Bagpipes & Bonfire Celebrates 50 Years Of Open Lands In Lake Forest

LAKE FOREST, IL — The 30th annual Bagpipes & Bonfire celebration and fundraiser was held at Middlefork Nature Preserve in Lake Forest on Sunday. It's the biggest event of the year for the Lake Forest Open Lands Association, which attracted hundreds of attendees and has raised millions of dollars to preserve the 800 acres of land owned by the nonprofit group, according to the magazine Forest & Bluff.

This year also marked Open Lands' 50th anniversary, and a large wooden "50" was burned in the center of the bonfire.

The Open Lands board member who first came up with the idea of a bonfire event incorporating Scottish culture, told the magazine his inspiration for the celebration traces back to his childhood.

When Lake Forest resident John Dick was just 4 or 5 years old, he lived next to the Ragdale estate, where the McCutcheon family would invite friends out for a fall bonfire accompanied by a single piper, Scotch whiskey and dancing, he recalled. That event made a powerful impression on Dick, who has included Highland Games athletes, Scottish Dancing and sheep dogs rounding up Scottish sheep, according to Forest & Bluff. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news for Lake Forest — or your community. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

Organizers told the Lake Forester that about 1,700 people attended Sunday's event, which included skydivers in kilts, games, food, drink and (naturally) bagpipers, raising more than $3 million for Open Lands.

» Read more from Forest & Bluff magazine

_{Top photo A past Bonfire & Bagpipes event | Credit: Lucy Gray (CC)}