On the back wall of Becky Minto’s bar-room set, a temporary looking collection of rough-hewn wooden planks, are two framed slogans. One of them reads “Je me souviens,” the Quebecois motto about never forgetting your past. The other reads “Fialachd do’n fhògarrach,” a Gaelic phrase promising hospitality to the outcast.
The juxtaposition of the two languages would be unusual anywhere but the Lac-Mégantic region of Quebec which, in the 19th century, became populated by settlers from France and the Western Isles of Scotland.
