What are we giving thanks for?

Published 12:30 pm Thursday, October 2, 2025

Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away. 

In Canada, it is often considered a holiday that was borrowed from the American tradition, which is steeped in folklore, specifically a harvest feast between English Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indigenous people around Plymouth, Massachusetts.

But harvest festivals among humans date back all the way to the advent of agriculture. 

After all, without the cultivation of food, human society as we know it today would not be possible.

In fact, the first "thanksgiving" festival in what would eventually become Canada predates the 1621 Massachusetts event by 40-some years.

American Thanksgiving became a national event in 1789. Canada made it a national holiday in 1879.

They are both similar, yet distinct. And while not called Thanksgiving, many countries in the world celebrate similar holidays.

They are all rooted in gratitude for the bounty provided by our own efforts to keep our bellies full through the times when food becomes harder to come by.

But most of us these days are extremely disconnected from the sources of our food and modern technology has allowed most of us to keep the larder (to purposefully use an anachronistic term) full during the winter without ever really experiencing true food insecurity.

And yet, food insecurity has been an increasingly relevant topic of discussion, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic, and particularly in remote and rural areas of our country.

In North America, the holiday remains ostensibly about family and counting our blessings (however you might define that), but it has evolved to be about a day off, football, and (thankfully, less so in Canada than the States) the rampant consumerism of holiday shopping.

This coming October 13, it couldn't hurt to reflect a bit more deeply about what we are thankful for.

In the modern context, how about giving thanks for all of the hard-working people, from the day-labourers and factory workers in foreign places (and at home) who produce it, to the truck drivers who transport it, to the retail workers who stock the shelves and check us out at the grocery store, and everybody else involved in an industry most of us don't really understand anymore.

Thanksgiving is not what it used to be, but when it comes right down to it, it is about not going hungry.