History and Origin of Canadian Thanksgiving

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 harvest season falls earlier in Canada compared to the United States due to the simple fact that Canada is further north.

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 Northern America. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now called Newfoundland, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This is considered the first Canadian Thanksgiving. 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.

At the same time, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, also held huge feasts of thanks. They even formed 'The Order of Good Cheer' and gladly shared their food with their Indian neighbours.

After the Seven Year's War ended in 1763, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving.

During the American Revolution, Americans who remained loyal to England moved to Canada where they brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada. There are many similarities between the two Thanksgivings such as the cornucopia and the pumpkin pie.

Eventually in 1879, Parliament declared November 6th a day of Thanksgiving and a national holiday. Over the years many dates were used for Thanksgiving, the most popular was the 3rd Monday in October. After World War I, both Armistice Day and Thanksgiving were celebrated on the Monday of the week in which November 11th occurred. Ten years later, in 1931, the two days became separate holidays and Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance Day.

Finally, on January 31st, 1957, Parliament proclaimed...

"A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed ... to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October."

God, we give thanks for all You have given us.

Family

Friends

Good Health

Home

 A Great Harvest

And especially for:

A God Who loves us

and Who gave His only Son

to die on the cross for us

so that we could have eternal life.

THANK YOU GOD!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our Canadian readers!

Remember how blessed you are!

Oh, give thanks to the LORD!

Call upon His name;

Make known His deeds among the peoples!

Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him;

Talk of all His wondrous works!

Glory in His holy name;

Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the LORD!

Seek the LORD and His strength;

Seek His face evermore!

Remember His marvelous works which He has done,

His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth.

1 Chronicles 16: 8-12



Trip Part ?????

Well it seems like it is taking a really long time to post all our trip pictures. I think I stalled on this particular part because I was overwhelmed in trying to pick what to share with you about this leg of our journey.

For me visiting the Munck's was the best part of our trip. It was so great to connect again. It really almost seemed like we imagined the special connection we had made in February when they came to visit. But pretty much as soon as we drove up to their house the visiting began and the bond we had was only strengthened.

We enjoyed our time there talking, swimming, eating (even though Laura's new was stove hadn't arrived yet, the girls and her made us delicious meals), touring the area, shopping (Laura was kind enough to take me to some second hand stores), playing in the playground, working at the store, coloring, biking, white water rafting......and really, too much to mention. Arthur, Laura and their family were amazing hosts and we immediately felt at home. Thanks so much again to all of you for a great time in Tennessee! Here are SOME pictures of our time together.

Our twin vans!

Here are some of our 19 children eating together.

The girls all ready to go on a bike ride.

The older girls who weren't working at the store would take the little ones out and do things like go to the park with them. That was such a blessing as you can imagine there was a lot of energy that needed to be let off :)

I think this was the preferred mode of transportation for these guys!

Can you guess what is holding everyone's attention so intently?

Coloring Time

The kids did lots and lots of swimming in the Munck's pool. It was a great opportunity for the little boys to practice their strokes. They were much better swimmers by the time we left. The pool was so warm. Not even close to our cool Manitoban waters!

Of course while the kids were swimming Laura and I spent many hours chatting. We had a lot to catch up on!

And the guys did their fair share of talking too :)

Of course no visit would be complete without Uncle Arthur's stories! Can you tell how well he hold everyone's attention!

On Saturday we visited a Mennonite farmer's market. It was really neat to see the place that Arthur and Laura have mentioned so often. We were amazed at how big their produce was already.

This is a wagon full of watermelon. We taste tested some and it was delicious!

The horses on a treadmill pumping water.

Here's the whole group the morning we said our goodbyes.

So there you have a glimpse of our time together. Really no pictures can even do justice to the great time that was had by all! Thank you once again to all of the Munck's for being such amazing hosts and for your friendship. We look forward to our next visit together.

The Next Leg of Our Trip

After we visited the Amish village we headed to Petersburg, KY

to check out the Creation Museum.

It was nice to see a museum that was dedicated to depicting the stories of the Bible, without one mention of things evolving nearly ten million years ago.

Here are some highlights of our time there....

~A quick photo while the van was being parked.~

~The scenery and Bible characters were so life like and beautiful.~

~What do you think everbody is looking at???~

~One thing we noticed was that even though they had alot of the same flowers in the south they were much bigger than at home due to the longer growing season.~

~Model of the ark~

~There was some nice paths to walk and enjoy the outdoor scenery.~

~The swinging bridge was a highlight for the little ones.~

~By now mikaya was missing all of her animals at home, and was excited to visit the petting zoo.~

~This interesting animal was a zonkey, a cross between a zebra and a donkey. I don't think they had these on the ark:)~

~Meet Mr. friendly camel~

~Family photo. Can you see who's taking the picture?~

We're Back

We got back last Sunday evening from our trip.

We had a really good time and have so many memories to share.

But as usual it is really good to be home again :)

When we got home we were pleasantly greeted by a job well done at home.

The gardens were freshly tilled and weeded (thanks to the Penner family) The lawn was freshly mown and all was kept up very well on the homestead (thanks to Joshua and Rebecca) I can't tell you what a blessing it was to have all those things done so that we could concentrate on unpacking and the other things that needed our attention. While we were gone it was so nice to be able to keep in touch at home and know that things were being taken care of. Thanks again Josh and Rebecca. So even though there were so many highlights of our trip we will try in the next little while to give you a taste of our favorite moments.

I have always been fascinated with the Amish way of living and have always wanted to get a closer look at their lifestyle. Well we had a chance to do that when we visited the Amish village of Arthur, Illinois.

We went to the Amish Interperative Center and when asked what we hoped to accomplish in Arthur we told her that we wanted to understand that Amish and their lifestyle better. So she suggested that we hire a guide to come along with us in our van to tour the area. This sounded like a great idea to us and so we hired sweet lil Josephina. She was the sweetest little lady and we had a great time with her. She grew up in this Amish village so she had lots of helpful information for us.

It was so interesting to see the mix of both worlds driving around. Buggies were everywhere driving in and around vehicles.

In the town of Arthur at most stores they had places for horses to be tied.

Some even had covered stalls.

In this particular Amish village they were allowed to ride bicycles and we saw lots of them.

All of their houses and barns were white. The reasoning was so that they were not to flashy.

One thing that was really neat about the Amish people is their obvious effort to do things together as a family. You would rarely see just adults in a buggy, there were usually children with them.

Since we are farmers we were glad to be able to get a look at how they do haying.

Each family was allowed to own 2 diesel motors. This farmer was using a motor to run the baler. Supposedly the motor was used so it would be easier on the horses. The motor is on the wagon that the man is standing on.

This Amish village was allowed rubber tires, although I don't think all Amish villages are. They could also hire in tractors, vehicles to drive them around and other things, just as long as they weren't the drivers.

It was also very common to see children driving their child sized buggies. It was so cute :)

At the end of our tour we visited an Amish man's yard who made buggies for a living. It was interesting to see that there were even top of the line buggies with all the gadgets. Even though they tried so hard to stay simple, their buggies witnessed the fact that materialism creaped in here too. This particular buggy, which Josephina called a teenagers buggy, had a speedometer, clock, LED lights, blinkers, brake lights, and a battery gauge.

This one was a more simple version but bigger.

This is just a small sampling of all that we saw. Click here to see the whole album.