Thanksgiving—Canada vs. U.S.

Even though Canada was first to celebrate Thanksgiving, decades before the Pilgrims arrived in what is now the United States, the holiday in the U.S. and its northern neighbor have much in common.

For those of us in the United States, imagine the Thanksgiving holiday a month and a half earlier. There's plenty of pumpkin pie but not a Pilgrim in sight. For 37 million Canadians, that's reality for the second Monday in October. Many of the trappings of Canadian Thanksgiving are similar to those of its U.S. counterpart, but the Canadian tradition belongs to the 16^th century, more than four decades before the historic 17^th century gathering in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621 that is the genesis of the American Thanksgiving holiday.

The original Canadian Thanksgiving feast in 1578 consisted of biscuits, salt beef, and mushy peas. That's when Sir Martin Frobisher sailed from England in search of the Northwest Passage. After his crew arrived in what is now Nunavut (newly created April 1, 1999, formerly part of the Northwest Territories), Frobisher's men took part in a Church of England service of thanksgiving.

Both Native Americans and Indigenous Canadians had long celebrated the fall harvest. European settlers attempted to follow suit as they settled on the Canadian mainland. Early attempts at French settlement along Canada's Atlantic coast had been disastrous, and ended in 1604 with a scurvy epidemic that took place after French settlers ignored warnings that winter ice would trap them on Île-Ste.-Croix, an island in the Bay of Fundy. They ended up isolated on the island for months. Half of the group died of scurvy before being rescued by Indigenous Canadians.

Those who survived moved to Port Royal in what is now Nova Scotia, where Samuel de Champlain mandated a series of feasts designed to keep the settlers' spirits up. The feasts kicked off in 1616 with a Thanksgiving-like November event that included the Mi'kmaq people.

As in the U.S., Canada observed occasional Thanksgivings to celebrate important events such as the end of the War of 1812. And like the U.S., Canada's first thanksgivings tended to be religious events. The two countries also celebrated similarly thanks to pro-British Loyalists who moved to Canada during and after the Revolutionary War. New England staples like turkey and pumpkin were introduced to the Canadian celebration.

Thanksgiving became a national celebration in Canada starting in 1859, again beating the United States to the holiday. Abraham Lincoln set the precedent for the annual holiday in the U.S. after the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, when he set the date at the last Thursday of November.

Unlike American Thanksgiving, Canada's national Thanksgiving date took decades to become standardized and annual. In 1957, Canada's parliament set the date as the second Monday in October. By then, the United States was officially celebrating their Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November.

Though plenty of Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving, it's not a public holiday in three of the country's provinces: Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick. In Quebec, which has strong Catholic roots, the holiday has historically been downplayed. And Canadian Thanksgiving isn't the major travel and shopping event it has become in the United States. The holiday may have come earlier to Canada, but its southern cousin is much more invested in celebrating it.