Canada’s Thanksgiving isn’t just a U.S. copycat

Think the U.S. invented Thanksgiving? History says no

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I had a wonderful (and restful) Thanksgiving with my family. I hope all of you did too.

Canada is one of the few countries and territories that celebrate this national holiday. The U.S. tradition is obviously the most well-known around the world. It’s also observed in Saint Lucia, Liberia and the Australian external territory of Norfolk Island. Several countries also celebrate Thanksgiving or a similarly named holiday in an unofficial capacity, including Brazil, Japan and Germany.

Many American and international friends and colleagues have often wondered why we celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada. More specifically, they’ve tried to understand what makes our national holiday different from others.

I suggested several reasons in this syndicated column back in October 2017. I decided to revisit this topic once more for fun and include some additional information to bring us even closer to the answer.

Some historians (though not all) have suggested that the first celebration of Thanksgiving in North America occurred in the Great White North.

It’s been attributed to the British explorer Sir Martin Frobisher, who made three attempts to travel through the Canadian Arctic to find the prized Northwest Passage between 1576 and 1578. He ultimately charted an inlet of the Davis Strait in Nunavut on the first voyage, which is still named after him—Frobisher Bay. The first celebration reportedly occurred on May 27, 1578, when he and his crew fought high waters and horrible weather to arrive at their destination in Newfoundland. They celebrated Communion, gave thanks to God, and consumed a meal that consisted of salt beef, biscuits and mushy peas.

How do we know this? In a July 5, 2019, entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia, British explorer Sir Richard Collinson suggested the ship’s chaplain, Robert Wolfall, “made unto them a godly sermon, exhorting them especially to be thankefull to God for their strange and miraculous deliverance in those so dangerous places [sic].”

There’s also the Ordre de Bon Temps (“Order of Good Times”), a series of rotating feasts held in Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, in the winter of 1606-1607. The idea was established by Canadian explorer Samuel de Champlain, after the previous winter had witnessed several French companions die from scurvy on Sainte-Croix Island. The weather was milder, and Champlain wrote that “we had a very merry winter.”

As I noted in my original column about the first Canadian Thanksgiving, there was a first-hand account of the Ordre de Bon Temps. Marc Lescarbot, an Acadian lawyer who attended the feasts, wrote about it in his 1609 book, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France. Here’s part of his fascinating description of the festivities: “Nature itself has already furnished the principal initiative, and advantage of it had been taken, everywhere were decorations and garlands of natural green; a magnificent forest hid the rusticity of wooden buildings and huts; even a theatre was built where allegoric scenes were represented; a feast, a discharge of musketry, and as much noise as could be made by some fifty men, joined by a few Indians, whose families served as spectators.”

Let’s move ahead to (slightly) more modern times.

According to W. A. Craick’s Oct. 8, 1964, piece in the Ottawa Journal, the celebration that occurred on Nov. 3, 1859, in the Province of Canada “may be regarded as the inception of the holiday in Canada.” The first Thanksgiving after Confederation, which was observed as a national civic holiday, occurred on April 5, 1872, and the Canadian Parliament first designated Thanksgiving as a national holiday on Nov. 6, 1879.

Here’s another interesting fact about Canadian Thanksgiving. It’s only had a permanent spot on the Gregorian calendar for a short period of time in our country’s history.

Vincent Massey, Canada’s Governor General, proclaimed on Jan. 31, 1957, that “A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed—to be observed on the second Monday in October.” While many Canadians celebrated this declaration, some were less than pleased. E.C. Drury, the former United Farmers of Ontario leader who served as premier from 1919 to 1923, was one of the more vocal critics. He said, “the farmers’ own holiday has been stolen by the towns,” to place it on a day during the long weekend with nicer weather conditions.

Drury’s assessment never became the norm in urban or rural Canadian communities. The national holiday of Thanksgiving has become a day of food, family and fun from coast to coast. While it will likely never have the same cultural impact that it has with our American friends, the history and tradition of giving thanks in Canada will always have a special meaning to our family, friends, neighbours and communities.

Michael Taube is a political commentator, Troy Media syndicated columnist and former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, lending academic rigour to his political insights.