Week 3: Kilts, Cottages and Burns Celebrations

The third week of the Great Canadian Kilt Skate finds more Canadians celebrating Scottish heritage on the nearby outdoor ice where they can safely skate socially distanced. For the third week in a row (and her 18th skate so far this winter), the ever-enthusiastic Cathy Laver-Wright was flying the flags proudly on Winnipeg’s Centennial River Trail.

Over the past months, Cathy had been organizing Winnipeg’s annual kilt skate as a community event, but after the public health rules made such social gatherings impossible, she has been championing the Home Edition. This week saw the kilt skate story covered by the Winnipeg Free Press. There’s a growing awareness of the kilt skate phenomenon. When Cathy sent her picture to #kiltskate2021WPG, she added the comment: “Such a positive reaction by many we passed on the trail to the flags. One person called out 'Kilt Skate' so the word is spreading.”

Since 2015 the word has been spreading out from Ottawa where the first community kilt skate was organized on the Rideau Canal Skateway. It’s hoped that the 2021 season of Skateway will open in the coming days.

But in Ottawa, as across Canada, there are many options for skating. Here’s Sherry Sharpe and Ian Richardson out at their family cottage.

Ian laces up his skates…

… and he brings his fishing rod. After all, what goes together better than kilt skating and ice fishing? Ah, scotch and haggis maybe?

And speaking of which, tomorrow is Robbie Burns Day! Sherry is the organizer of the Scottish Society of Ottawa’s third annual Robbie Burns Celebration, which was held online on Saturday, January 23.

Like the Kilt Skate, the Tutored Whisky Tasting, and the annual Scottish-style New Year’s celebration Hogman-eh, and all the elements of Ottawa’s annual OttScot Festival,, the Burns celebration has made accommodations for the pandemic. This year we had to do without the fellowship of sitting down together for haggis and beef, neeps and tatties, addresses and toasts, topped off with a ceileidh afterwards. But Sherry and her team did put together a show that could be streamed so that each of us could celebrate Burns Night in our own bubble.

Tomorrow I plan to don my kilt, cook up some haggis, and play the video while I’m enjoying my own personal Burns supper. My Irish wife and stepdaughter won’t join me for the feast; they won’t eat red meat at all, let alone…well, haggis! But they’re great fans of Burns songs and poems, and it was my wife who introduced me to the wonderful renditions by Eddi Reader.

Usually my personal Burns Day celebration involves a kilt skate on the canal, but I’m in Dublin where there is no outdoor skating and the indoor rinks are all closed due to the pandemic. But I hope that my friends in Canada will be out in great numbers, celebrating Robbie with bare knees and ice. Happy Burns Day everyone!