A long-time serving Highland Dance teacher has called it quits.
“It was a big commitment and it was just the right time,” she said.
Carol Lidstone of the Wee Walker’s Highland Dance studio coached roughly 500 students during her twenty-year career and her students have gone on to compete in various competitions in Canada and Scotland, including three Scotdance Canada Championship Series in Victoria (2008), St. John, N.B., (2007) and Calgary (2006).
She started her career in Highland Dance when her mother put her into a class in North Vancouver when she was three and stayed with it until she was 20. Her grandmother was from Scotland and always wanted to put Lidstone’s mother into highland dance.
“My grandmother always wanted my mom to dance when she was young but it was during the depression so they couldn’t afford it. So, when my sister and I were young, they were able to put us in,” said Lidstone.
When she was 21 she got her teaching certificate but didn’t start teaching until she was 36, when she moved to 100 Mile House in 1998.
“We moved up from the Lower Mainland and I thought moving to a small town since there was no one else teaching highland dance at the time that it would be a good opportunity to open a school and see what happens and it took off very quickly,” said Lidstone. “It exceeded my expectations actually.”
She would coach up to 75 students yearly and started to compete within the first couple of years and travelled throughout Canada and the western United States. One student, Jessica White, went to Scotland with another dance group from Kamloops.
White started lessons with Lidstone when she was four until she was 18, graduating in 2011.
“I really enjoyed being creative with her,” said White about the times her coach would let students get creative after doing the traditional dances. “She was always super supportive of me creating my choreography which was really fun.”
White, now living in Calgary, said Lidstone taught her attributes going beyond just dancing, such as discipline, hard work and commitment. Those traits have transferred into White’s day-to-day life.
Originally, Lidstone didn’t expect anything but local recreational dancing. The successful growth of Wee Walkers Highland Dance led to Lidstone and a group of parents to create the South Cariboo Highland Dance Society and as well as an annual competition in 100 Mile House lasting ten years. The competition brought dancers from around the province into town and brought judges from Scotland.
As the studio grew, she enlisted the help of Kjerstin Dunk and several students to help teach.
The society shut down about six years ago and, planning for retirement, Lidstone stopped taking in students ten years ago. Her two last dancers stopped dancing last year, one graduating and the other stopped dancing due to injuries last summer.
“The cost of competitions are very expensive and I never just wanted to say I’m retiring and leave 10 or 20 dancers just sitting here without a teacher, so it was very well planned out,” said Lidstone. “So, the society stopped having competitions in 2010, so the society dissolved but I still have the studio as a separate entity.”
She said her favourite part of coaching was the relationships she has forged with her students, many whom she still keeps in touch with after they graduated.
The future of highland dance in 100 Mile House looks bleak, but the retired teacher remains hopeful. Wee Walker’s, named after her grandmother, was the only school in the area but she mentioned teachers had come and gone before her. She expects someone to come back, perhaps White, who now has her teaching certificate, although she lives in Calgary at the moment.
“I think she deserves a good retirement, she’s impacted a lot of people, like she has taught a lot of people in 100 Mile.” said White. “It would be great to see if someone eventually would come and teach there, but we’ll see what happens.”