In 1990, the province of Alberta proclaimed the first "Family Day" holiday in Canada -- a chance to get together and, hopefully, get outside with the family for a mid-winter break. In Calgary, a good place to get together is Bowness Park. In summer months, it's an amusement park where you can rent canoes, go for a ride on a miniature railway, or enjoy the kiddy rides. In winter the lagoon of the Bow River is maintained as a skating rink.
We've celebrated the last of the official kilt skates, but the joy of skating in the kilt lives on. And when the Rocky Mountains beckon, why not don the kilt, pack the skates and the saltire, and head west out of Calgary.
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The temperatures in Western Canada on the morning of Sunday, February 11, dropped to the minus-20 range. In Calgary, the skaters were sheltered somewhat by the tall buildings. The Riley Family Duck Pond in Assiniboine Park, on the other hand, has little to shelter it from winds that sweep down from the Arctic. Wind chill made the temperature feel like it was 30-below.
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In some ways, Calgary is the spiritual home of the kilt skate. It's where my pride in my Scottish forebears was nurtured. And it's a place where people are thrawn enough not to care that it's 20-below. They go skating in kilts anyway.
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Weather in the Ottawa Valley has not been kind to plans for kilt skates. When they first envisioned a kilt skate for North Glengarry, the Clan Donald Society imagined kilted skaters on the Alexandria Mill Pond. But the deep freezes and the rapid thaws and occasional rains of the past weeks made a pond skate impractical. So they decided to do something different.
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WINNIPEG – On Sunday, February 11, at the Riley Family Duck Pond, Qualico Family Centre, Assinboine Park, the people of Winnipeg will take to the ice in their kilts, tartans and other Scottish regalia in an effort to claim the title of “Kilt Skate Capital of Canada.”
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across canada, communities host kilt skates to celebrate scotland’s contribution to our multicultural fabric.
