This weekend, I ventured out to the Kincardine Scottish Festival and Highland Games with Tim and Kel (both of whom have Scottish sides to their families, more connected to the country than I am with an English grandfather whose wife was Scottish but is not blood-related to me). We drove up there Friday night, stayed at a local provincial campground and headed over to Kincardine early on Saturday morning to join in the festivities.
We started with the local Fireman’s $6 pancake breakfast, which consisted of two large pancakes (I can never finish more than a couple of nibbles without severe intestinal consequences), two sausages and a generous spoonful of scrambled eggs with pepper in them. The breakfast was delicious – I gobbled up the protein quickly, and conservatively hacked away at the pancake, using up all the syrup that was served to me. We each washed down our portions with juice and coffee, then made our way to the festival grounds to browse around the stalls.
Loads of Scottish and Celtic goods were on display, and it was hard not to dish out all my cash immediately. I found some beautiful pocked watches by Sgian Dubh (strangely enough, I can’t actually find an official website for them), but decided to hold off as I figured I could find them online somewhere. I did get a Cadbury’s Flake chocolate bar, as they are one of my favourite British chocs that aren’t usually available in Canada. And, I finally took the plunge and bought myself a bodhran. It’s made in Pakistan, but that made it cheaper and I figured I can just learn on it for now, and upgrade later should I decide to take it further. Time to look up some YouTube videos!
The bagpiping at the festival was relentless, and went on the whole day. It was novel at first, then increasingly more annoying until there was about a one-hour break around 5, then it started up again with more experienced, very talented bagpipe bands finishing off the traditional music part of the day with moving renditions of some of my favourite bagpipe songs, such as Scotland the Brave and Amazing Grace.
Finally, the evening bands came on. We were treated to a Celtic band from Texas (I know!), Needfire who had some really great experimental sounds that no one seemed to enjoy apart from myself and a few random cheerers from the audience (I’m guessing a lot of the audience aren’t used to or into more modern, progressive sounds); Poor Angus; and then finally the Glengharry Boys. I hopped around on my good foot, holding onto Tim for dear life – that’s right, I’m not gonna let this broken foot stop me from dancing! I just love it too much! It was a blast, and all the other young people were hopping up and down by the end as well. We all trudged back to our cars around 1:30 and headed back to our accommodations. We slept at the same provincial park that night.
The food at the festival was quite disappointing – burgers and bad poutine from the vending trucks, the only traditional food being a haggis I had no desire whatsoever to try. However, the next day on our way back to Toronto, we stopped at the Erie Belle Inn for a local breakfast-lunch, and now this was a meal worth its cost – a dish of fresh, delicious, moist, well-cooked (not overcooked) seafood – The Seafood Deluxe Platter – featuring battered shrimp, battered popcorn shrimp, battered scallops, crab salad, fried cod, chips, and coleslaw. Every item was lip-smackingly good, my only disappointment being that I couldn’t eat more of it as I filled up very quickly. It was a perfect way to wrap up a fun couple of days festivaling with a culture about as close you’ll find in Ontario to my own Northern British roots.
Check out Tim’s blog for photos and some video of the day.
