On a brisk, foggy Saturday morning in Kelso Sept. 12, with the sound of bagpipes echoing over the green hills and trees of Tam O'Shanter Park, the place could almost be confused for its Scottish namesake.
The Kelso Highlander Festival and Scottish Games have been celebrated at the park for 44 years.
This year's Saturday opening brought vendors and clan tents along with traditional dancers and musicians such as the Wicked Tinkers, the Fort Vancouver Pipe Band and more. A sizable crowd of local Scottish Americans, Celtophiles and Celt-curious attendees turned out to enjoy the overcast day.
Entry to the festival and athletic games has always been free, according to the Highlander Festival website. The festival celebrates Kelso's own Scottish heritage, and the heritage of attendees from all around the Pacific Northwest.
Peter W. Crawford, a Scottish surveyor from the original Kelso, founded Kelso, Washington, in 1884, and it was incorporated in 1890. Kelso is an official sister city of Kelso, Scotland, and nods to Scottish heritage are evident around town; Tam O'Shanter himself is the inebriated, philandering protagonist of the eponymous poem from Scottish writer Robert Burns.
The traditional games showcased at the Highlander Festival are: stone put, the inspiration for shot put; caber toss, where a 16- to 22-foot-tall caber weighing 100-180 pounds is lifted and (sometimes) flipped precisely over end; sheaf toss and weight over bar, where bales of hay and heavy weights, respectively, are tossed over ascending bars; weight for distance, a similar event that throws out rather than up; and hammer throw, also thrown for distance. Anyone can sign up to compete. The games are one of the festival's biggest attractions.
During the Scottish Dance Competition, dancers of all ages and experience levels perform traditional dances in full Highland dress to pipe music.
Gail Bacon has organized the Scottish Dance Competition since 2006. She wrote in an email to The Reflector, "I hope audiences enjoy watching the dances and let others know about highland dancing so that we can increase the number of dancers in the area and keep the traditions alive."
Clan tents advertise organizations (many of them nonprofits) dedicated to the different clans of the Scottish high- and lowlands. Official clan members often travel to multiple festivals a year, educating about their clans and meeting up with fellow members. The tents feature information as well as some cultural artifacts or facsimiles, the most common of which by far are the clan crests and famous tartans.
Inside the Macgregors' tent, Russ McAdams and his wife, Ann, sat in front of a map of Scotland. Mr. McAdams wore a baby blue Scottish bonnet. McAdams helped to found the MacGregors’ Own Scots Guard, and is a charter member of the Clan Gregor Society's Pacific Northwest Chapter, a nonprofit.
Why is his Scottish heritage — which he traces back to a letter from a relative — important to McAdams?
"Because it is," he said. "You don't have anything that you can call your own — Scottish heritage is what we go to. So you can tell your grandkids, or great-grandkids, give them a little history of America, and why the Scots came."
Fiona Dohman, owner of Granny Fi's Shortbread, has brought her Scottish family recipes to the Highlander Festival for 12 years. Dohman was born and raised in the United Kingdom and moved to America as a young woman.
"My dad was a Londoner, my mom from Scotland, so my grandpa reckoned that the best part of me was the Scottish part — whatever part that is," Dohman said with a grin.
The Highlander Festival is special to its longtime participants, and they help to make the festival what it is.
In the MacGregor tent, Candace, a longtime member said, "The people make it comfortable."
"This is where we've always done our Kelso Garden Club Flower Show," said Phyllis Hall of the Kelso Garden Club. "It's (because of) the exposure of the people walking back and forth — and the quality of the people that you get here, too. Because they're all here to have a good time."
Darlene Dalgliesh and her husband, along with their family, have attended Scottish festivals for more than 50 years.
She said they never miss Kelso: "We love every bit of it."
The festival continued on Sunday, completing its annual two-day run.
Learn more online at kelsohighlanderfestival.com.
