Scottish diaspora alive and caber-tossing in B.C.
Lovers of all things Scottish will descend on Percy Perry Stadium in Coquitlam today for the annual B.C. Highland Games and Scottish Festival. Visitors can check out demonstrations and competitions of highland dancing, feats of athletic prowess like the caber toss (throwing a large, tapered pole), and pipe bands including the six-time world champion Simon Fraser University Pipe Band.
The festival is a highlight of SFU’s upcoming 50th anniversary this fall, and will be presided over by co-Chieftains of the Day, SFU president Andrew Petter and history professor Leith Davis, who is also the director of SFU’s Centre for Scottish Studies.
We talked to Davis about the Highland Games, the Scottish diaspora in Canada and the Centre for Scottish Studies.
Q What are the duties of a co-Chieftain? Do you get to toss a caber?
A No, I’m opening the games, then there’ll be the cannon salute, and I’m participating in the closing ceremonies. I’m also organizing the cultural tent. We have everything from kilt-making demonstrations to Gaelic lessons to a history lesson on Simon Fraser. Q You’ve attended the games before. What do you look forward to as a spectator?
A It’s all really spectacular. The pipe bands are breathtaking. I love seeing the dancers as well. All throughout the games there are a number of different stages, with dancers in competition, ranging in age from the really little kids to the older dancers. And it’s always nice to take a tour of the various shops that are operating there. Tartan clothing, Scottish weaponry, anything involving Scotland, you can find it there.
Q Anything worn by Mel Gibson in the movie Braveheart?
A You’d be surprised what you can find there. Underwear in the shape of kilts, tam o’shanters with red hair braids already attached. There’s a lot of kitschy, funny stuff and also some elegant, wonderful stuff. Terry Lee from Tartantown (based in Coquitlam) always has a booth there and he has magnificent kilts.
Q We wanted to talk a little bit about Simon Fraser, and the university’s connection to Scottish heritage in B.C. Simon Fraser was Scottish?
A He’s of Scottish heritage. His parents were loyalists in America, and they came to Canada after the revolution. But we have a long history of connecting with the Scottish community in British Columbia. The Centre for Scottish Studies has been in operation since 1998. We offer Gaelic classes, talks, and concerts, as well as credit-based classes for SFU students. Then we have a couple of community-based projects. One is Scottish Voices from the West. It’s an oral history of Scots emigrants to B.C. Some came quite a while ago and they have wonderful stories about making that journey and what that was like and memories of the places where they came from.
Some of them are quite amazing. We have one fellow who came speaking only Gallic and he learned English here in Vancouver. Many of them brought artifacts from their families. When you think of it, people leaving home in the early part of the century, many would never go back. What they brought out were copies of Robert Burns books, we have a few of those at the Centre — Robert Burns poems in tiny little volumes. Sometimes they brought their bagpipes, or a kilt, something to hang onto. Then they have the stories of their memories of the past as well.
Q It seems like every once in a while something happens in pop culture to remind people of Scotland — we had Trainspotting in the 1990s, and now it’s the popular TV series Outlander.
A Yes. Every so often there’s an appeal to some romantic notion of the Outlander or Highlander. I think there’s something appealing about Scotland and its deep connection with history. People are fascinated by that, and the stories of the Highland clans. Most of us are not very connected to our locations, and the idea of a clan where people are intensely closely related by blood is really appealing.
Q And are you of Scottish descent?
A Somewhere back there, yes. But I am married to a man named Robert Roy McGregor, who’s very Scottish.
Q Will he be tossing a caber?
A I’m trying to get him to wear a kilt. I’m not sure how well that’s going to go over. Still working on that one.