Three young pipers of The Ross and Cromarty Pipes & Drums School were invited to Lycksele to help celebrate the 400-year jubilee of the formation of the town.

Lycksele, in Swedish Lapland, is above the Artic Circle and is partnered with Alness. After hearing the Pipe Band in Alness last Autumn and at the recent Alness Academy Highland Games, Per-Eric Magnusson, the Chief Executive of Lycksele, asked that some of the pipers be present at their celebrations. Junior Pipe Major, Aladair Turner, together with Sam Shaw and Marcas Robertson will fly out to Sweden on Thursday, August 16.

On Friday, August 17, they played on the stage in the town square of Lycksele at a cultural event and on Saturday they opened the celebrations of the 400-year jubilee at 14.00 in the market square by marching in from three different directions. In the evening there was a dinner reception, with all of Lycksele's international guests and our pipers were invited to give a 10-minute performance. On Sunday they played at the jubilee church service at Lycksele Church and later in the day they performed at the town's Heritage Area and they then finished off their trip to Sweden by giving a talk and a demonstration to staff and pupils of Lycksele's Music School and Upper Secondary School.

The pipers returned from Sweden on Wednesday, August 22. 

In 1607 the old Sámi meeting-place Lyksälie became a centre of the Ume Sámi country. People who lived in the area came to the recently established church and market site a few times a year for visits to the church and the district-court. Then they also paid their taxes and seized the opportunity to barter, sell and buy commodities. A church town with cots, sheds, cottages and stables grew up on Öhn (the Isle), or Gammplatsen (the Old Site) as we call it today. The seed that made Lycksele grow into a chief town in southern Lapland had been sown!

Jubilee Weekend