Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian readers. (All, uh, two of you I think.)

Canada Day is quite different then the American holiday of Independence Day. Today we are celebrating the joining of the British North American provences into the dominion (and later country) of Canada. This holiday was orginally created in 1979 as Dominion Day, but was later changed to Canada Day in 1982. (Funny, that’s in my lifetime, but I don’t ever remember the old name. I suppose I was too young.)

Canada Day is celebrated in many different ways. Generally speaking, people have the day off work, except those unlucky enough to work in tourist areas. (The major mall in downtown Toronto is open today, for example.) In many major cities and towns, there are festivals and celebrations around the city hall or at the major park. Often, a part of these celebrations is a citizenship ceremony, where new citizens are sworn in. The entertainment and food at these festivals, especially that in Ottawa, refect the diversity of Canada. And perhaps the best part of Canada Day is the fireworks displays at night. There are lots of professional displays to see, but many different types of fireworks are legally avaliable and people set them off in their own backyard or nearby open field.

So my plan for today is to enjoy having quanta home for a long weekend, before we have a procession of guests join us next week. We are also going to walk down to the lakeshore later to see if we can see the fireworks from Ontario Place. Other then that, I’m just going to be proud that I am a Canadian.