St.Ann’s Bay, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, is the site of the Gaelic College, founded in 1938 by Rev. A.W.R. MacKenzie as a school for the study and preservation of the Gaelic language and Celtic arts and culture. Located in the heart of the earliest Scottish settlement in Cape Breton,it began as a school of Gaelic language in a small log cabin overlooking St. Ann’s Bay. Since then it has expanded and now has an international reputation. The only institution of its kind in North America, students of all ages and ability travel here from around the world to study. In my much younger days I operated the sound system for the annual Gaelic Mod, where students performed in dance,piping and other Scottish traditional activities. In those days I didn’t have a camera.This was the Mod in the summer of 1957, when I did have one. Taken with an Exakta 35mm. SLR, Ektachrome film and an F.2.0 Biotar lens. Scanned with a Canoscan 4000US scanner in 2004.
You should have been there when I ran that sound system, I was 16 the first time and did it for 4 years and it was always a lot of fun. Big old horn speakers and kids kept knocking over the mikes and the feedback squeals were just dandy!!!
Very interesting and eventful George, I completely enjoyed the read here. So nice to see you are invovled and that these traditions still continue…Good for you my friend
Thanks Larry, I have a few more shots of the Mod which I’ll post at a reasonable interval. It’s still an annual event, though expanded greatly since I took this photo.
Super event and thanks for the interesting info. I also noticed it was taken with Exakta. Holeeee, was it how many years I was shooting with it? Long time ago anyway.
Thanks Teresa and you’re welcome. I still have my Exakta , and it still works but I retired it around 1997 when I first started with digital. I had two of them, the first I used for about 12 years, and the second about 30 years.
oh wow george lovely to see the support theses dancers are getting …our local fiddle teacher takes and hosts bands in a musical exchange in this part of the world – i tried to catch the canadian youngsters playing and dancing at the same time.. but they were faster than the human eye and beyond the skills of this inexpert snapper and it sent me back to books to work out what I could have done better….LOL
Cheers and its a lovely capture – full of memories i’m sure :))
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George, you have the coolest memories !!
You should have been there when I ran that sound system, I was 16 the first time and did it for 4 years and it was always a lot of fun. Big old horn speakers and kids kept knocking over the mikes and the feedback squeals were just dandy!!!
– George Cousins
Very interesting and eventful George, I completely enjoyed the read here. So nice to see you are invovled and that these traditions still continue…Good for you my friend
Thanks Larry, I have a few more shots of the Mod which I’ll post at a reasonable interval. It’s still an annual event, though expanded greatly since I took this photo.
– George Cousins
Super event and thanks for the interesting info. I also noticed it was taken with Exakta. Holeeee, was it how many years I was shooting with it? Long time ago anyway.
Thanks Teresa and you’re welcome. I still have my Exakta , and it still works but I retired it around 1997 when I first started with digital. I had two of them, the first I used for about 12 years, and the second about 30 years.
– George Cousins
oh wow george lovely to see the support theses dancers are getting …our local fiddle teacher takes and hosts bands in a musical exchange in this part of the world – i tried to catch the canadian youngsters playing and dancing at the same time.. but they were faster than the human eye and beyond the skills of this inexpert snapper and it sent me back to books to work out what I could have done better….LOL
Cheers and its a lovely capture – full of memories i’m sure
:))