Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. A time to celebrate the harvest, walk among crisp fallen leaves, and admire the late blooms still brightening the garden. This weekend is the last hurrah of summer, before we settle in for a long, Canadian winter.
Thanksgiving is one of my favourite holidays. No presents to buy. No cards to write. No concerts to prepare. The garden supplies most of the food. The decorations are easy and simple, a potted flower, a couple of pumpkins, a basket of home-made jam.
And turkey leftovers to last the rest of the week. What's not to like?
This year, with our streak of incredible weather, a surprise second crop in the strawberry patch and an autumn coloured maple tree outside my back door, the holiday is even better.
Living so close to the USA, I'm aware that our thanksgiving comes more than a month before theirs, so I decided to look into the origins of our festivity. Turns out Canada can trace thanksgiving back to the 1587 voyage of Martin Frobisher, an English explorer searching for the Northwest Passage. On his third voyage into what is present day Nunavut, the expedition suffered from ice and storms and the loss of one of their ships along with much of the building materials they had brought with them. The fleet was scattered and didn't meet up again until they drew anchor in Frobisher Bay. At that time, a preacher who had sailed with the expedition, preached a sermon exhorting his fellow seamen to be "thankful to God for their strange and miraculous deliverance in those so dangerous places. . ."
Thus, the first thanksgiving in Canada was held 43 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
In 1604, French settlers with Samuel de Champlain in New France, now the Province of Quebec, held huge feasts of thanksgiving, sharing their bounty with local First Nations. Years later, following the Seven Years War, New France was ceded to England and Halifax, a British outpost, celebrated with a Thanksgiving day.
While Canadian customs are similar to European harvest festivals, it was United Empire Loyalists fleeing the American revolution who brought the tradition of turkey and pumpkin pie to their new homes.
The date of Canadian thanksgiving has shifted about over time, occurring anywhere between April and November and often coinciding with the end of hostilities of some form or other. The first Thanksgiving Day after Confederation in 1867 was on April 5, 1872 to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales from a serious illness. It wasn't until 1879 that Thanksgiving was declared a national holiday and even then the date wasn't fixed, although it usually occurred in late October or early November. Finally, in 1957, Parliament declared the second Monday in October the official date of Thanksgiving.
Since I love to set my thanksgiving table with the fruits of my own garden, the date works perfectly for me. At church too, we celebrate our blessings by loading the communion table with samples of the harvest. We sing hymns like "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come," and "We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land."
In the USA, shopping has become a major part of the thanksgiving celebrations and I notice merchants here are attempting to lure us into the malls over the long weekend, but our holiday is farther away from Christmas so the impulse to begin the Christmas shopping spree is not as great.
In writing this post, I was amazed to discover how a holiday I believed was a simple celebration of the harvest, had so many political overtones. Huh!
So, what about the rest of the world? Do you celebrate the harvest? Do you call it Thanksgiving? Is it a religious occasion? Are there special foods or activities associated with the day? Do Aussie's celebrate Thanksgiving in the spring?
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I often wondered what the Canadian Thanksgiving was about. Thanks for that fascinating info, Alice. I can't speak for organizations in Aus, but as a child I remember celebrating Harvest Sunday at a small Congregational Church. As most of us weren't farmers we mostly brought canned foods! And I often wondered why, but thought that we were just thankful to the lord for His provision. In the temperate and tropical zones we don't experience Autumn as you do. However, folk in Victoria and Tasmania certainly enjoy Fall colours.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Rita. I do have a special fondness for Fall. My mom was an October baby and claimed that season as her special dominion. I always think it fitting that she was buried on a perfect autumn day with the sun warm on our shoulders and the maple trees shedding red tears. Another item for my gratitude journal.
DeleteMy husband has a lot of Canadian relatives, and was almost Canadian himself - it's a long story - so he always remembers Canadian Thanksgiving. As veteran missionaries in Hong Kong we don't celebrate either Canadian or the US Thanksgiving. But we do have a few falling leaves in the parks.
ReplyDeleteAn almost Canadian? Love it, and the falling leaves. Does he play hockey? :-)
DeleteThanks for the lovely post, Alice. I didn't know when our Thanksgiving came about, just always thought we adopted it from our friends to the south. Nice to know the real story!
ReplyDeleteI thought we'd adopted it from English harvest festivals. Amazing what research does. :-)
DeleteThis year I once again had the privilege of being in Canada for your Thanksgiving. I love the way it's a combination of both American Thanksgiving and English Harvest Festival. The Harvest Festival celebrations in church are always a favorite service of mine.
ReplyDeleteHi Donna, Here in BC Sunday was good weather -- not marvelous, but pretty good. How was Calgary?
DeleteAlice, unfortunately we don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia. Thanks for sharing the history of your Canadian Thanksgiving with us :)
ReplyDeleteSome of us south of your border avoid the malls Thanksgiving weekend like the plague! Nothing like greed to take the thanks out of giving.
ReplyDeleteThanks for giving me a smile, LeAnne. And I love the way you've broken the word. "Giving" is often the forgotten part.
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