pilgrims

Happy Thanksgiving: A Brief History


Until 5 years ago, I really felt no connection to America’s “founding”. Being adopted, I didn’t know where I came from. My history was a fabrication. A lie. So, finding my ancestors – specifically – was kinda something. Pilgrims. Literal fucking Pilgrims. My American genetic origin story. Explains my contrariness if nothing else.

I have always found the Pilgrims (not the Puritans, they followed later and while they share similarities, they aren’t interchangeable) to be an odd bunch. Cultish. Dogmatic. But weirdly anti authority. They fled England because they hated other people’s rules after all. That’s Protestantism at its core, in my experience.

Thanksgiving in the US is a wild holiday. It became an official one as a nationalist propaganda thing during the Civil War and then it eventually morphed into the commercial kick off to the xmas season at some point. It’s a holiday that’s mostly about food and shopping for the majority of its existence, stubbornly ignoring its sketchy origin.

The Pilgrims came pretty close to dying off during their first winter. If the Indigenous in the area hadn’t taken pity on them, they would have because they were not farmers. They weren’t foragers. They weren’t hunters. They weren’t sensible really or they wouldn’t have set off for the “new world” on the brink of winter. They were city folk in a wilderness they didn’t understand at all. Believing a magical god would protect and provide.

The first Thanksgivings (they were not annual really and as time went on, they were sometimes traps) were sort of thank yous with a sizable “whew, we have food for the winter” things. Sure, they were family oriented, but like everyone in the tiny beginnings of the colonies that became Massachusetts and Rhode Island was related, so how could they not be?

But, Thanksgiving as a Pilgrim legacy of goodwill and neighbourliness, which it wasn’t at all, should mostly be a reminder to white people that they aren’t native Americans. We came here and took land that belonged to other people (no, we did not really buy it – read a book) and then killed them when they got, correctly, upset about it.

In a country where the owner class grants so very few holidays, it’s easy to understand why people like Thanksgiving and cling to the happier aspects that evolved from the initial gathering, but it’s a day with a dark legacy. No amount of pumpkin pie or Black Friday deals is going to erase that.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving


Heading down to Saskatchewan in a while for the holiday weekend. Got to hand to it Canadians, they know how to space their holidays. Back in the States it’s feast of famine in terms of time away from the grind but up here the year seems to be evenly broken into a plethora of official holidays that result in three and four day weekends. That’s another thing about Canadians, whenever possible, they hold their holidays on Monday. The school year, which would break the back of the average American kid, is ten whole months long but it has all these lovely holidays in addition to the official provincial and national ones. Yes, that’s right. Provinces can schedule their own holidays. Puts U.S. states’ rights in its rightful place, right between “weenie” and “wuss”.

Monday is Thanksgiving here. We had planned to lay about. There is work to be done winterizing and since it seem to be snowing all around us, though not here yet, it’s something we need to be moving a bit more swiftly on. However, Rob’s mom is moving to B.C. in a few weeks and needed him to come down and take care of a few things his younger sister can’t help out with. Yeah, there is a story there but I am not at liberty to tell it. Suffice to say that are issues and I am sure you can imagine the rest without any further assistance. I am just standing over here in the corner of my blog, not saying a word.

Saskatchewan is an eight hour drive through terrain that makes Nebraska seem interesting. Since I have made it once before, and much of it is on two lane highway (Canadians do not believe in mega highways like Americans do. Back in the states there are four lane highways in the middle of nowhere simply so farmers can get from the homestead to the back forty fifteen minutes faster). It takes forever to get there. Though once there, Regina is a somewhat interesting place. A place I won’t see much more of this time than the first time I was there in June. Perhaps I will get a bit of real writing done as I will be internet inaccessible, but more likely I will work on yet another attempt at winning the mystery story contest in the Edmonton journal. Some other SAHM won it this week which means I have to read another chapter in this increasingly boring story. But, I am nothing if not pig-headed and single-minded when it comes to at least seeing this damn contest through to its end. I suppose I could write one of those “thankful” lists that people do when Thanksgiving comes around. When I was in grade school the nuns had us do this every year. It was a bit like having to think up sins for confession once a month. Not that I haven’t much to be thankful for but the holiday itself is such a sham. Below the 49th it is sold as the day the pilgrims sat down with their friendly Native American neighbors and gave thanks for surviving their first year. Of course the real story behind the Plymouth pilgrims is more on the order of the sordid stuff that would have made it an awesome reality show had there been such a thing as television back then. Then, of course, is the reality that Thanksgiving was actually a propaganda tool of the Lincoln administration during that unpopular war he was stuck with known as the Civil War. But whatever, I am not at all sure what meaning Canadians have attached to it beyond the fact that it’s been about six weeks since the last holiday Monday around here.

I am thankful for the six or ten of you who read this blog and want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving from Canada.