Rabbie Burns Day Launches Kilt Skate 2025 Season

On January 25, around the world Scots and Scots-at-heart celebrate the Scottish bard Robert Burns. What better date, then, to also celebrate Scotland’s contribution to Canada’s multicultural heritage by lacing on the skates and taking to the ice in kilts. Kilt skating first began as a Burns Day house party in Ottawa. Now in its 11th year, The Great Canadian Kilt Skate has now expanded to 15 communities in three countries. 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!

In Montreal, the St. Andrew’s Society is an old hand at organizing successful kilt skate events and the 2025 Rabbie Burns skate continued its fine traditions. Some people came to skate.

Others, to dance…

Others to keep the atmosphere festive with the skirl of the pipes.

And as is usual for a Montreal kilt skate, there were goodies on hand.

As ever at a Montreal kilt skate, a good time was had by all.

This year the January 25 event made the front page of the Montreal Gazette.

In 2015, Montreal was one of four inaugural Canadian cities hosting a kilt skate. Each year since then, new communities join the kilt skate family. This year, by our latest count, there are 15 — including an American town and, for the first time ever, a kilt skate in Scotland itself.

Burns Day 2025 saw another kilt skate in Canada: the Second Annual “Freddy Kilt Skate” in Fredericton, New Brunswick. What we find intriguing is that the Fredericton skate, organized and hosted by the Fredericton Society of St. Andrew, went ahead without any contact with the Scottish Society of Ottawa, which has been coordinating the “National Kilt Skate” since 2015.

This shows how the kilt skate phenomenon has acquired enough momentum that it is growing organically. We have no idea whether other kilt skates are taking place “under our radar.” We’d like to encourage and promote kilt skating everywhere.

We’d love to post news about the kilt ske that was held last Saturday, January 25 at Officers’ Square Provincial Heritage Place in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Got any photos? Any stories? Contact us using the contact button on this website, or email the Scottish Society of Ottawa’s Director of the National Kilt Skate at kiltskate@ottscot.ca.