The Strathcona Cup, the world’s oldest international curling competition, is returning to the Port Elgin Curling Club. Contested every fifth year between Canada and Scotland, this edition will pit four Scottish teams against four of Port Elgin’s best teams.
Twenty Scottish curlers will arrive on Sunday morning, January 15th and, after appropriate ceremony, including piper and a “wee dram”, will take to the ice. While twenty Scots will be participating in our segment of the tour, two other groups of twenty will be touring other parts of Canada, coming together in Ottawa in early February for a final celebration. Each of the tours will visit about twenty-four clubs and the scores of all the games will be accumulated to determine the winner.
Bill Streeter, local historian, avid curler, and participant on an earlier Strathcona tour to Scotland, claims “The Strathcona Cup is a wonderful tradition, steeped in friendship between the two countries, however also including some pretty serious competition”.
The Strathcona Cup has a rich history, commencing in 1903 when Scottish curlers visited Canada. Six years later, a Canadian team was assembled to visit Scotland in 1909. The President of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club (RCCC) in 1909 was Lord Strathcona (Sir Donald Smith). Smith was a Scot who immigrated to Canada in his late teens. He earned his fortune in Canada, was a Commissioner and Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, President of the Bank of Montreal, and twice a Member of Parliament. He was a good friend of Sir John A. Macdonald and was best known for financing the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, a key achievement in MacDonald’s political success. Sir Donald Smith is famously pictured hammering “the last spike” of the transcontinental railway at Craigellachie, B.C. on November 7th, 1885. In his later years, he returned to Scotland and in 1909, while President of the RCCC, he commissioned a trophy for competition between Canada and Scotland.
This magnificent trophy, the Strathcona Cup, has scenes etched onto it from both Canada and Scotland. Events will get underway at the Port Elgin Curling Club at 9:30 am on January 15th and all are welcome to come and watch. The link below to a video shows a past Strathcona event and a taste of what is expected at the event in Port Elgin.
