A tossing good time at the annual Highland Games

Heavy things were heaved into the air as men and women grunted and shouted with the effort at Saturday’s 61st annual Scottish Highland Games at the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds.

A lot of people were interested in checking out the caber toss, which features competitors heaving a telephone pole-like log into the air. The goal, said games chairman Sean Pelfrey, is not distance.

“This is an accuracy throw,” Pelfrey said.

Each competitor must take at least three steps before tossing the caber. The goal is to flip it 180 degrees in a perfectly straight line.

Other events included the weight-over-bar throw, in which people throw heavy weights into the air backwards over a bar, and the sheaf toss, in which people use a pitchfork to fling a heavy bag into the air over a bar that continues to increase in height.

“It represents a bag of barley,” Pelfrey said. “They would have competitions, who could load the bags of barley the fastest high in the barn.”

The sheaf toss is the only event in the games that began in America. The rest all come from Scotland, where weapons were banned and strength contests were the only way to train their warriors, Pelfrey said. There’s a historical story behind each event at the games, he said.

“The whole thing really started as survival, to keep the heritage,” he said.

Saturday’s competition included everyone from novices to world champions. Sean Burns is one of the competitors who travel to several games every year to compete. He’s done six so far this year and plans to fit in one or two more. He’s a Class A competitor, which is one step below professional.

Burns, who has a track-and-field background, said he got into Scottish games competitions three years ago after he saw a friend doing it and thought it looked fun.

“You’ve got to love anything where they cheer when you throw things,” he said.

His favorite events are the weight-over-bar throw and the caber toss. “The sheaf is very tricky, but it’s a lot of fun when it goes right.”

Burns said he competes for fun and to stay in shape, not necessarily because of a strong Scottish heritage. “I’m a little more Irish, but there is some Scottish in me,” he said. “There’s an amazing community here. You build friends.”

The day also included dancing, bagpipe competitions, sheep herding demonstrations, blacksmith demonstrations and a place for kids to practice mini-caber tosses.

Joe Benvenuto, who moved to the area only two weeks ago, said he loves Scottish games so much that he and his wife are planning a trip to Scotland next year.

“I’m just an admirer of the games,” he said. “I think it’s cool.”