Thanksgiving (Canada)
Next: October 11, 2027
Turkey, pumpkin and the long weekend.
The story
Where it comes from
Canada's first official, annual Thanksgiving was held on 6 November 1879, a national day of thanks for the harvest. For decades Parliament chose the date each year, and from 1921 it shared a week with Armistice Day, until 11 November was kept for Remembrance Day alone in 1931. On 31 January 1957 Parliament fixed the second Monday of October as 'a day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest'. Indigenous peoples celebrated the autumn harvest long before Europeans arrived, and the explorer Martin Frobisher's crew gave thanks in the Arctic in 1578.
How it's celebrated
Families and friends gather over the long weekend for a big dinner of roast turkey, squash and pumpkin. In Kitchener-Waterloo the Oktoberfest Thanksgiving Day Parade fills the streets on the Monday, and the Canadian Football League plays its Thanksgiving Day Classic doubleheader. It is a statutory holiday in most provinces and territories, though not in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick or Nova Scotia.
Did you know
- Frobisher's thanksgiving in 1578, in Frobisher Bay in today's Nunavut, came 43 years before the Pilgrims' feast in Massachusetts.
- E.C. Drury, a former premier of Ontario, complained that the move to October meant 'the farmers' own holiday has been stolen by the towns'.
- Kitchener-Waterloo's Oktoberfest, started in 1969, calls itself the largest Bavarian festival in North America.
The greeting
Happy Thanksgiving · Joyeuse Action de grâce
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