlander. I readily admitted that I had purchased the book at one time but had never ‘got into it.’ Looking back, I think I’m really lucky she decided to have anything more to do with me. However, as I listened to this lady extol the virtues of the series, I resolved to give Outlanderanother go, and boy is that a decision that has impacted my life.
Now that a premiere date for Outlander has been announced, we are slowly yet surely seeing press coverage about the series tick up. One such article published recently got me to thinking. Outlander already has a large and loyal fan base. What impact has there been, if any, on Scotland’s economy and culture? And what can we expect to change after the series starts airing?
First, let me start with the article that intrigued me, published by a site called “We Love Soaps,” who bill themselves as the “World’s biggest champion of scripted, serialized storytelling on TV & the web.” I guess the Outlander TV series does fit that description, although I would never call it a Soap! The bit of the article to catch my eye was this:
The fervent on-line fan base totals over a half-million and when the ‘first-look’ photo of Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser posted on the Starz social channels, it outperformed other introductions of lead characters for properties such as The Great Gatsby (Gatsby), Hunger Games (Katniss), Game of Thrones (Ned Stark), and NBC’s Dracula (Dracula). Additionally, when Sam was cast as Jamie Fraser, the fans took it upon themselves to make their voices heard and put him on E! News’ “Hottie of the Week” charts two weeks in a row (which is very rare, if not unprecedented). In addition, #Outlander trended (was one of the top ten things being talked about on Twitter) numerous times during NY ComicCon.Starz Summer 2014 New Series: ‘Power’ and ‘Outlander’
It is apparent the size and fervency of the Outlander fan base has already been noticed and its impact noted. One example is the recent Twitter trending event held on May 19 for #WorldWideTVNeedsOutlander. The tag trended globally and the fact was highlighted in the introduction of Outlander during the L.A. Screenings event for international TV buyers that same day. You can see Diana Gabaldon — author of the bestselling Outlander series of novels — tweet about that here:
.Hey #WorldwideTVNeedsOutlander ! Your hugely trending tweets were announced in the intro to this afternoon's screening of the 1st episode!
Great Scot! 