For 10 years — ever since the first kilt skates to celebrate Sir John A. Macdonald’s bicentennial — the organizers at the Scottish Society of Ottawa have tried hard to find someone in Halifax to bring this proudly Scottish city — capital of “New Scotland” — into the national kilt skate family. This year Halifax made its debut with pizazz!

William Petrie of the Clans and Scottish Societies of Canada and Kristy Van Hoven of the Guthrie School of Dance brought the Great Canadian Kilt Skate back for its second year at the Evergreen Brick Works in Toronto’s Don Valley.

On Heritage Day, February 17th, the AHS hosted our third annual Great Canadian Kilt Skate! For those who don’t know, the Kilt Skate was conceived to mark the bicentennial of Canada’s first prime minister, in 2015. Since then, it has grown to include communities across Canada and even beyond, with skates taking place in the United States and even overseas!!!

One of the many things the Great Canadian Kilt Skate celebrates each year is the hardiness of the Scottish people. That ruggedness and resilience were tested on Monday as temperatures plunged close to -30 C while windchills made it feel closer to -40 C, and weather advisories warned against being outside much longer than a few seconds.

Under a weather warning and in the frigid cold of a daytime high of -22c with a wind chill up to -30c, some hearty Calgarians took to the ice in Kilts to celebrate the 11th Annual Great Canadian Kilt Skate.

The professional ice hockey outfit teamed up with Scottish Society of Ottawa, in Canada, who organised the Great Canadian Kilt Skate to celebrate the strong connection between their country and Scotland.

And back in Petawawa, the Canadian kilt skate was a big hit — especially with a new generation of kilt skaters.

Scottish culture and sound was celebrated with skating on the ice in Maxville during the annual Kilt Skate.

Members of the Orillia Scottish community skated and curled in kilts on Saturday to promote Scottish culture and raise funds for the annual Scottish festival.

In Ottawa, the kilt skate weekend provided sunny skies and temperatures cold enough to keep the ice hard but warm enough to take off the mitts, open the coat and get a tingle in the knees. A braw day when you didn’t mind lacing up outdoors.

This year, the kilt skate season was launched in two cities: one which has hosted kilt skates since the beginning; the other hosted a second annual event and we didn’t know about the first one!

With the 2024 kilt skate season wrapped up, and the ice all melted, it’s time to look back on a ten-year legacy of bragging rights as the Kilt Skate Capital of Canada.

With the 2024 kilt skate season wrapped up, and the ice all melted, it’s time to look back on a ten-year legacy of bragging rights as the Kilt Skate Capital of Canada.

This year — 2024 — marks the tenth year in which skaters across Canada have celebrated their Scottish heritage by taking to the ice in tartans and kilts. Back in 2015, five cities (Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Calgary) hosted kilt skates as a way to celebrate the bicentennial of the birthday of Canada’s first Prime Minister. This year, 13 communities posted their plans for a kilt skate event and 10 went on to host an event.

But 2024 was an unusually warm winter in parts of North America, and this provided challenges to several organizers. Unsafe ice conditions led to cancellations of the kilt skates in Concord NH and Orillia ON.

Again this year, a mild winter made the originally-scheduled date untenable. But rather than cancel the event outright, Winnipeg (current holder of bragging rights as Kilt Skate Capital of Canada) took a chance on rescheduling for later in February. As Evelyn Mitchell, organizer of Winnipeg’s Great Canadian Kilt Skate, reports, the gamble paid off:

Age doesn’t matter: with a flag in your hand and your skates on your feet, the years fall away and we can all be children again.

“The event was a great success having many skaters with or without kilts who enjoyed celebrating our Scottish heritage. The event started with the South Glengarry Pipe Band entertaining the crowd with some of their traditional Scottish tunes.

The Antigonish Highland Society reports from their 2nd annual Great Canadian Kilted Skate, which they hosted on Heritage Day, February 19th, at the Antigonish Arena.

Having spent the past few winters in Ireland, I was delighted to be in Ottawa this year for its tenth annual Great Canadian Kilt Skate. The date corresponded with the last weekend of Ottawa’s annual Winterlude carnival, so the Ice Hog mascots — suitably tartaned up — were on hand to welcome kilt skaters.