Weekend Culture Preview: Bagpipes, a Flying Caber, and Autumn in Full Swing

Here’s what I love about a South Jersey autumn weekend: you could spend it watching grown adults heave a telephone pole end over end across a field, and it would be one of the most joyful things you do all month. That’s not a joke. That’s the caber toss, and it’s coming to Columbus this weekend.

The South Jersey Celtic Festival and Highland Games takes over the Burlington County Fairgrounds on Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. both days, and this year’s edition is shaping up to be the best one yet. Admission is technically free, though the organizers ask for a $10 donation per person, which is about the easiest ten dollars you’ll ever part with once you hear the first set of bagpipes fire up.

Cabers, hammers and hurling

Saturday is when the Highland Games athletes compete — the caber toss, the hammer throw, the shot put, all the feats of strength that look like they wandered out of a Scottish myth and onto a Jersey fairground. Sunday there’s a clinic if watching isn’t enough and you want to try flipping a caber yourself. In between, the South Jersey Rebels will be running hurling demonstrations and mini games, so if you’ve never seen Ireland’s fastest field sport played in Burlington County, now’s your chance. There are Irish and Celtic dancers, pipers, food trucks, and — this is the part I circled — craft beer, wine and mead flowing all day.

The music, and a whiskey tasting

The music lineup is genuinely good. The Shantys play Saturday, Charlie Zahm takes Sunday, and for the grown-ups there’s a whiskey tasting run by the South Jersey Celtic Society’s Scotch and Whiskey Appreciation Club. That one needs a separate ticket, tentatively $45, with an optional cheese pairing for ten more, and seating is limited — so if that’s your lane, don’t dawdle. More details live at sjceltic.org.

What gets me about this festival is the same thing that gets me about all the best South Jersey culture: it’s built by people who care, for people who show up. Nobody’s getting rich tossing a caber. They do it because it keeps something alive, and because there’s nothing quite like the sound of bagpipes cutting across a crisp October morning.

Nobody’s getting rich tossing a caber.Jenna Joy

If that’s not your speed

If the Celtic Festival isn’t your speed, the weekend is loaded. Collingswood and the surrounding towns are deep into their fall arts stretch, the pumpkin-and-harvest festivals are everywhere you look, and the theaters are running. But if you want my pick — go watch the caber fly. Bring a folding chair, bring the kids, bring an appetite. Autumn in South Jersey doesn’t get more alive than this.

Based on reporting from PhillyVoice and the South Jersey Celtic Society.