The Scottish folk song, and 1788 poem by Robert Burns, Auld Lang Syne, will be heard around the world on New Year’s Eve. Probably the most famous instrumental version of the song is the one by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians. The band played the song on major US radio and TV broadcasts every year from 1929 to 1976. Lombardo became known as “Mr. New Year’s Eve.”

The song/poem, however, is not just about ringing in a new year. Auld Lang Syne is about goodbyes, endings, and beginnings, which might be why it came to mind for Dr. William Fraser Tolmie as he paddled the great Columbia River one day in May 1833.

New Beginnings

Having completed medical school in Scotland the year prior, Tolmie signed up with the Hudson’s Bay Company and was posted to the Pacific Northwest. At the age of 21, Tolmie arrived at Fort George (present-day Astoria, Oregon) on April 30th, 1833. His journal entry for May 2nd shows Tolmie using the literature of Scotland to make sense of his new surroundings – and his new beginning.

Below, an excerpt from the Doctor’s journal – a particularly poetic passage and a reminder that there is much beauty in the world if we pause to see it; a message I will hold close as we move into 2026.

William Fraser Tolmie: May 2nd, 1833

Have been paddling along in the merry moonlight and since it became too dark for reading have been rousing the echoes with Auld Lang Syne, &c. and indulging in corresponding train of ideas "On the land of Brown Heath and shaggy Wood," "Land of the Mountain and the flood." Evening surpassingly beautiful. The blue concave is cloudless and lit up, with the starry hosts. Venus has just sunk behind the western bank. Ursa Major is nearly on the meridian and the "pale empress of the night" is riding in full-orbed majesty about a demiquadrant above horizon and sheds her mellow beams on the mighty stream here shut in by its banks so as to appear like a broad unruffled lake.  10 ½. Now encamping on a small wooded islet; a blazing wood fire disseminates light all around and the pots are boiling furiously. The Indians have just upset their’s and are philosophically laughing at their mishap, and the wolves on opposite bank are howling in concourse.

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