Sunday, October 08, 2006

For Back Home

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

From Wikipedia:

The first and original Thanksgiving comes from Canada. In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. Unlike the American tradition of remembering Pilgrims and settling in the New World, Canadians give thanks for a successful harvest.

The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an English explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. He did not succeed but he did establish a settlement in Canada. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This is considered the first Canadian Thanksgiving, and the first Thanksgiving to have taken place in North America. Other settlers arrived and continued these ceremonies. He was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him - Frobisher Bay. (which is close to environs of Jennifer at North of Nain)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool, CCC.

Thanks for waving the flag.

B.

Just me said...

I feel so very un-Canadian for not knowing the reason behind Thanksgiving. I assumed it had to do with the harvest, but did not know about Frobisher...whoops! And you'd think that living here in what used to be Frobisher Bay there would have been some sort of special celebration. I'll start one next year.

J.