Let's Talk Aboot Canada!

I ran out of ideas for Family Week in the Thanksgiving Eleven.  I mean, honestly, how many times can I write a full blog post about how amazing my family is and how lucky of a guy I am?  Right…you’d be sick of it.  So, like any good hockey fan, when at a loss for what to talk about, I’m just going to start rambling on about Canada for a bit!

Did you know Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving too?  Also, its in October!  And on a Monday!  Weird…

Canada is known for hockey, and being cold, and for words like aboot, aout, and eh.  It’s a funny little place where most of the population lives right along the border with the US.  Makes sense, since most of Canada is a cold, barren wasteland.  However, they are our neighbors to the North, and as such, were “discovered” right around the same time the US was!  So, like a good little neighbor, they have their own Thanksgiving to celebrate.

 

And, as it turns out, their Thanksgiving is actually celebrating the TRUE first Thanksgiving!

The history of Thanksgiving in Canada can be traced back to the 1578 voyage of Martin Frobisher from England in search of the Northwest Passage.  His third voyage, to the Frobisher Bay area of Baffin Island in the present Canadian Territory of Nunavut, set out with the intention of starting a small settlement.  His fleet of 15 ships was outfitted with men, materials, and provisions.  However, the loss of one of his ships through contact with ice along with much of the building material was to prevent him from doing so.  The expedition was plagued by ice and freak storms which at times had scattered the fleet and on meeting together again at their anchorage in Frobisher Bay, Robert Wolfall made unto them a godly sermon, exhorting them especially to be thankful to God for their strange and miraculous deliverance in those so dangerous places.  

After the first Thanksgiving, Frobisher took off and went back to England...and there were no true Thanksgiving celebrations for quite some time.  After the Seven Years' War ended in 1763, with New France handed over to the British, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving days were observed beginning in 1799 but did not occur every year.  After the American Revolution, American refugees who remained loyal to Great Britain moved from the newly independent United States and came to Canada. They brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada, such as the turkey, pumpkin, and squash.

From there, things got kind of weird.  Like all good Canadians, they wanted to be American.  But, sadly, they were Canadians and did Thanksgiving all wrong.  Not only that, but it took them FOREVER to figure out a day to hold it on...and to settle on what, exactly, they were celebrating!

For many years before it was declared a national holiday in 1879, Thanksgiving was celebrated in either late October or early November.  From 1879 onward, Thanksgiving Day has been observed every year.  After World War I, an amendment to the Armistice Day Act established that Armistice Day and Thanksgiving would, starting in 1921, both be celebrated on the Monday of the week in which November 11 occurred.  Ten years later, in 1931, the two days became separate holidays, and Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance Day.  From 1931 to 1957, the date was set by proclamation, generally falling on the second Monday in October, except for 1935, when it was moved due to a general election.  In 1957, Parliament fixed Thanksgiving as the second Monday in October.

The theme of the Thanksgiving holiday also changed each year to reflect an important event to be thankful for.  In its early years it was for an abundant harvest and occasionally for a special anniversary.

Canadians basically celebrate Thanksgiving the same way as Americans as well.  They have big get togethers, watch their version of football (seriously, the CFL is weird...), and have a parade.  My research says that the Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest parade is the most widely known Thanksgiving Day parade in Canada.  Yeah, that sounds about right.

So, next year, when you're sitting around on Columbus Day and wondering what to do on that made up US Holiday...think about heading up North and getting a jump start on the magnificent Thanksgiving holiday!  A holiday so nice, they had to schedule it twice!

 

Also, Canadians are awesome.

EH!