John Alick Macpherson is a native Gaelic speaker from Harris and North Uist, Scotland, and he currently lives near Sydney, Nova Scotia. Educated at Edinburgh and Jordanhill College of Education, where he trained as a teacher of Gaelic and history, he taught Gaelic in the Scottish school system. John Alick also worked for the Gaelic Department of the BBC as a producer, and was deputy director of the Gaelic Broadcasting Committee and has been involved in many Gaelic activities including being on the board of the Gaelic Books Council. He was also the Chairman of the Scottish Government task force whose findings led to the Gaelic Language Act. Other Gaelic activities include writing columns for the Gaelic newspaper An Gaidheal Ùr and the Gaelic magazine An Gath, preparation of Gaelic language plans, and the translation into Gaelic of complex documents for several Scottish organizations.