Montreal’s Highland Games are back in celebration of Scottish culture – Montreal | 24CA News
Thousands of Montrealers converged within the borough of Verdun Sunday for what organizers consider are the oldest Highland Games within the nation.
“It’s extremely significant that we continue the tradition that we started in 1855,” defined video games president Scott MacKenzie.
It was referred to as the Caledonia Games again then.
Sunday’s occasion, held on the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, was the forty seventh Montreal Highland Games — the successor to the Caledonia Games. Organizers say it was a celebration of Scottish tradition and a strategy to share it with the remainder of town.
“It’s a day to share all that we enjoy — sports, athletics, highland dance, bagpipes,” defined video games spokesperson, Marilyn Meikle.
She added that it’s much more than that — a strategy to present yet one more instance of town’s multicultural make-up.
“I think it says that as Montrealers we come together to support something that’s important to us,” she burdened.
Some attending the occasion level out that on a day like Sunday, everybody on the video games is Scottish. It’s that sentiment some, like former Montrealer Alyssa Caughy, says makes them proud to be Montrealers.
“There’s a place for every heritage to celebrate, but (you can) also invite people into the different heritages,” she mentioned.
Caughy now lives in Winnipeg however mentioned she makes it some extent to attend the video games yearly.
In addition to the same old athletics competitions, like the burden for top throw and the caber toss, there have been different much less skilled contests, similar to medieval fight wherein totally different groups jousted for supremacy. There was additionally, for the primary time, a haggis-eating contest to see who might beat MacKenzie.
“I’m a big guy and I love haggis,” he laughed.
Four volunteers challenged him to see who might down half a pound of haggis the quickest, however ultimately, MacKenzie triumphed.
One of the extra in style contests, although, was the tug of struggle which, regardless of the jocularity, had a severe undertone. It was held to lift funds for the Douglas Foundation.
“The funding for the Douglas Foundation allows us to support research and other clinical support services at the Douglas that regular government funding can’t meet,” defined Gabriel Devenyi, a analysis scientist and a member of one of many groups.
Organizers had been hoping to lift no less than $5,000.
With that and all the opposite actions Sunday, those that attended say they’re already wanting ahead to subsequent yr.
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