History+and+Origin+of+the+Canadian+Thanksgiving

I thought it might be interesting for you to know a little bit about Thanksgiving in Canada. Thanksgiving is also a holiday in Canada, but it is celebrated on the second Monday in October every year. This is the day that Americans celebrate as Columbus Day. Although Canadians have Thanksgiving, it did not begin as the American holiday did with the Pilgrims and Native Americans. The Canadian holiday began with an explorer from England by the name of Martin Frobisher who had been trying to find a passage to the Orient. When he landed on this side of the Atlantic in a place we now call Newfoundland, he was so grateful for surviving the journey that he had a formal service of thanksgiving. This took place in 1578. Around the same time a French explorer, named Samuel de Champlain, started to hold annual celebrations of thanks for safe journeys across the Atlantic Ocean and also for the harvest that would help them survive the long, hard winters.

When the War of Independence took place and the United States became a nation, some people who wanted to stay under British rule moved to what is now known as Canada. They brought with them traditions that had to do with the way they had celebrated Thanksgiving. Because of this Canadians and Americans have quite a few Thanksgiving traditions in common like turkey and pumpkin pie.

In Canada Thanksgiving is a holiday in which they give thanks for a good harvest. Here's what the Government of Canada said in the law that made Thanksgiving a national holiday on January 31, 1957, "//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."// Since Thanksgiving is a celebration for the harvest and the harvest comes earlier in Canada because of its climate, this is why Thanksgiving is celebrated earlier in Canada than it is in the United States.