- History & Culture
- Explainer
How do Thanksgivings in America and Canada differ?
Canada celebrated Thanksgiving decades before the Pilgrims, but the holiday in the U.S. and its northern neighbor have much in common.
Imagine the Thanksgiving holiday a month and a half early—and though there’s plenty of pumpkin pie, there’s not a Pilgrim in sight. For 37 million Canadians, that’s the reality of the second Monday in each October.
Many of the trappings of Canadian Thanksgiving are similar to those of its U.S. counterpart, but the Canadian tradition belongs to the 16th century, more than four decades before the historic 1621 gathering in Plymouth, Massachusetts that set American Thanksgiving into motion. (How the traditional American Thanksgiving feast evolved over the centuries.)
Canadian Thanksgiving kicked off with a feast of biscuits, salt beef, and mushy peas in 1578. That’s when Sir Martin Frobisher sailed from England in search of the Northwest Passage.
