A piping Mecca in British Columbia

Published on Thursday 10 August 2006 14:38

WHEN Simon Fraser set out in 1808 to explore what is now the Fraser River in British Columbia (BC), some might imagine the sound of bagpipes helping him on his rough and dangerous way.

Today in many parts of BC his name is still prominent: Fort Fraser and Fraser Lake. One of the most notable dedications is the Simon Fraser University (SFU), whose world famous pipe band, celebrating its 25th year, is performing at the World Pipe Band Championships this weekend in Glasgow.

This is the 22nd consecutive year that the SFU pipe band has travelled to Scotland for the big competition.

"It's a great day when you can get the world's best bands playing (at one venue)," says Rob MacNeil of Vancouver. MacNeil is the pipe band's manager of special projects and has been travelling with members to Scotland for almost every year since 1983.

On the web

The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association

Glasgow International Piping Festival

Simon Fraser University Pipe Band

House of Edgar Shotts and Dykehead Pipe Band

Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band

This is an international contest with pipe bands and drummers from many countries. Fittingly perhaps, Scotland's own, the House of Edgar Shotts and Dykehead Pipe Band from North Lanarkshire last year took first place in the Grade One category. The Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band from Northern Ireland and the group from SFU took second and third place.

"I think because there are a number of bands from around the world, it's seen as not another event on the Scottish calendar," MacNeil says.

Fraser would have surely loved to be part of a world championship competition that involved bagpipes and drums, and with Scottish blood running through his veins, would likely have cheered on the band with his name.

Simon Fraser was born in Vermont in 1776. His father – also named Simon – hailed from Culbokie, Black Isle, and his mother, Isabel Grant, was believed to be from Daldreggan, also in the Highlands. The Frasers were a branch of the noble Highland Frasers of Lovat.

The family left Scotland three years before Fraser was born and settled in America, where Fraser's father joined the Loyalist forces. The patriarch was captured and died a prisoner.

The young boy's mother took her children to Canada. After some schooling in Montreal, Fraser went to work with the North West Company. He was chosen to travel west beyond the Rocky Mountains to establish the company's first trading posts in that area.

Fraser is widely recognised for settling areas in British Columbia and for his more than 500-mile dangerous exploration of the river named after him. He would eventually establish his home on farmland, marry and have five sons and three daughters. He died on 18 August 1862; his wife died the next day.

The Simon Fraser University was named after the explorer because the Fraser River can be seen from the school's Burnaby campus. The school opened in 1965 and, as if a hint of Fraser was destined to be there, his kin - Lord Lovat and Donald Fraser of North Dakota - were in attendance.

The university's Grade One (senior) Pipe Band was co-founded by pipe-major Terry Lee and his brother Jack. Terry Lee is from Vancouver and manager of Tartantown, a retail store that sells bagpipes, kilts and other Scottish wares.

The brothers Lee started a pipe band in 1977. It was their grandmother's side of the family from Aberdeenshire who got the boys interested in piping and Highland dance.

"I danced first, then went to piping," Terry Lee recalls.

He says he never felt forced to learn the song and dance of his family's roots. Indeed, piping was comfortable for him.

"It just became second nature to us," he says. "I started when I was nine. I am now 50."

SFU approached the brothers and in 1981 the pipe band was taken under the school's wing.

The band began as a single Grade One competition pipe band. Throughout the years it has expanded into a youth teaching program with six bands in total - three for youth and three for adults. Their hard work year-round has paid off; for most of the past 20 years the pipe band has been among the top finishers in the world competition.

"This is the top one," confides Terry Lee, of the Glasgow Green extravaganza that takes place on Saturday.

The pipe band's track record includes four first-place Grade One titles, including in 1995, 1996, 1999 and 2001. They became the first pipe band outwith the UK to win the prize more than once.

In addition to developing many champion pipers and drummers, the band have performed twice for the Queen and twice opened shows for Rod Stewart.

Because of the strong Canadian contingent throughout the last 20 years, and the improvement of some US pipe bands, Terry Lee doesn't think that the people of Scotland are surprised by Canadian and American pipe bands anymore.

"I think we've grown on them a little bit," he says.

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