Thanksgiving in Canada
Thanksgiving in Canada: Second Monday in October
Thanksgiving in USA: November 22
A holiday stuffed with history
After stuffing the bird, making the cranberry sauce, fixing the dressing and baking the pumpkin pie, you already know it takes more than a little planning to prepare a holiday feast, but in the case of Thanksgiving, the planning has been hundreds of years in the making.
And it’s no coincidence that the same holiday should fall on two different days in Canada and the United States, says Dorothy Duncan, Executive Director of the Ontario Historical Society. Because of the seasonal differences between the two countries, our harvest happens earlier in the year, as does our Canadian Thanksgiving.
But that’s not the only difference. "Pilgrims," explains Vivian Nelles, professor of Canadian History at York University, are an entirely American phenomenon. "There were no pilgrims involved in our Thanksgiving. None."
In 1576, English explorer Martin Frobisher set out to find a northern passage that would lead him to the Orient. He then spent two years trying to become rich mining what he thought was gold ore and attempted to establish the first English settlement in North America on what would come to be known as Baffin Island. While he failed on all counts, he did celebrate the first formal North American Thanksgiving, a full 43 years before the pilgrims of Massachusetts at Plymouth Rock.
Celebrated on the second Monday in October, by proclamation of Parliament in 1957, Canadian Thanksgiving is "a day of general thanksgiving to almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed."
The day is celebrated in Canada as a national holiday rather than a religious one, but its true roots and European heritage rest in something considerably more pagan. The original festivities date back 2,000 years to Celtic priests, the druids, who celebrated a harvest festival. Once their summer’s harvest had been safely stored, the Celts prayed for their sun god in the coming battle with the darkness and cold of winter. The harvest season was of such importance it marked the end of the Celtic calendar year.
As their harvest rituals evolved, eventually combining with the Christian Feast of Saints, "Thanksgiving" as we know it was born, and later, brought to the new world. Records of Port Royal, Nova Scotia, dating back to 1710, note October 10 as a celebration of thanksgiving for the return of the town to the English. In 1763, the citizens of Halifax commemorated the end of the Seven Years War in a similar ceremony. From there the tradition slowly moved across the country.
Canada’s Parliament of 1879 formally declared November 6 as a day of Thanksgiving, marking that day every year until after World War I, when Thanksgiving and Armistice (Remembrance) Day was celebrated in the same week.
It’s current date, the second Monday in October, was regarded by former Ontario Premier E.C. Drury, as a farmer’s holiday stolen by cities to provide them a long weekend when the weather was better than winter.
So, for the day, for the harvest, and for the generous aroma of the turkey roasting in the oven, let us be thankful.
The First Thanksgiving: History and Half-Truths
The first Thanksgiving can be traced to a 1621 gathering of Native American Indians and Anglo settlers from Plymouth, an early Colonial America settlement. The settlers left England for America in 1620 because they were treated differently and even punished because of their religion.
With about 140 people at the first Thanksgiving – the Indians outnumbering the settlers 2 to 1 – both groups enjoyed the harvest foods of September.
However, many myths surround the first Thanksgiving and what the settlers and Indians looked like.
The settlers were known as "Old Comers" or "First Comers" but weren’t called "Pilgrims" until more than a century after the first Thanksgiving. The Indians wore modest clothing that did not include big headdresses of feathers.
Also missing from the settlers were the big black hats with buckles and the blunderbusses – muskets with large-mouth barrels. And the settlers didn’t live in log cabins, but wooden frame houses.
Despite common belief, the Indians weren’t invited to give "thanks" but simply to enjoy the September harvest.
The Indians brought some of the foods they grew in America and the white settlers brought foods that were more common in England. There was much wild game, corn and vegetables. The merriment also included strong drink, including ale and brandy. But neither the Indians nor the settlers had learned how to grow potatoes or tea or coffee or how to make Indian pudding. Also missing were forks to eat with and popcorn.
Although an important landmark when the Mayflower landed, Plymouth Rock had nothing to do with the first Thanksgiving. Also, there was no official proclamation for the first Thanksgiving until June 1676. Instead, the first feast was more of a spontaneous celebration.
Turkeys, on the other hand, did play a big part in the first Thanksgiving feast and were later proposed by Benjamin Franklin to become the national bird of the United States. Because of the limited vegetables, stuffing – a combination of cornbread, green onions, chicken broth, parsley and other spices – became an early tradition.
Despite the efforts of many, Thanksgiving did not become a national holiday until 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation formally establishing the fourth Thursday of November as the national day to give thanks.
Canada later adopted its own Thanksgiving holiday, celebrated in October of each year.
The First Thanksgiving Proclamation
June 20, 1676
On June 20, 1676, the governing council of Charlestown, Mass., met to determine how to express thanks for their young community’s good fortune. By unanimous vote they instructed clerk Edward Rawson to proclaim June 29 as a day of thanksgiving, our nation’s first.
The following is the original text of the proclamation.
"The Holy God having by a long and Continual Series of his Afflictive dispensations in and by the present Warr with the Heathen Natives of this land, written and brought to pass bitter things against his own Covenant people in this wilderness, yet so that we evidently discern that in the midst of his judgments he hath remembered mercy, having remembered his Footstool in the day of his sore displeasure against us for our sins, with many singular Intimations of his Fatherly Compassion, and regard; reserving many of our Towns from Desolation Threatened, and attempted by the Enemy, and giving us especially of late with many of our Confederates many signal Advantages against them, without such Disadvantage to ourselves as formerly we have been sensible of, if it be the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed, It certainly bespeaks our positive Thankfulness, when our Enemies are in any measure disappointed or destroyed; and fearing the Lord should take notice under so many Intimations of his returning mercy, we should be found an Insensible people, as not standing before Him with Thanksgiving, as well as lading him with our Complaints in the time of pressing Afflictions:
The Council has thought meet to appoint and set apart the 29th day of this instant June, as a day of Solemn Thanksgiving and praise to God for such his Goodness and Favour, many Particulars of which mercy might be Instanced, but we doubt not those who are sensible of God’s Afflictions, have been as diligent to espy him returning to us; and that the Lord may behold us as a People offering Praise and thereby glorifying Him; the Council doth commend it to the Respective Ministers, Elders and people of this Jurisdiction; Solemnly and seriously to keep the same Beseeching that being persuaded by the mercies of God we may all, even this whole people offer up our bodies and souls as a living and acceptable Service unto God by Jesus Christ."
