July 13/12

This was a pretty amazing day, especially for Michael.

As Michael has gone to some effort to teach himself some Scots Gaelic, he especially wanted to go the Gaelic College here. Besides teaching Gaelic, they also give music lessons, and in the summer they run weekly camps. The public can participate in some interactive demos, so Michael volunteered to be the model to demonstrate how to be dressed in the full highland kilt! We also participated in the milling frolic, and learned to sing a Gaelic song while doing it! After that was the music and dancing demo, and the music was provided by the fiddler Rodney MacDonald, the CEO of the college, and former premier of Nova Scotia. He also happens to be Andrea Beaton's cousin, who Michael takes some skype fiddle lessons from. While watching the noon hour ceilidh, Andrea happened to walk past us, and Michael got to meet her in person for the first time. She's such a sweetheart! Unfortunately although she's performing in various places, we won't be able to hear her, but we have some of her CD's so that will have to suffice. Anyway, two of the performers at the ceilidh were Rodney MacDonald (fiddle) and Tracy Dares MacNeil (keyboard) who put on a very lively concert.

Next we drove to the Highland Village Museum. The buildings and interpreter depicted life from just before the families moved from Scotland (late 1700's) to the early 1900's. Life was very hard for those first settlers as they had to clear the land before they could build, and many didn't survive the first winter. Although they spoke Gaelic at first, after a while it was no longer allowed, and only English was taught in school.

After dinner we returned to the Gathering Ceilidh that we had been to last night. Tonight's performers were Kenneth and Angus MacKenzie, who both play fiddle and highland pipes (and Angus also plays Border pipes) and Howie MacDonald who mostly accompanied the others on keyboard, but also did a set on fiddle. They are all amazing players, and it was a great show!