Canadian Thanksgiving

This weekend is my second Canadian Thanksgiving in Canada, which is due to be spent enjoying the company of Wendy and Scott Marks on Vancouver Island. The plan is for turkey dinner on Saturday evening.

However, what are Canadians thankful for???? The American thanksgiving holiday is famous for the celebration of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Mayflower ship landing on the East coast of the USA. This was the much discussed question at the dinner table from the only Brit and the less than convincing answer seemed to be linked to harvest festival. On further research, i.e. a search on Wikipedia, I discovered that The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Pacific Ocean. Frobisher's Thanksgiving was not for harvest but homecoming. He had safely returned from a search for the Northwest Passage, avoiding the later fate of Henry Hudson and Sir John Franklin who died.

Hey, whatever.... the important thing to me was that I get an extra day-off work! Here's to Canada Thanksgiving.