Kelso Highlander Festival

Celebrating Scottish Heritage

Don’t miss this opportunity to experience a weekend of Scottish and Celtic culture. Walk the Avenue of Clans and take in the Highland games. Don your kilt and treat yourself to a wee bit of old Scotland.

Highland games were contests designed to determine the best warrior in each family, tribe or clan. These games rely on strength, speed, agility and skill.

Can you imagine picking up a stone weighing 16 to 28 pounds and throwing it like a shot-put? Can you see yourself grabbing the caber – which is similar in size to a small telephone pole – balancing it in the palms of your hands, running 10 feet and launching it into the air with enough skill to make it flip and land on the larger end?

The Highlander Festival also includes piping and dancing for young and old, a parade and shortbread contest, along with entertainment, food vendors, a golf tournament and the Kirkin O' the Tartan worship service.

Then we arrive to the softer side of the day: dancing events, shortbread contest and the welcoming of the clans. All of these are deeply embedded into the heritage of each clan member.

For the non-clan members wondering what shortbread is, it is a Scottish cookie. Basically it is 1 part sugar to 2 parts butter, and 3 parts flour baked in a low oven temperature until golden brown. They can be flavored by adding additional ingredients for variety.

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