And those roots were showing more brilliantly than the colors on the trees last week at the Celtic Colors International Festival at some of the events along the route that I was able to attend.

With 45 concerts over nine days and some 200 community events slotted in as well over the 4,000 mile square island that occupies Nova Scotia's northern most region, hard choices have to be made each day and night.

Thankfully each provides a varied cultural slice of the overall programming package so that time and travel are well spent and rewarded with an entertaining show and great scenery along the way. As it happened I spend a good deal of time on the western shores along the Ceilidh Trail in Inverness County where the nights in the Mabou area were especially exhilarating and informative.

One of the stellar venues afforded the very resourceful Celtic Colors co-founding organizers Joella Foulds and Max MacDonald is the Strathspey Hall complex in Mabou itself right on the Ceilidh Trail.

The 500-seat theater with its stage named after the late John Morris Rankin of the Mabou Rankin family who was tragically killed in an auto accident in 2000 sits conveniently on the first floor of a large school complex where it operates cooperatively as a non-profit performance space with an emphasis on displaying the local culture and heritage.

On Tuesday night, October 9, the Strathspey Hall was packed with mostly locals who turned out for the festival's thematic show "Close to the Floor: A Tribute to Willie Fraser" honoring a 92-year-old step dancer and Gaelic language enthusiast born in nearby St. Rose in Inverness County who along with his wife, Kathleen was seated in the very first row taking it all in stride.

Since much of Cape Breton's music -- like its traditional Irish cousin -- exists for dancing, the tunes on offer this evening all had that swing and sway that suits the lovely low-key stepping in the Scottish style again akin to the sean nos style in Irish stepdancing.

Leading the music was Fiddler Wendy MacIssac from Creignish down the coastline who was designated an artist in residence for this year's festival, so her artistic talents were appropriately layered over her familiarity with many of the local musicians and dancers all week.

She kept the music and flow in tempo as a series of dancers took to the stage to salute the man whose lifetime achievements were acknowledged in a 2004 video documentary entitled God Bless Your Feet.

The concert featured some great stepdancing by sisters Melody and Kelly Warner, brothers Bill and John Pellerin from Antigonish, who danced as pairs respectively and as a marvelous Scotch Four. They also joined some members of the Fraser family to give us the third figure of the Cape Breton Square Set which is derived from the quadrille tradition with a stepping routine similar to the continuous bouncing style of the Cavan Set footwork.

Sabra MacGillivray's Celtic Touch dancers provided young female dancers who combined Highland footwork with Cape Breton steps also. The quintessential and legendary Buddy McMaster, 82, from Judique, who already has a fiddle school named in his honor during the week, and even a new biographical book launch (The Judique Fiddler by Sheldon MacInnes) at the Judique Music Center the day before, performed in the first and second half.

With a command and polish, he strung together tunes effortlessly in the customary slow air/strathspey/jig/reel melodies that give flight to the dancer close to the floor as evidenced by another senior citizen in Harvey MacKinnon who danced some steps suitably attired in a red tartan waistcoat.

Capping the event, the venerable Fraser was led on stage leading the audience in a Gaelic Song in voice belying his age and a standing ovation brought the evening to a close.

It was a classy evening that reflected on the ongoing spirit that exists along the Ceilidh Trail thanks to families and communities holding onto to their heritage.

If Tuesday night was a fond look backwards, then Wednesday night at the same hall, it was clearly the future that was center stage.

Foulds borrowed a concept from Glasgow's Celtic Connections and thrust 10 young musicians together for four days in a creative environment at Beinn Bhreagh not far from where Alexander Graham Bell did his most inventive work in Baddeck on the lovely Bras D'or Lakes.

The night was entitled "The New Tunemakers" under the additional spark of special guest and overseas artists in residence, fiddler Aidan O'Rourke, guitarist Kris Drever and Martin Greene who plays piano accordion, collectively known as the Scottish group Lau.

They were joined by Nova Scotian fiddlers like Andrea Beaton, Glenn Graham, Troy MacGillivray, Colin Grant and whistle/piper Ryan J. MacNeil along with Prince Edward Island singer Patricia Murray and Metis fiddler Sierra Noble from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Individually, they performed their own original material and embellished it collectively to fashion a highly entertaining show that more than any other event demonstrated what a creative cauldron this Celtic Colors International Festival has become in its 11 year run.

Murray, a Gaelic scholar (pronounced Gallic in Cape Breton) also gave a stirring rendition of "Hector the Hero" with some lyrics she composed to remember a valorous Scottish warrior in the service of the Crown who died under tragic but dramatic circumstances. Hers was a refreshing voice that I would like to hear more of as it was full of the Blas that makes you take note of her Gaelic singing even if you don't understand a word of it.

The standing ovation that followed their show boosted the confidence and acceptance of these already seasoned young musicians and most certainly assured a bright future for their artistic careers. The late night Festival Club up at the Gaelic College at St. Ann's gave them a chance to bask further in the afterglow of their singular artistic achievements together as they took the stage for the last act at 3 a.m.

Since I was around Mabou, I had the chance to catch another young fiddler, Jennifer Roland, at the Red Shoe Pub owned by the Rankin sisters and one of the few performance pubs on the island after one of the shows.

Another night, I dashed down after a show to the Glencoe Mills Ceilidh deep into the woods down a dirt road where the directions go something like this, "Keep going till you think you have gone too far and keep going."

The famous hall was once a schoolhouse, but for decades it has been a dance hall where all that robust fiddle and piano music induced square sets for social dancing for young and old the night long.

I caught fiddler Howie MacDonald tirelessly playing the last dance of the season for fifty hoofers and the final ceilidh before the hall was scheduled to be renovated with a whole new sprung floor and kitchen which will take it into the next generation.

Memorable Mabou nights on the Ceilidh Trail to be sure!