Why Do We Celebrate Thanksgiving Day in Canada
The cultures of Canada and the United States are different. While the globe does tend to view the two nations as being quite similar, ask a Canadian and he’ll tell you how dissimilar their cultures are—including how they each celebrate Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is observed on the second Monday of October in Canada whereas it is observed on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States.
Many people believe that Canada, the younger country, stole the idea from the US, but history shows otherwise.
In reality, Martin Frobisher’s third visit to Canada in 1578 marked the first Thanksgiving celebration in Canada. He had organised a large party to express his gratitude to the people of Nunavut for ensuring a safe journey despite losing one of his ships along the trip.
Years before the first known US feast between Pilgrims and Native Americans at Plymouth in 1621, there was the episode. Since many Native American families lost loved ones in the battle that ensued a decade later, the ceremony has become considerably more sombre.
Origin & History of Thanksgiving Day in Canada
Prior to the introduction of European settlers, indigenous peoples in North America held community feasts to commemorate the fall harvest. Some First Nations “sought to ensure a healthy crop through dances and ceremonies,” according to the Smithsonian Institute. The harvest festival customs that the European invaders brought with them originated in European peasant civilizations and were symbolised by the cornucopia, or “horn of plenty.”
Sir Martin Frobisher and his company celebrated the first Thanksgiving in North America in the Eastern Arctic in 1578. For their safe arrival in what is now Nunavut, they celebrated and gave gratitude by eating a dinner of salt beef, biscuits, and mushy peas. Through the ship’s chaplain, Robert Wolfall, they participated in Communion and formally expressed their gratitude. According to explorer Richard Collinson, 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.”
Samuel de Champlain established the Ordre de Bon Temps, a series of rotating feasts, at Port Royal in 1606 in an effort to stop the same scurvy outbreak that had ravaged the community at Île Ste. Croix in the winter of 1604-05. (“Order of Good Cheer”). Families of Mi’kmaq in the area were also invited. On November 14, 1606, a feast was thrown to commemorate Jean de Biencourt de Poutrincourt’s return from an expedition. Marc Lescarbot, who was there, said that the festivities consisted of “a feast, a discharge of musketry, and as much noise as fifty soldiers, joined by a few Indians, whose families functioned as spectators, could make.”
This occurred 17 years before the Pilgrims celebrated their first harvest in Massachusetts in 1621, which is commonly regarded as the first American Thanksgiving (which was actually predated by several similar events in the New England colonies by at least 14 years). In the 1750s, the traditional Thanksgiving meal with its distinctively American turkey, squash, and pumpkin was brought to Nova Scotia. A day of Thanksgiving was observed by Halifax residents in 1763 to mark the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, and Loyalists later spread the holiday to other regions of the nation.
Canada Thanksgiving Day Facts
Thanksgiving is known as “Action de grâce” in Quebec.
In Canada, Thanksgiving has been observed since November 6, 1879, a period of 140 years.
Thanksgiving was observed in Canada on the third Monday in October until 1957. On January 31, 1957, the Governor General of Canada issued a proclamation changing the date to the second Monday in October.
Thanksgiving is observed in the United States on the fourth Thursday of November.
Originally, it was observed as a day of thanksgiving for the blessings of the harvest and the previous year.
The cornucopia, sometimes called the horn of plenty, stands for plenty and sustenance. In North America, it is especially connected to the Thanksgiving holiday.
