In 1817, Hugh and Mary MacKinnon and their family left the Scottish Highlands to voyage across the sea and carve a new home for themselves in the Mabou Highlands of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Over time their home would become known as MacKinnon's Brook. Nearly 200 years later, Scott Macmillan and Ian McKinnon have collaborated on an extraordinary new Celtic/Symphonic work to celebrate the life journey of this immigrant family. The MacKinnon's Brook Suite, featuring highland bagpipe, tin whistle and Cape Breton fiddle, also honours the recent achievement of the Nova Scotia Nature Trust in protecting this special area in perpetuity.

The MacKinnon's Brook Suite consists of 5 movements: The Voyage, Homesteading, The Long March, Ceilidh and Migration.  Also on the CD are 4 other tunes consisting of Mairi Nighean Alasdair, MacDougall's Pride, If Ever You Were Mine, and Hard At The Jigs.

Listening to the suite, you can picture yourself on the west coast of Cape Breton, just outside of Mabou at MacKinnon's Brook.  You're amongst nature here with the sound of the water lapping on the shore and the birds singing.  It's a very peaceful location.  This is where Ian McKinnon's descendants first arrived in Canada from the Scottish Isle of Barra.  It has been decades since the last of Ian McKinnon's family left MacKinnon's Brook and all that is left now are a few stone remains but you can imagine the rough lifestyle it would have been to grow up here.  Ian McKinnon first visited this location in the 1980's with some family and friends.  Upcoming arriving, with his pipes in hand, he stood on the high bluff overlooking the small cove where the brook flows into the ocean and played a lament in memory of his ancestors.

So McKinnon put together the story of great, great, great, great grandfather Hugh MacKinnon, his wife Mary and their children arriving on the windswept, heavily-wooded coastline to literally carve out a new life. Not long after arriving, however, Hugh sets out on a winter trek to Sydney 150 kms away to register his land grant. On his way back, he plunged through the ice and perished, leaving Mary and the children to make a life on their own. It's a tale of perserverance, one common to all immigrants.

Notes from Scott MacMillan:

"I was commissioned by Ian McKinnon through the support of the Nova Scotia Arts Council to create a new composition depicting the immigration of his ancestors from the Isle of Barra, Scotland, to what would become the community of MacKinnon's Brook in Inverness County, Cape Breton.  I was delighted by the prospect of composing a work based on a part of Cape Breton Island that I have come to love.  My wife and family first introduced me to MacKinnon's Brook in 1989 while working with the Rankin Family in Mabou.  Jennyfer had made a hiking trip to the Brook in the mid 70's and was excited about showing it to me.  Although my clan settled at Indian River on the North Shore of Prince Edward Island, they came from the Isle of Barras as did the McKinnons did, so for me writing this music has somewhat of a personal history.  While at MacKinnon's Brook I saw the rock piles that once formed their community.  These fragments of history propelled my imagination into the past when the settlers broke the land and made this place their home.  The area struck me as windswept and rather unforgiving, making for a harsh life.  Much of the historical background was given to me by retired Mabou school teacher and historian, Jim St. Clair.  By spending time hiking there over the years, I've come to hold MacKinnon's Brook as a very special place in my life."