Montreal Gazette 13 August 1928

Preparations made for Banff Festival

Event looked forward to with enthusiasm by Scottish people

Sixteen pipers, representing Canadian Highland regiments, of whom fourteen have already been selected, will take part in the Highland gathering and Scottish music festival to be held for the second year in succession at the Banff Springs Hotel, August 31 to September 3 next. These will come from all sections of the Dominion, from Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton in the extreme east to Vancouver and Victoria in the west and from many centres between these points.

The scene of the festival will be a perfect setting for the event which, since its outstanding success last year, has been looked forward to with enthusiasm by the Scottish population of Canada and by all those who appreciate the high ideals which it seeks to perpetuate. The Banff Springs Hotel is itself a reproduction of a great Scottish baronial edifice set in a circle of mountains amdist one of the beauty spots of Canada and indeed of the whole world.

A silver cup presented by EW Beatty, chairman and president of the Canadian Pacific railway; a special trophy; gold, silver and bronze medals and money awards will be the prizes for which the competitors will play. The piobreach, marches, strathspeys and reels will afford the pipers ample opportunity to display their talents, and they will also play for Highland dances, which will be another feature of the festival.

Outstanding among the events will be the revival for the first time in Canada and the first time anywhere in a hundred years of Burns’ Cantata of “the Jolly Beggars”. This will be featured among the evenings concerts of Scottish music with famous singers as interpreters, recalling the minstrelsy of the old Scottish courts.

Paintings illustrating province by province the party played by the Scot in the development of Canada, will be hung on the walls of the hotel, and an interesting collection of historic bagpipes and costumes has been secured from Scotland and various private owners on this continent.

The dancing will be performed by adults and by boys and girls of ‘teenage’, and it will comprise the Highland fling, the “seann triubhas” sword dance, Scotch reel, and sailors’ hornpipe.

Prizes of gold, silver and bronze medals and cash awards will be competed for in the athletic events, which will be a further feature of the festival. These will be under the sanction of the Alberta branch of the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada, and will be limited to residents of the province of Alberta. They will consist of running for men and women, from the five mile race to the 100-yards dash, hurdles, running high and running brad jump, hop, step and jump, pole vault, throwing the hammer and putting the shot, throwing the discus and javelin and, of course tossing the caber.

Songs sung in Gaelic, as well as the Lowland Scots’ tongue, will add to the appeal of this reproduction of Scottish life and customs in the mountains of Canada, and on Sunday, September 2, an open air service will be conducted by the well-known writer, Rev Dr Charles W Gordon (Ralph Connor) at Sun Dance Canyon, when once again the old Coventer hymns will be heard among the hills and a piper will play the minister to his log pulpit.