The Highland Dancer

By Chantal Bellehumeur

A Nova Scotia girl deeply embraces her Scottish heritage through the art of highland dancing.

With her family's ongoing support, Ainsley's growing talent and determination lead her to win multiple dance competitions which seeds her eventual career as a renowned dance teacher.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chantal Bellehumeur
• Release date: Sep 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005884734

Chantal Bellehumeur

Chantal Bellehumeur is a Canadian author born in 1981. She has several published novels of various genres as well as numerous short stories, poems and articles featured in compilation books, magazine, plus a local newspaper.For a complete list of publications, including free reads, visit the following website: author-chantal-bellehumeur.webnode.com/products-/

Book preview

The Highland Dancer

By Chantal Bellehumeur

I dedicate this fictional short story to Abby Ruel-O’Brien and Michelle Ruel

Copyright © 2022 Chantal Bellehumeur

All rights reserved.

Although Ainsley MacKinnon was born and raised in Canada, the red-headed freckled-faced girl deeply embraced her Scottish heritage.

In the mid-sixties, her Glasgow native grandparents on her father’s side had boarded a ship in the port of Greenock to get to Halifax. Ainsley’s father Duncan was four years old at the time, and her aunt Mary was three. The two children completely lost their Scottish accents soon after immigrating to Canada, but Ainsley had trouble understanding her grandparents when they spoke sometimes because of their thick Glaswegian pronunciations; especially when they used Gaelic words she was unfamiliar with.

Ainsley’s mother Anna was also of Scottish decent, but it was her great-grandparents on her mother’s side who had immigrated to Canada. Neither Anna, her grandparents, nor her parents had ever lived in the mountainous European country. Anna’s father had a hint of Scottish blood in him, but his ancestors were mainly British and Irish.

Ainsley grew up in a household that cherished the Scottish culture, including playing golf. Her father and grandfather played together every summer while she went mini-putting with her mother and grandmother.

The MacKinnons often went to thematic social gatherings, or Ceilidh as Ainsley’s paternal grandparents called them; they pronounced it kay-lay. Energetic Scottish folk music and dancing was involved.

Anna sometimes played the fiddle during those lively events, and Duncan often accompanied his father on the snare drum while the old man played the bagpipe. Ainsley enjoyed watching her family members perform in their traditional kilts, and loved dancing to their music and that of other amateur musicians when the opportunities came.

On occasion, Duncan and his father would receive requests to play "Amazing Grace" together at Remembrance Day ceremonies or funerals. It was one of Ainsley’s favorite tunes, along with the unofficial anthem of Scotland Flower of Scotland. Their sad undertones always made her tear up, and hearing them on bagpipes gave her