Saint-Jean-Baptiste day has been around for centuries. It was celebrated in old France as a Midsummer feast way before the colonisation of Canada. The first celebration of Saint-Jean-Baptiste day in Quebec occured on the shores of the St-Laurence river in Quebec on the evening of June 23, 1636. A huge bonfire was lit and there were canons shot. History doesn't mention this, but I'll bet a few troublemakers got totally drunk and broke windows or something...
The holiday was mainly a religious holiday, with bonfires and parades depicting young St-John-the-Baptist as a curly haired young boy with a lamb, an only started taking a patriotic tone in1834. ( I actually remember going to a parade as a young child and seeing the float with little St-Jean and the lamb - but that was long after 1834 ;o). On June 24th 1880, the song Oh Canada, which was commissioned by the St-Jean-Baptiste Society, was heard for the first time during the Saint-Jean-Baptiste celebration. It took a few more years before English words were added in 1901. Oh Canada became our national anthem in 1980.
Today, they call it Fête Nationale du Québec. The holiday has become purely political and is celebrated with parades, bonfires, fireworks, and shows. As always, there are always rabblerousers who get drunk and break things - nothing new there. Such a waste of public funds that could be better spent on important stuff like medicare. All this patriotic stuff leaves me cold. The only thing I like about this holiday is the fact that it's a paid holiday. A lot of people are with me on this!
So today, I can sit back, relax, and rest my shoulder without worrying that the world is continuing on without me. In Quebec, the world is at a standstill - everything is closed tighter than on Christmas Day.
Bonne St-Jean!
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