‘Susie was definitely one of the pioneers’
Female Highland Games athlete still going strong
Spectators at Highland Games heavy events know there is a critical moment in the popular caber toss soon after the thrower has squatted to lift the roughly trimmed tree trunk — weighing as much as 70 pounds and measuring as long as 16 feet — waist high.
With the tapered log rising vertically above them, balanced on one shoulder and nestled in the neck, the thrower starts to move forward, taking longer and faster strides to gain momentum.
When they feel “the stick," as they call it, get lighter on their shoulder, it is moving faster than they are. That’s the cue to stop, plant their feet and go into a three-quarter squat, pulling up on the bottom of the stick with all their strength, their hands rising over their head, launching the caber like a rocket.
With enough power behind it, the caber will climb high enough to flip end over end, landing in as straight a line as possible with the thrower. The impressive feat requires strength, explosive power, athletic ability and determination. It is a crowd favourite.
Highland Games have been attracting large crowds for centuries to see the caber toss and as many as eight other throwing competitions called heavy events. But until about the last decade, they only expected to see large brawny men in kilts on the pitch entertaining them. It was considered a man’s sport, partly because of an assumption that only a man had the strength, power, athletic ability and determination mentioned above to throw a tree trunk, an iron ball on a chain and even large rocks in the air or over distance. Now, however, the crowds are happy to cheer for their favourite women athletes as well.
Susie Lajoie of Middleton has been a crowd favourite since she became the first female Highland Games heavy event competitor in Nova Scotia and one of the first in the region at age 16. For more than a decade, Lajoie has competed across the region, in several provinces, in the United States and as far away as New Zealand.
Recently, Lajoie won her third Canadian female heavy events championship with the Canadian Scottish Athletic Federation (CSAF) in Quebec. Currently, she holds three Canadian records, including heavy weight for distance and light and heavy hammer and has represented Canada at two world championships.
During a recent interview, Lajoie said she competed in high school track, volleyball and basketball, but she was drawn toward strength training in the gym and enjoyed the camaraderie, encouragement and mentoring of experienced Highland Games heavy events throwers in the Middleton area.
“I felt more comfortable at the gym and on the throwing field,” Lajoie said.
“When I started throwing, I would just tag along to competitions across Nova Scotia with the guys. And we had my own set of weights built because obviously some of the weights are lighter than the weights the guys are throwing," Lajoie said, looking back.
“I would carpool with the guys, and they would bring me to competitions where there weren’t even women’s divisions yet. And I would just throw alongside them,” she said.
“I competed against my own numbers. I was having fun. And it was so special to be able to show crowds something they haven’t seen before,” Lajoie said of those early days.
“The crowds were so excited to see a female on the field. And I got to be that person so many times across Nova Scotia and even twice in New Zealand.”
Former CFL player Danny Frame of Lawrencetown was one of the heavy throwers who encouraged Lajoie when she started.
Frame, who is the Guinness World Record holder for the most caber tosses in three minutes in 2018, remembers a 17-year-old Lajoie surprising the crowd and the other athletes with her performance in the caber toss at a Festival of Tartans Highland Games in New Glasgow.
"Because she was so young, people would forget when they are hauling equipment to events there is a 17-yearold female throwing. They only brought one caber for the open division. I think it was 20 feet and 85 pounds,”
Frame said. “That is a monstrous caber. She had three successful attempts,” Frame said.
“Every time she did that the crowd was into it because when you are six foot three inches and 300 pounds, the expectation is you are going to be able to throw one. When you are a 17-year-old female, five foot nine inches and 145 pounds, people don't expect that to happen,” Frame said.
“It was pretty amazing.
Susie was definitely one of the pioneers. For years there were no female throwers,” he said.
After 14 years of competing, Lajoie still works out four to six times a week and practices throwing up to three times a week during the Highland Games season in Atlantic Canada between May and September.
“The more I travel the more I hope to extend my season to year-round,” Lajoie said.
However, Lajoie makes time to pay forward the mentoring and encouragement she received when she began competing.
“We would practice together some days and she is really good at helping me learn my technique for all the different events,” Jen Bishop of Middleton, who started competing in Scottish heavy events three years ago, said of Lajoie.
“Seeing the success she had has motivated me to get better because she has done so well with it.”
Lajoie added, “I want women to realize that they don't have to work out just to be skinny and aesthetically pleasing. I want them to know how empowering it is to work out to become strong.”
More information about Scottish heavy events in Canada is available at
https://www.csaf.ca/index. cfm?page=home, on Facebook at CSAF- Canadian Scottish Athletic Federation and Instagram at canadianscottishathleticfed.