KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Community members were invited to celebrate Scotland the Scottish culture during Kalamazoo’s 34th Scottish Festival at Kindleberger Park Saturday.
Starting at 9 a.m., attendees could find Highland dancing, Scottish food, Highland cows and deer hounds, and more, according to organizers.
Guests could also find 8-9 traditional Highland events, all of which involve throwing heavy things, according to Kate Boeve, athletic director for the Kalamazoo Scottish Festival.
“Whether stones, weights, cabers, a sheaf is a bale of hay on a pitchfork over a high bar, so they’re all open to youth all the way up to over 60,” Boeve said. “Today [Saturday] we’ve got 12 all the way up to 68, you have some 70-year-olds who play, and we are happy to have novices who come who have never played before, as long as they can practice some for safety. And then we also have practices all year long, once the weather is nice in Michigan.”
The coronavirus had previously brought numbers down for the festival, but according to Boeve, that number is climbing back up.
“Because we hold practices and we try to train people, we get a lot of continuing and we have fathers and sons, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, we get a lot of family involvement,” Boeve said.
Serenading the festival was the Kalamazoo Pipe Band, led by Pipe Major Greg Huff.
The band, which formed in the 1960s, is currently comprised of 12 pipers and 5-6 drummers, including Huff, who has led the band for the last 15 years.
When asked how it feels to see the festival grow over the years, Huff told News Channel 3 it’s “fun.”
“It’s fun to see it grow, it’s fun on a day like today, we had a decent crowd today, we had a lot of things going on. This is fun,” Huff said. “We’ve had other years where if it rains or something, it’s kind of down, so it’s fun to see it up and just a lot of people around and close-knit like this.”
Along with Scottish food, music and Highland Games, guests could also learn about their Scottish heritage through the clans that attended Saturday.
One of those clans was led by Gregory Gunn, Commissioner for the Scottish clan Gunn.
Gunn has traveled to multiple states to attend Scottish Festivals similar to Kalamazoo’s, and told News Channel 3 that watching guests learn more about their heritage “means more than you can even imagine.”
“To see the emotion in people, when they find out their ancestry and where they came from, it can be really moving,” Gunn said.
Saturday’s event was free and open to the public until 5 p.m. at 650 S. Riverview Drive.