The 88th BC Highland Games and Scottish Festival brought out the tartan in visitors young and old to Coquitlam Town Centre Park last Friday and Saturday.
The event kicked off with a traditional Scottish ceilidh on Friday, featuring a piping competition and music by The Paperboys.
But it really got its highland fling going the next day with dancing and piping competitions, Scottish fiddling, Gaelic workshops, a kilt primer, Scottish country dancing demonstrations, whisky tasting, a cannon salute from the Fort Fraser Garrison and, of course, the popular heavy sports events.
The latter is comprised of distance events like putting the stone, as well as the Scottish hammer, and height events such as the sheaf toss in which competitors toss a similated sheaf of wheat that weighs between 10 and 20 pounds over a bar using a pitchfork.
Some of the burliest competitors also tackled the caber toss, trying to heave a 15- to 23-foot long pole — or caber — end over end as straight and accurately as possible.
More lightweight enterainment included a haggis hunt, a sheep roundup, a kilt dash for kids, displays of Scottish culture and British cars as well as a Scottish trivia contest.
