Thanksgiving: Canada Edition

Our regular Canadian contributor Jackball has once again served an excellent meal with documentation for us all. The above photos were prepared from the following recipe:

Prepare Stuffing

4 cups bread crumbs, 1/4 lb bacon, 1/3 cup chopped onion, 2 tbls chopped celery, 1/4 cup warm butter, 1/2 tsp parsley flakes, pepper, salt, 1/3 cup warm milk.In a big bowl mix the ingredients, bread crumbs should be mushy when done.

Stuff the Turkey, cook at 375 for 4 hours depending on size of bird.

The staff here at The Fat Pride Times found some history on the Canadian Thanksgiving on twilightbridge.com:

In Canada Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. Unlike the American tradition of remembering Pilgrims and settling in the New World, Canadians give thanks for a successful harvest. The harvest season falls earlier in Canada compared to the United States due to the simple fact that Canada is further north.

The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an English explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. He did not succeed but he did establish a settlement in Northern America. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now called Newfoundland, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This is considered the first Canadian Thanksgiving. Other settlers arrived and continued these ceremonies. He was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him - Frobisher Bay.

At the same time, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, also held huge feasts of thanks. They even formed 'The Order of Good Cheer' and gladly shared their food with their Indian neighbours.

After the Seven Year's War ended in 1763, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving.