On a sunny but cold afternoon, Scots and Scots-at-heart from near and far gathered at the skating pond at White Park in Concord, NH. The event was organized and hosted by the New Hampshire Scots, who were pleased with the turnout and impressed that some skaters had driven more than an hour to take part in the first-ever kilt skate in their state — the first-ever in New England..
Read MoreTo sum up: many former kilt skate capitals and many new communities responded to the challenge of the Great Canadian Kilt Skate — Home Edition. But there was one city that was a standout this year. For one thing, it sent us more pictures than any other community.
Read MoreAlthough the thermometer has been above freezing for most of the past weeks, in recent days, winter has come back with a vengeance. The morning of the kilt skate dawned with temperatures of minus-25 with the wind chill, and a blizzard forecast for that evening. But none of this stopped the intrepid skaters, many of whom have been coming out year after year ever since Ottawa hosted its first kilt skate to celebrate the bicentennial of Sir John A. Macdonald in 2015.
Read MoreIn past years, Bryan Lyall organized a full Burns dinner for the Scottish Society of Ottawa (SSO), complete with remembering the Immortal Memory, toasts to Lassies and, of course, the Address to the haggis. This year, with Brian away on other responsibilities, we gathered for the fun and the fare at The Highlander Pub, where anyone wearing tartan gets a complementary dram.
Read MoreThe first kilt skates of the season begin tomorrow in Montreal and Ottawa. Here in Ottawa, this means a flurry of media interviews that began earlier this week and will continue on the ice tomorrow. Today, however, there were two television interviews with the local CTV station. The Morning Live show had us rendezvous at Lansdowne Park Skating Court, where the Fourth Annual Sir John A's Great Canadian Kilt Skate begins tomorrow at 11 a.m. Peter wired me for sound.
Read MoreThe rink is scheduled to open on December 7 -- in two weeks. On Friday it was announced that, rather than close at the end of the month with the Canada150 celebrations, the rink will remain open to the public into February.
Read MoreThere's one way that Red Bull Crashed Ice could be made even more exciting, of course. Next time, maybe we'll see them race in kilts!
Read MoreAt just 18 days, the 2016 was the shortest skating season on record. The entire length of the canal was open, it seems, for only a few days, including the last weekend during Winterlude. Still, it was a beautiful skate!
Read MoreSo far, the winter of 2015-16 brought a total of 25 skates -- not all of them on the Skateway, of course. Every year there's time put aside for a father-son skate around Family Day, and we managed to go out on a day when the NCC was clearing the snow from the 53 cm. that hit us the day before. It made for an interesting skate!
Read MoreThe cold snap continues, and we have hopes that the Rideau Canal Skateway will open soon. The National Capital Commission won't raise the green flags until there's 30 cms of good ice -- enough to support crowds of 10,000 people who show up forWinterlude at a given time.
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across canada, communities host kilt skates to celebrate scotland’s contribution to our multicultural fabric.
