Scottish traditions alive on Tartan Day

The Sudbury Celtic Festival and its Chieftain of the Games, MP Glenn Thibeault, is inviting those of Scottish descent to celebrate Tartan Day April 6.

“The date was chosen to celebrate the role of the independent Scots who helped to discover, conquer, explore, settle and build the country now called Canada,” a media release from the festival stated.

“Their contributions to industry and business in Greater Sudbury is significant and was also instrumental in the founding and development of a modern-day Greater Sudbury when you at look the vision of Sir Sanford Fleming and Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald to create a transcontinental railway which blasted through Sudbury in 1883 in what was the French Canadian Settlement of Ste. Ann des Pins situated on traditional Ojibwa territory,” said Derek Young, producer of the Sudbury Celtic Festival.

These contributions will be celebrated with Scotch on the Rockz, a Scottish-themed pub night at On the Rockz on Notre Dame Avenue beginning at 5 p.m.

Andy Lowe will be performing traditional Scottish ballads and favourites, and there will be performances by the Laurentian University Pipe Band and Dancers with guest Highland Dancers from the Northern Ontario School of Scottish Dance starting at 8 p.m.

The Festival will also be selling Insta-Kilts as seen on Dragon's Den for those who don't have their own tartan.

During dinner there will also be celebrity servers sporting their tartans and strutting their stuff collecting voluntary donations in support of the Festival. There will be a $3 cover charge for the pub night.

“The idea of setting aside one day each year to honour the role of Scots in the early history of Canada was put forward in the late 1980s by Mrs. Jean Watson of Nova Scotia,” Young said.

“Mrs. Watson worked tirelessly to solicit support from politicians and Scottish groups in Nova Scotia to establish Tartan Day, eventually gaining enough support for the idea to have it accepted. She did not stop there, and continued to write letters to federal and provincial politicians and Scottish groups across Canada, urging them to adopt Tartan Day.

"Her persistence paid off, when the Clans & Scottish Societies of Canada endorsed her idea and convinced Ontario MPP Bill Murray to put forward a Private Member’s Bill in the Ontario Legislature, to adopt Tartan Day in Ontario, which was passed on Dec. 19, 1991, with unanimous support of all three parties.

Other provinces and the Yukon Territories followed with similar resolutions, and by 2000 all, except Quebec and Newfoundland, recognized April 6 as Tartan Day.”

This year the Sudbury Celtic Festival will be held June 1 and 2 at Sacré Coeur on Notre Dame Avenue. For more information call 705-918-2601.