The day we’ve all been waiting for: Memorial Day, the opening gambit of the burgers and beer season. Or as we call it up in Canada, Queen Victoria Day.
Memorial Day was first celebrated in 1868 to honor the men who fought in the recently ended American Civil Northern Aggression Between the States War. Canada, having been born only the year before, had not had enough time to get into any wars, which meant they had no soldiers to memorialize and, apparently, nobody else worth memorializing until the queen of England, and therefore Canada’s queen, died in 1901.
The Canadian Parliament had waited so long to find a public holiday in May in order to time it with the American Memorial Day, they rushed to give her a day on the calendar before the poor woman barely had a chance to turn over in her grave. Why Canada has this incessant need to create public holidays that coincide with American public holidays is the kind of question that demands more research.
Canada had the same timing problem with Columbus Day. Columbus made it to America, but he did not make it up to Canada; thus, America gets the holiday and Canada does without. That’s how Canada got its Thanksgiving Day. It made a lot of sense to put it on the calendar in October because (a) that gave Canada a holiday to coincide with Columbus Day, and (b) there was no way Canadians could wait until the end of November to celebrate Thanksgiving — all the turkeys would be covered in three feet of snow by then.
Of course, that left a gaping hole in the Canadian calendar in late November. The Americans had the Pilgrims, and Canada had nothing (again, the Pilgrims, following Columbus’ lead, never made it as far north as Canada, which, of course, begs the question: What exactly were Canadians thankful for back in their non-pilgrim days?).
In any event, the Canadians have tried their darndest to find a holiday for the end of November, and the best they’ve come up with is Grey Cup weekend (the Grey Cup is Canada’s equivalent of the Super Bowl). Lame, but c’est la vie. What Canada needs to do is something, anything, that will give their people a real holiday, one that comes with a day off in late November.
But we do have May covered, and we’ll take it. In Canada, Victoria Day comes with fireworks. Understandably, those would be inappropriate here in the States for Memorial Day, given the nature of the occasion, but celebrating a dead queen is good enough for Canadians. Americans must wait a good six weeks before they can satiate their need to set off explosives. America has their July 4th, and while Canada may be lacking in November, they’ve kept up with the American Joneses in July. July 1, 1867, was Confederation Day, or as it’s now called, Canada Day, and it, too, comes complete with fireworks.
Here endeth the history lesson.
Music today comes from Dave Jordan …
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