Carrying on Tradition

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting a friend in Amsterdam, I can't seem to remember if I've already given her a pseudonym but we'll call her Cananon (a mix of her place of birth and name), to carry on the Canadian tradition of Thanksgiving. Some of Cananon's roommates were remarking that they were surprised to hear that Canadians celebrated Thanksgiving as they thought it was only an American holiday in November. When asked the inevitable, why do Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving? I was surprised to find out that my understanding of Thanksgiving is actually the AMERICAN version! gasp!!! Not Cananon though, she was right on the money according to the ever-knowledgeable encyclopaedia...Wikipedia. Does everyone know why we celebrate Thanksgiving? Am I the only ignoramus?

The following is taken from Wikipedia ‘Thanksgiving (Canada)’ article with a couple of inclusions from me:

Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day (in French Canadian: Jour de l'Action de grâce), occurring on the second Monday in October, is an annual Canadian holiday to give thanks at the close of the harvest season. Thanksgiving is a statutory holiday in most jurisdictions of Canada, with the exception of East coast provinces. While the actual Thanksgiving holiday is on a Monday, Canadians might eat their Thanksgiving meal on any day of the three-day weekend, though Sunday and Monday are the most common. While Thanksgiving is usually celebrated with a large family meal (I was told to wear my eating pants yesterday and felt immediately nostalgic), it is also often a time for weekend getaways to observe the autumn leaves (really?), spend one last weekend at the cottage (I think this piece was written by a person from Ontario), or participate in various outdoor activities such as hiking, fishing, and hunting (yes, and we all wear plaid fleece jackets and have pet polar bears). Canada's top professional football league, the CFL, holds a nationally televised double header known as the "Thanksgiving Day Classic." (This is news to me).

Various First Nation groups in Canada had long-standing traditions celebrating the harvest and giving thanks for a successful bounty of crops (this is more in line to what I thought Thanksgiving was about...except there might have been a couple of Pioneers involved...ugh, I know... I'm ridiculous). Canada's First Nations and Native Americans throughout the Americas, organized harvest festivals of thanks for centuries before the arrival of Europeans in North America. The history of Thanksgiving in Canada also involves a connection to the explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Pacific Ocean. Frobisher's Thanksgiving was not for harvest but homecoming. He had safely returned from a search for the Northwest Passage, avoiding the later fate of Henry Hudson and Sir John Franklin. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador (the only provinces out East to celebrate Thanksgiving apparently), to give thanks for surviving the long journey. The feast was one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations by Europeans in North America. Frobisher was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him - Frobisher Bay.

Well, while my Canadian history teachers are probably wagging their fists at me or rolling over in their graves (just kidding, they're not that old), it took me leaving my country to learn more about its history. I always knew it was about giving thanks (yep, I’m a regular ol’ Sherlock, it’s probably all those hours I’ve spent watching Murder She Wrote) but I was wrong about ‘what’ I was to give thanks for. Regardless of my previous misunderstandings, I think I carried on the Canadian Thanksgiving in fine form as I could give thanks for having somewhere to carry on a thanksgiving tradition, for new friends to share it with, and for the food I was eating (harvest vegetables no less)! In certain ways this meal was also dedicated to ‘coming home’ whether this can be interpreted as a nod to my mother’s heritage or finding myself a place here in the Netherlands, I’m sure both count.