et bonne Fête Dollard à ceux et celles au Québec!
So, how are people spending the holiday? Opening the cottage? First Barbeque of the year? Finally putting in the bedding plants that you’ve put off doing because [mum’s voice]“there’s always a risk of frost until Victoria Day, dear”[/mum’s voice].
Me, I’ll likely be stripping some old woodwork and re-staining - a wild and crazy day, to be sure!
What, pray tell, is Victoria Day?
Just curious.
A few years ago, the software company I was working for had a deadline on Victoria Day. It was for Project Spankboy (we didn’t let Dave name the projects anymore after that). As a sort of morale booster, one of the company VPs had t-shirts printed with the company name and date on the front, and on the back was a picture of Queen Victoria with “God spank the Queen” written across it.
Why, it’s Queen Victoria’s birthday, of course! This is traditionally celebrated in Canada (at at least since the 1890s) with parades, military demonstrations, bands, fireworks, etc.)
Here in Victoria, BC, this is pretty much second only to Canada Day as big celebrations go.
Personally, I am spending this weekend in historic costume (in fact, as a Second World War Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant-Major in the Royal Canadian Artillery), overseeing an encampment of some 50 re-enactors living in tents at our 1890s British coast artillery fort. We have folks ranging from the Hudson Bay Company voltigeurs of the 1840s, Royal Engineers from the 1860s, a wonderful contingent of US Army infantry from 1859 (who garrisoned San Juan Island during the “Pig War,” and were led at one time by a certain Captain George Pickett, known later for the South’s desperate charge at the battle of Gettysburg), Royal Marines of the 1890s, Canadian infantry of the Great War, and plenty of Second World War Canadian soldiers (with some great vehicles, as well as a 6-pr anti-tank gun, PIATs, Brens, etc). We also have two 1943 Canadian Women’s Army Corps re-enactors (CWACS!), and a gentleman doing a first aid station of the MacKenzie-Papineau Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.
Last night, we gathered around the parade square, behind the safety of the loopholed walls, and watched entranced as the gentleman who portrays Captain Pickett stepped into the firelight, and, accompanied by a banjo player, made us laugh and cry by turns as he portrayed Pickett’s ghost, reviewing his life. Brilliant and spooky!
Today we have a blank firing range, allowing our re-enactors to demonstrate their historic weapons, from flintlocks to Lee-Enfields. Tomorrow our newly-restored 1942 Willys jeep will be in the big parade, driven (as is historically correct) by our CWACs, along with dozens of marching bands from schools in Washington, Oregon and California–coming up for Victoria Day has become a tradition with many of our American cousins!
And needless to add, the weather has been absolutely glorious!
Gotta go now, and kit up in my battledress for morning camp inspection…“Did you shave this morning soldier?” “Yes, sir!” “Well, it’s all gone down the barrel of your rifle–clean the bloody thing!”
Rodd, I have to ask this:
Do you Canadians also have a holiday for the current Queen’s Birthday, as we do in Australia, or does Victoria Day cover that function?
(Not that we do anything special to remember our British origins, in fact most of us would rather we ditched the monarchy).
The 21st of May
Is the Queen’s birthday
And if we don’t get a holiday,
We’ll all run away!
DVous: Victoria Day is pretty much MonarchFest in general around here. Liz doesn’t have a special holiday to commemorate her.
Also, Victoria Day provides more or less the same thing that Memorial Day does for the States: the White Shoe Deadline.
or, if you’re male, over 60 and over weight, the White Belt Deadline.
Oh.
You mean, it’s not always alright to wear a white belt? :o
Only if you’re a Shriner. Then, it’s de rigeurto wear it all the time.
I realize that it is not patriotic, but for Victoria Day I drove to the US for a pizza.
Prob. because she’s not **dead ** yet! 