Chasing the Comet: A Scottish-Canadian Life

John Walker is a professor of Spanish studies at Queen’s University.

A spry, clear-headed 98-year-old at the time of publication, David
Caldow came to Canada as a youth, inspired by the 1910 astronomical
phenomenon known as Halley’s Comet. For the rest of the 20th century,
he spent his time traveling and working in his new land, Canada. From
Quebec City, through Ontario, he finally settled in British Columbia,
working on various government farms where he was to become a manager of
several provincial establishments, training sheepdogs and workers alike
with his Scottish diligence and canniness. At the age of 70, he went to
Tanzania on a two-year appointment, teaching farming management and crop
cultivation to his African workers. The character of the man can be seen
in his candid comments about government waste and incompetence (at both
provincial and federal levels), union interference, Masonic influences,
political corruption, aid and development abuses, and so on.

Chasing the Comet is more than a story of an immigrant’s experiences.
Koretchuk captures something of the human struggle, the coming of age of
a man—and a country—in 20th-century Canada.