Changing countries, changing jobs

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When we moved to Canada in the mid 20th century, it was due to my father being transferred by his employer. Essentially, he was following the same career path and doing similar work to that he had carried on in England. Transfers of this sort became more common as the years went by. But what of ancestors who immigrated in the years prior? Did they find work in their new country similar to the occupations they had worked at in the old country?

Not so much. Sometimes the jobs they obtained and the places they reached must have taken a lot of getting used to. When I write this, I'm primarily thinking of my maternal grandfather who, prior to immigrating to Canada, had lived in Birmingham and Bournemouth. When he arrived in Canada, he was sent to small town Saskatchewan. The work may also have been clerical work, in a bank rather than at a railway, but the surroundings would have been a culture shock. It didn't take him long to remove to Regina. 

But what of earlier immigrants in my family? Many of them were farmers. The earliest, the patriots who moved from the newly minted country south of the border to take up free land in Upper Canada, would have taken farming the new land in their stride. It wasn't much different than they were used to. The newcomers from Scotland, however, would have found the trees littering their plots daunting and the growing season one they had to get used to.

Not all of the early immigrants in my family were farmers, however. One in particular, Kenneth Matheson, was a stone mason. Building with stone was a necessity in the north of Skye where he came from. There was little timber still available. He first moved his family to Prince Edward Island. I wonder if his subsequent move to Canada West was motivated by a wish to pursue his craft - a thought to ponder as I work on the timeline of his family.