FreshBooks Support Unavailable on Monday, October 11th for Canadian Thanksgiving

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My cousins south of the border often joke that Canadians are weird. One of the contention points would be the date of Thanksgiving — To my cousins, having Turkey before Halloween is outrageous; and no Black Friday sales that weekend? Weeeeeird!

Even more bizarre, is that Thanksgiving is not a statutory holiday across Canada. Provinces including Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia do not get the day off (unless you work for government agencies, of course). That’s too bad, given that the original Canadian Thanksgiving happened in Newfoundland! (Okay, maybe we are a little weird).

In 1578, the first (turkey-less) Thanksgiving was held in Newfoundland after an explorer named Martin Frobisher returned home safely the year before. Frobisher had been trying to find a northwest passage to the Pacific Ocean. The whole feast-for-harvest idea didn’t catch on until around 1604 and onward, where French settlers who came to “New France” with Samuel de Champlain celebrated their harvests in the fall. They even created the “Order of Good Cheer” for these occasions.

So where did the Turkeys come from? We have the United States to thank for that! The first Thanksgiving in the United States was celebrated at the site of Plymouth Plantation in 1621. The whole affair lasted a grand total of three days! It was recorded that all types of waterfowl, wild turkeys, fishes, and deer were consumed in this glorious feast. The idea of having turkeys on the Thanksgiving menu simply caught on and became a tradition. Just like how we now have Canadian Idol and So You Think You Can Dance Canada, we decided to have turkeys for Canadian Thanksgiving too!

The Canadian Thanksgiving did not have a fixed date until it got to the point that it was usually celebrated with Remembrance Day on November 11th. To avoid clashing of the two holidays, the Canadian Parliament proclaimed in 1957 that Thanksgiving be observed on the second Monday of October.

In the United States, the proclamation of Thanksgiving Day was a little more controversial. Thanksgiving was usually declared on the last Thursday of November. However, President Roosevelt felt that moving Thanksgiving a week earlier would help sales for the Christmas shopping season and boost the economy. Naturally, this proposal brought on a heated debate within the country. Eventually, U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution in October of 1941 to have Thanksgiving be on the fourth Thursday of November, which could both be the last or the second last week of November.

So there you have it, we Canadians aren’t so weird, we just have a different history. No matter the date differences, the important thing is that we sit down and reflect on all the things we’re thankful for.