by Greg Layson
After two-years spent barnstorming, the Kingsville-Essex Highland Games settled into a new, permanent home at the Canadian Transportation Museum & Heritage Village (CTMHV) over the weekend.
Kingsville’s Lakeside Park in 2022 hosted the first games held after a two-year hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, it was held at the Jack Miner Migratory Bird Sanctuary. Saturday, it was finally time for the CTMHV to take centre stage and shine.
“We are so proud and so happy with how it turned out,” CTMHV Chairperson Les McDonald said. “There’s no question that this is the best location for this. With a new Board and new Curator, we’ve been stressing community events like this. We have so much room here and I hope we can expand.”
Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy raved about the site.
“It’s a great location. It’s a great destination with the covered barns and different amenities,” Bondy said.
Vendors lined the roadway throughout the village while athletes, dancers, and pipe bands — from both sides of the border — spent the day competing. There was also a sheepherding demonstration and the Mayors’ Haggis Hurl, which Kingsville Mayor Dennis Rogers won with his haggis landing atop the whiskey barrel.
“The sun’s shining, it’s warm, you can’t get better than this,” Michael Dibbley said, who competes in the heavy events, such as the hammer throw and caber toss.
At age 64, he was the oldest competitor in the games.
“I like doing it. How many old guys do you know that get to throw stuff around?” he said.
Dibbley, who is from Leamington, said he had plans “to goof off this summer and play on my sailboat.” But, he was invited to the 2024 Scottish Athletics Masters World Championship in Jacksonville, Florida in October.
“I accepted. So now, I have to start chasing games around to stay in shape,” he said.
He has a young up-and-coming competitor, also from Leamington, waiting in the wings.
Henry Heaton, 16, recently won gold in the open stone, hammer throw, weight over bar, weight for distance, and caber toss at the Junior National Highland Games Championships in Moncton, New Brunswick. Heaton was competing against Dibbley on Saturday.
“He’s an awesome kid. I met him last year. He’s really grown and developed,” Dibbley said. “We need more young guys. Because if you don’t have the young guys, they don’t get to be old guys like me, still competing.”
It was Heaton’s track Coach Celine Freeman-Gibb who got him into the traditional Scottish games.
“She just said ‘hey, you should try the Highland Games,’” Heaton explained, who competes for the University of Windsor Athletics Club. “The movements are pretty natural if you’ve done track and field. “I’m a little bit better at this.”
Freeman-Gibb, who is also the president of the Canadian Scottish Athletic Federation, said it’s rare to find a teenager at a Highland Games event these days.
“Our sport is ageing and we need those juniors to come up through the ranks and be those next champions, just like Henry,” she said.