Pumpkin Pie and Pioneers: Celebrating Thanksgiving in Canada

What does Thanksgiving mean to Canadians? For me, it’s a time of year where I throw on a plaid shirt and a pair of jeans and take a stroll. With a little red wine or cider I take in the smell of the grapevines in full aromatic bloom and marvel at the colour of the leaves – unfortunately its 27 degrees celcius in my hometown this weekend. But, this is no rant on the effects of global warming or what forces on this planet leave a young person such as myself already reminiscing, “when I was younger, I used to wear a sweater to go outside at Thanksgiving.” No, this is a rant about pilgrims, sort of.

It all began in elementary school. Maybe I had a very different experience in my village, but it was common for the young classes to don little black pilgrim hats made in arts and crafts class. Of course, the little tykes that we were, we thought nothing of it, beyond the fact that somehow Thanksgiving Day was linked to strange Europeans who wore somber black hats with little buckles on the front and shared a wonderful feast with local Indians and they lived happily ever after.

But, before all that and its relevance, ‘An Extremely Brief Synopsis of Thanksgiving in Canada’: The first Thanksgiving to be celebrated in what is now Canada was by Martin Frobisher and his gang of northwest passage seekers in 1578 in Newfoundland. The celebration was, in effect, a thankful meal for the safe voyage across the Atlantic (he never did find that passage). Champlain continued the tradition with the ‘Order of Good Cheer’ during those scurvy days at Port-Royale. However, even before the first Europeans celebrated Thanksgiving, the eastern woodland Natives of North America held large celebratory gatherings in autumn, often to honour the ‘three sisters’ of the harvest - corn, bean, and squash.

The Canadian Thanksgiving is an adoption of the Western European Thanksgiving which was a celebration thanking the Christian God for a (hopefully) bountiful harvest. This celebration, it is claimed, was simply an appropriation of the Pagan/Celtic celebration of ‘herfest’ (linguistic association, anyone?) - a feast celebrating the autumn equinox and again, the harvest. The date that we, as a nation, chose to celebrate Thanksgiving is arbitrary – settled finally by parliament in 1957 to be the second Monday of October. Now, in the United States, Thanksgiving occurs in November and is a celebration of the pilgrims’ first autumn in the ‘New World’ – also, for the fans of the NFL, it’s a day off to watch the traditional ‘Turkey’ match-ups.

So, to return now to the dilemma at hand; are the school systems in Canada blurring the traditions of two nations into one celebration at Thanksgiving? Maybe the powers that be, lost in the debate over the involvement of the Church in the public schools, panicked and decided to teach us the Mayflower and pilgrims story in place of giving thanks to the Christian God of the European tradition (this being one unlikely theory). The Loyalists also brought their own traditions – such as pumpkin pie and the cornucopia – to Canada when they left the Thirteen Colonies during and after the Revolutionary War. Although we share a common history, it is clear that Canada has opted for the European tradition of celebrating and giving thanks for “blessings of an abundant harvest” and in the twentieth century, “for general thanksgiving to Almighty God for the blessings with which the people of Canada have been favoured”. The Christian element, outside of the church and participating families, is no longer observed, but the tradition of feast and family is still widely practiced. Why not, therefore, incorporate a piece of Canadian heritage into the celebration – it is a statutory holiday.

Thus, I once again pose the question: what were the pilgrims doing in the curriculum that I was raised on? Is this story still taught? Acknowledging that to some I may sound as though I’m echoing the words of J.L. Granatstein, searching for a national history, but the incorporation of the pilgrims in a child’s celebration of Thanksgiving in Canada may skew their understanding of the country’s history. We are not lacking in a history that demonstrates the adversity, tenacity and courage of settlers who braved this land to establish a new home and tradition. So, when we reflect on the nature of Thanksgiving and what it means in Canada, we can consider many aspects; Frobisher and his frostbitten feet, happy to be alive, Native Americans celebrating the harvest and its link to the spiritual world, and pioneers thankful that the summer’s toil will see them through the winter. This Thanksgiving, tilt your glass to the pumpkin pie of the Loyalists, to the farmers of our past and present and, rather than a pilgrims hat, to the toques of the settlers of this land.

Quotations from: Canadian Heritage, http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/cpsc-ccsp/jfa-ha/graces_e.cfm.
Reference for 'herfest': Baggott, Andy. The Celtic Wheel of Life. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2000.