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A lament for the Comox Valley Highland Games

Dear editor, Seemingly tucked between golf scores and weather reports, one could read a headline such as "Hammer blow to Highland Games."

Dear editor,

Seemingly tucked between golf scores and weather reports, one could read a headline such as "Hammer blow to Highland Games."

Thus the news that this annual event may be no more. Factually, objectively, without fuss or farewell's melancholy.

Not quite like a death in the family, no. Yet, a purported demise leaving one not only with enormous regret but a feeling of genuine sadness.

Three annual events in particular shed lustre on the Comox Valley: The Snowbirds practising, courtesy the Air Force. Nautical Days, showcasing Comox and the evolution of the sea cadets at HMCS Quadra.

And the Highland Games at Lewis Park during the Victoria Day long weekend. (The Empire Days in Cumberland, too, of course, but separately).

What is Courtenay other than a small community unknown to most of Canada? What is the Comox Valley's roughly 60,000 souls but a tiny fraction of Canada's population?

No metropolis, no famous landmark, no historical jewel, no place acclaimed nationally important.

Yet for 18 years Lewis Park has been the gathering place for many different pipe bands, including — pay attention! — the one from Simon Fraser University, the foremost pipe band in the world.

A legacy of careful planning and execution will be the Valley's no more. A loss of prestige and, alas!, pride. As if neither matters.

Young men and women now will travel to Sochi, there hopefully to win honours but also to forge friendship with other athletes of a similar age. Although many pipers and drummers are veteran players, others are young, some teenagers, some mere boys and girls.

The cost of going to Sochi is huge. By comparison, the cost of friendships forged among the young during the Highland Games is a pittance.

Besides, watching the massed bands conclude the activities at the end of the Highland Games — the broad, colourful sweep of bonnets, kilts and tartans — one may be forgiven for thinking Courtenay has become Edinburgh.

That, too, to be lost?

Surely, concerned, clever heads can find a solution, a way to save the Games. Perhaps the vagaries of Victoria Day weather are too dicey, perhaps too many Valleyites are opening cabins or visiting relatives.

Maybe another weekend will suit better, perhaps one in September when sun and sea loom less attractive. Maybe a change to the format is required, a change incorporating innovations like lottery, silent auctions, bingo and the kind, fundraising activities all. Perhaps there be grants fitting the occasion...

Let us hope so.

Finn Schultz-Lorentzen,

Courtenay