Canadian Thanksgiving and US Indigenous Peoples Day

 This is Canadian Thanksgiving Day, celebrated a full six weeks before the American version. In both countries there is a public holiday and families are inclined to gather for a meal. In the States Thanksgiving is a bigger deal, with a longer weekend, wall to wall football, endless retail sales, and family gatherings which are bound to be contentious this year given that an election will have just occurred. 

The role of Indigenous peoples in the US Thanksgiving is an important part of the mythology. The theme is of hospitality extended to the European settlers who probably wouldn't have survived otherwise. I've noticed over time that there are plenty of cartoons suggesting that Native Americans would appreciate a reset on that welcome.

In Canada we don't place the same emphasis on the role of First Peoples in putting out the welcome mat for settlers but history tells us that Indigenous peoples in what we now call Canada were likely instrumental in their survival. They established treaties with the British Crown which made it possible for exploration to take place and settlement to happen. Often Christian missionaries were involved in first contact and the gospel was shared.

Given the sorry outcome of these encounters, filled with broken promises, decimation by disease, and attempts to extinguish culture and spirituality, perhaps we can temper our Thanksgiving with a side dish of repentance. I keep thinking of our June trip to Haida Gwaii and learning that the Haida people refer to the post-missionary era, beginning in the mid-1960s, with the resurgence of their culture. The residential schools and the insistence on giving up language, art, and potlatch gatherings because they were pagan is a bleak aspect of our history.

Thanksgiving can be a time for Truth and Reconciliation, of acknowledging respect and gratitude for First Peoples and our shared relationship with the Creator.  

I should note that in the United States this is Indigenous Peoples Day a proclamation of the Biden administration as a counterbalance to Columbus Day, or There Goes the Neighbourhood Day. Again, the two nations are different in that June 21st, the Summer Solstice is Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada and September 30th is National Truth and Reconciliation Day. 

In my other blog, Groundling, I consider the hymns of Thanksgiving and why celebrating the harvest still matters https://groundlingearthyheavenly.blogspot.com/2024/10/all-good-gifts-around-us-are-sent-from.html