Fun and Now Games at Scottish Festival

As the Queen Mary was being built on the shores of Scotland more than 65 years ago, it’s likely that many a workman was whistling a good Scottish tune. So it’s only fitting that the ship, billed as “the largest Scottish icon outside of Scotland,” stages an annual festival in Long Beach celebrating its roots.

The sixth annual Scottish Festival takes place this weekend, and for the first time the festival is adding something for landlubbers: Highland Games that will be played in the ship’s four-acre events park, which opened in May. Medieval athletic rituals will be brought to life through such contests as “tossing the caber,” in which kilt-wearing jocks compete to see who can do the best job of throwing an object akin to a 20-foot-long utility pole end over end.

While about 40 amateur athletes are competing on the field, the Queen Mary’s three-story exhibit hall will be devoted to all things Scottish. Every part of the festival has some link to history, says Marj Rankine, who owns the Scottish Heritage Center on the ship.

The festival is a gold mine for those wishing to investigate their own Scottish roots. Nearly 60 clans will have tables set up for visitors to research their ancestry, using as little as a Scottish surname, says John Adamson, special events director of the Queen Mary.

“There are many expatriate Scots in the U.S.,” Adamson says. “After the Irish and the Germans, the Scots also were the next largest immigrant group, so there are a lot of people in the United States with Scottish blood.”

About 12,000 people attended the festival last year, almost double the number at the first one, in 1994. The crowds particularly like the bagpipers and Highland dancing, Rankine says. With the advent of the Highland Games, attendance is expected to rise.

In addition to tossing of the caber, the games will feature four other events in which men and women will compete in separate classes. In “putting the stone,” similar to the shot put, a rock weighing more than 17 pounds is thrown. The “Scottish hammer” event involves throwing a wood-handled weight of about 22 pounds. “Weight for height” and “weight for distance” are pretty much as they sound: Weights as heavy as 56 pounds are thrown far or high.

On the ship, contemporary Scottish entertainers will perform on one stage while solo bagpipers and pipe bands from around the world compete on others. More than two dozen merchants will sell wares with some connection to the Scots, including food from Great Britain.

Among the contemporary artists performing Saturday and Sunday will be Alex Beaton, a folk singer who is among the best-known Scottish entertainers in this country, Adamson says. Also slated to perform both days are Caliban, a duo that plays Celtic rock, and Wicked Tinkers, a trio made up of two bagpipers and a percussionist, who will appear on stage and stroll the grounds playing impromptu sets.

Concerts also will be held at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Men of Worth, with Jimmy Keigher and Donnie Macdonald, will sing traditional Scottish folk songs on Friday night, while Golden Bough, a trio that specializes in more traditional Celtic songs, will perform Saturday night.

At noon Saturday and Sunday, a “grand parade” featuring pipe bands, clan representatives, reenactment groups and vintage British automobiles will wind its way through the Queen Mary property, ending up in front of the ship. Gordon Highlands, a re-created British regiment from the 1880s down to the rifles from that time period, presents a firing demonstration after the parade.

For Rankine, the best thing about the event is the sheer coming together of people to celebrate Scottish culture. “Because it’s the first major Scottish festival of the year in Southern California,” she says, “it almost feels like a New Year’s celebration.”

BE THERE

Sixth annual Scottish Festival, Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Queen Mary, at the south end of the 710 Freeway on the water in Long Beach Harbor. Festival admission is included with general admission tickets, which are $13 for adults, $8 for ages 4 to 11 and free for children under 4. Concerts Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. are $12. All-day parking is $6. Call (562) 435-3511.