NH Highland Games Part 1

The 32nd annual NH Highland Games were held in Lincoln, NH at the Loon Mountain ski resort. This was a good way for me to get my Scottish/Irish fix without leaving the country. (I needed a driver's license, but not a passport, to get through airport security. Sweet!) We arrived Friday afternoon, shortly after the conclusion of the sheepdog trials.

Rumor has it that the sheepdog trials are the most popular event of the festival, but that does not explain why they were scheduled to take place during the day Friday. We listened to the guitar-playing singer Jim MacDonald, who was quite good, then headed off to the Gypsy Cafe for dinner.

Saturday, we saw many traditional "strong man" events - with a number of twists unique to this festival. The unique twists permitted us to see many "world records" being set. It was a little odd to hear the announcer consistently refer to these strong but rather heavy men as "athletes", since they do not have the traditional athletic physique:

The athletes all wore shorts under their kilts, which was probably a good thing. One of the first competitions we watched was "weight for height". Each competitor would lift a kettle-bell-shaped weight (I think it was 56 lbs)...

...and try to throw it over a yellow pole at specific heights. They were very nonchalant about the toss itself and the risk of the weight landing on themselves or some of the bystanders. Surprisingly, there were no injuries.

Although there were a number of scheduled performances at specific venues, including the talented Brigadoons (guitar, singers, fiddler and percussion) and a celtic rock band whose name I forget, everywhere you turned, there was another piper band. In fact, the bagpipers played incessantly. They didn't wait for anyone else to start or finish, nor did they worry about interrupting or playing over anyone else's performance. They just kept at it. Luckily they all seemed to know the same tune.

This one struck me as a very typically American bagpiper band. They were standing off by themselves near some of the concession tents, practicing for an upcoming contest:



This band was marching together around the parade ground all by itself, apparently as part of a competition:


Later in the day, the bands queued up to join all the other bands en masse on the parade ground (for an event known, shockingly, as the "massed bands"). This band's drum major could win a prize for most elaborate get-up:


A boy watching the bands assemble on the parade ground toward the end of the day:



In part 2, I'll share more of the athletic events, including the famous caber toss, and the dancing competition. Competitors in the "athletic events" were men; competitors in the "dance competition" were female (mostly girls). All wore kilts.