Scots and Scotch
In fact, Caledonia was used by the Romans to describe only the region beyond the Antonine Wall (the Highlands) and the anonymous poem is actually The Canadian Boat-Song, with the memorable refrain: "Fair these broad meads, these hoary woods are grand; But we are exiles from our fathers' land."
These exiles were the children of those who had left the Highlands in the Clearances, "that a degenerate lord might boast his sheep", so they were Caledonians.
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Hide AdChristopher North (pen name John Wilson) is suspected to have written this poem inspired by a letter from a friend in Canada who was rowed down the St Lawrence River "by some strapping fellows all born in that country and yet hardly one could speak any language but the Gaelic".
Caledonian is too exclusive, so Scots and Scotland will just have to do.
ERIC BROWN
Southborough Road
Bromley, Kent