CELTIC CANADA
SUMMER & FALL, 2010

Visit Celtic Canada! – Plymouth resident and flute player Susan Lindsay remembers the first time she and her husband, guitarist Steven Lindsay, ventured up to Nova Scotia for the Celtic Colours Festival in Cape Breton in October 2007.  

“We were completely taken with how welcoming and friendly the people were, everywhere we went,” she recalls.  “We never wanted to come home. As for the music, it was absolutely inspiring.”   

Lindsay’s admiration for the music and the ambiance of Nova Scotia is echoed by Kate Dunlay, a Massachusetts native and fiddler who lives in Halifax with her husband, musician David Greenberg. 

“Halifax feels East Coast, like Boston, so it is pretty comfortable for a New Englander,” she says.   “I’m here partly for Cape Breton music and partly because it’s a nice place to live.  Traditional/vernacular music is taken seriously here, so I am able to teach.”  

Another American with a Massachusetts connection now living in Nova Scotia is Ken Nilson, who teaches Gaelic language at St. Francis University.  He lived in Massachusetts for fifteen years and got his Master’s and PhD at Harvard’s Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures.    

Part of the American enthusiasm for Nova Scotia has to do with the province’s commitment to Gaelic language and culture, which is unsurpassed in any other Diaspora community.  Since 2006, the government has operated an Office of Gaelic Affairs, run by official Lewis MacKinnon, a Gaelic speaker himself who recognizes both the cultural and economic value of keeping Gaelic alive.  

“Nova Scotia is the only place outside of Scotland where Gaelic is spoken, giving us a unique advantage for cultural tourism,” MacKinnon says, noting that an estimated 20-25 million Americans claim Scottish descent.    

Gaelic language and culture contributes $23.5 million annually in direct revenue to the provincial economy, according to an economic report issued a few years ago.    MacKinnon says islanders are embracing Gaelic as a way of reconnecting to the cultural, social and historical networks that also strengthen ties between generations.  

Over, 2,000 people speak Gaelic in the province, and several hundred children are taking it in the school system.  And three universities – St. Mary’s, St. Francis and Cape Breton University – have Gaelic courses in their curriculum.   

You get a genuine sense of its Gaelic Roots each summer, when concerts, festivals and fleadhs (dances) abound everywhere on the island. The grand finale of the season is the Celtic Colours Festival each October.   

Lindsay recalls that “The festival concerts are spread all over the island, so sometimes you had to travel an hour or more.  The drives of course were stunning, so it was always enjoyable.  

“Our favorite part of the festival was the Festival Cafe at St. Ann’s. After the main concerts, they hold impromptu concerts at the Gaelic College, where the dining hall is transformed into a concert hall. Various artists from day concerts are shuffled around and presented in a series of half-hour sets until the wee hours. There is much socializing, meeting people, talking to the musicians, and running into friends.”  

For the casual tourist, these events are open to the public and offer an authentic glimpse into a unique culture that has survived and flourished over the centuries.  And that is one of the features that draw so many Americans to Nova Scotia.

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2010 Festivals in Canada

Newfoundland Labrador Get in touch with your inner Celt! Shawn Silver of Newfoundland, Canada, is a man with a mission, and that’s good for Irish step-dance dancing and culture in this part of the world.  The champion step-dancer came to Boston in 2007 on a trade mission with tourism officials to strengthen economic and cultural ties between New England and the Maritimes. More...... >>> Shawn Silver Celtic Roots 181 Hamilton Ave., St. John’s Newfoundland, A1E 1K1 Canada 709 690-2101 | www.celticroots.ca
Nova Scotia July 2-4 14th annual San Rogers Folk Festival Canso stanfest.com July 30-August 1 New Glasgow Music Jubilee New Glasgow jubilee.ns.ca August 5, 6, 7 Festival of the Tartans Antigonish festivalofthetartans.ca August 21 Festival of Cape Breton Fiddling 2010 Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts St. Ann’s capebretonfiddlers.com September 24-26 Canadian Deep Roots Music Festival Wolfville deeprootsmusic.ca October 6-18 Celtic Colours Festival celtic-colours.com
Prince Edward Island July 29- August 2 Irish Folk Festival Tignish tignishirishfolkfestival.com
QUEBEC CITY August 7-17 Festival d’ete de Quebec Quebec City Summer Festival infofestival.com September 10-17 2010 Quebec City Celtic Festival Morrin Centre Festivalceltique.morrin.org