In your article “Full Celtic Circle” (July/August) you state that in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, Scottish music was not very sexy, and stepdancing was anything but cool. The author was obviously nowhere near Inverness County during that time. 

As someone who grew up in Inverness County, I know that fiddle music and stepdancing were very much appreciated, and good fiddlers and stepdancers were stars in their own right. During the late ’50s and ’60s, in the summertime you could go to a square dance almost any night of the week in places such as West Bay Road, Whycocomagh, Glendale, Creignish, Judique and Bucklaw—just to name a few.

To give CBC-TV credit is a huge disservice to Father Rankin of Glendale, who throughout the ’60s was the driving force behind the Scottish concerts that promoted fiddling and stepdancing long before the CBC documentary. While the CBC may have brought Celtic music to the rest of Canada, it was alive and well in Inverness County.

Jack MacLean
Qualicum Beach, BC