In response to his safe travels to the Great White North, over 4 decades before the Plymouth Colony celebration, Frobisher & his men held a service of thanks. "Frobisher, an English explorer in the uncharted northern territories, organized the 1st religious Thanksgiving for his crew & early Canadian settlers as a way to take stock of all they had accomplished in a short time."
During his 1578 voyage to Baffin Island to set up a new English colony, Frobisher's ships were scattered. At Frobisher Bay, the explorer was happily reunited with his fleet, & all who had survived the storms honored their reunion with a day of thanks.
Martin Frobisher, mariner, explorer, 3 three voyages from England to the “New World” in search of a passage to Asia. He failed, but he was the 1st European to discover the bay that is named for him & returned with tons of dirt that he thought contained gold. Each expedition was bigger than the preceding one & on his 3rd, in 1578, he commanded a flotilla of 15 ships & more than 400 men. They set sail on 31 May for Baffin Island, where they intended to establish a gold mining operation & the 1st English colony in North America. On 1 July, they sighted Resolution Island, but they were driven by storms across the entrance to Hudson Strait. The fleet was dispersed & one ship, which carried their prefabricated barracks, was sunk by ice. Another ship deserted the flotilla & sailed back to England.
The remaining ships assembled at the Countess of Warwick’s Island, which is known today as Kodlunarn Island, a tiny speck of land in Frobisher Bay. They established 2 mines on the island & set up shops to test the ore from other mines. The mine sites & the ruins of a stone house are still clearly visible.
Vicious storms blew the fleet around Hudson Strait for most of July & when they finally assembled at their anchorage in Frobisher Bay, they celebrated Communion & formally expressed their thanks through the ship’s Chaplain, Robert Wolfall, who “made unto them a godly sermon, exhorting them especially to be thankefull to God for theyr strange & miraculous deliverance in those so dangerous places” (Richard Collinson, The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher: In Search of a Passage to Cathaia & India by the North-West, Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Frobisher sailed for Elizabeth I, whose reign was marked by public acts of giving thanks. Elizabeth expressed her gratitude for having lived to ascend the throne, for delivery from the Spanish Armada and, in her last speech to Parliament, for her subjects.
Frobisher sailed for Elizabeth I, whose reign was marked by public acts of giving thanks. Elizabeth expressed her gratitude for having lived to ascend the throne, for delivery from the Spanish Armada and, in her last speech to Parliament, for her subjects.
The 1st known use of the word “Thanksgiving” in English text was in a translation of the bible in 1533, which was intended as an act of giving thanks to God. The tradition of gratitude was continued each fall as people gave thanks for the harvest that would see them through the winter.
Forty-eight years later on November 14, 1606, inhabitants of New France under Samuel de Champlain held huge feasts of thanksgiving between local Mi’kmaq & the French. Though not known at the time by the settlers, cranberries, rich in vitamin C, are credited with helping avoid scurvy. The neighbouring Mi’kmaq likely introduced the French to cranberries, or as they called them, petites pommes rouges (little red apples).
Champlain’s feasts were more than an annual affair. To prevent the scurvy epidemic that had decimated the settlement at Île Sainte-Croix in past winters, the Ordre de Bon Temps (Order of Good Cheer) was founded, offering festive meals every few weeks. Medical treatises recommended better nutrition (more food) & entertainment to combat scurvy.
However, despite this history of uniquely Canadian thanksgivings, modern concepts of Thanksgiving were influenced by the American neighbors to the South. Foods that are associated with a “traditional” Thanksgiving, such as North American turkey, squash, & pumpkin, were introduced to citizens of Halifax in the 1750s by the United Empire Loyalists, who continued to spread this “traditional” fare to other parts of the country.
See
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Courtauld, Augustine. From the Ends of the Earth: An Anthology of Polar Writings. Oxford University Press, 1958
Elton, G.R. England Under the Tudors. Routledge, 2018.
Ferriby, David. The Tudors. Hodder Education, 2015.
Guy, John. Tudor England. Oxford University Press, 1988.
Wagner, John A. Historical Dictionary of the Elizabethan World. Greenwood, 1999.
Williams, Neville. The sea dogs. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975.
