As we sit down to creation\u2019s bounty in the form of a magnificent harvest dinner this month, let\u2019s be thankful we can plan for this fine-weather feast on the second Monday in October. Historically, the date of Canada\u2019s day of thanks has been anything but fixed.<\/p>\n
In fact, it was not until 1957 that Parliament first officially set the permanent date we now observe, with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker declaring it \u201cA Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Before that, the celebration was decidedly, in Hemingway\u2019s words, \u201ca movable feast.\u201d\u009d Often wrongly disparaged as lacking the deep historical roots of American Thanksgiving, English Canada\u2019s first celebration occurred 43 years before the Pilgrim Fathers touched American shores. It\u2019s linked to 1578, when British North West Passage explorer Sir Martin Frobisher declared a day of thanksgiving for cross-Atlantic and Arctic tribulations survived. An Anglican service was held near Baffin Island by the Rev. Robert Wolfall, expedition chaplain.<\/p>\n