Canada was celebrating it's one hundredth birthday in 1967.Instead of a birthday cake with a hundred candles, a flame was lit in front of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. It was lit on the first of January, with the idea that it would be extinguished at the end of the year long celebration, but, due to popular demand, it was left to burn, and burns there still, coming up out of the water in a fountain that has the Centennial symbol, and coats of arms of the various provinces and territories.
Canada had it's beginnings as a nation in 1867, and at the time consisted of only four provinces.Our home province of New Brunswick was one of those, along with Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Actually, though, what was to become the one hundred year old nation of Canada in 1967, was the result of the world wide conflicts of two European nations, England and France, as they tried to carve up the "New World " between themselves, forgetting,for the most part that there was a world here long before they stumbled across it. So,the world that was brought together politically in 1867 reflected these tensions, as it did on it's one hundred birthday and beyond.
In it's first hundred years as a nation, Canada had grown from four provinces to ten,that spanned the North American continent from The Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans.It had managed to unite itself geographically by rail, and to fill in the empty territory between it's eastern and western most parts with Eastern European immigrants and others, so that it was not absorbed by America.It had fought two world wars, and survived a Great Depression and a dust bowl that threatened to blow it away.It participated in the Korean War,and had become a respected member of the world community.In 1967,Canada was a nation of nearly twenty million people, most of whom lived rather close to the nation immediately to our south.
1967 was a year of great celebration in Canada, as it should have been.It was a year of building and artistic performances.Money was spent on heritage buildings across the country,so as to leave lasting infrastructure. The center piece of the building, the celebration was, of course Expo 67,the World Exposition held in Montreal between April and October.All through that year, it's all anyone seemed to talk about in Moncton."Are you going to Expo?" And many people did. We did not.
Expo was built for the most part on some man made islands, and one existing island in the Saint Lawrence River.It got off to a rather rough start, and it was questionable as to whether it could all be brought about on schedule,but it was.It went on to be a very successful exposition, with about fifty million visitors,or more than twice the population of the country at the time. Some of the structures built for the exposition are still standing, most notably the geodesic dome that housed Man and His World, and a development called Habitat, a housing complex that resembled, more than anything else, a scattering of Lego blocks, stacked one on top of another.My father took an look at Habitat in the newspaper, and pronounced it a monstrosity.
The most noticeable sign of the celebration in Moncton was the Centennial symbol, a maple leaf composed of eleven different colored triangles representing the ten provinces, and the Northwest Territories.All over town people were painting the symbol on houses, and even on buildings.There was one house on Crandall Street that had the symbol painted on a recently paved driveway.The symbol was seen on flags as well.The Park we would to go too, in Moncton's west end was now called Centennial Park. There had always been an old Canadian National Railway steam locomotive displayed at the park entrance.In 1967,it was joined by a silver fighter jet,erected on a big cement pedestal, the later, by a tank. A line of flags was erected as well, one for each of the provinces, a centennial flag,the new Canadian flag, and perhaps even a holdover older style Canadian flag, variously referred to as The Union Jack or the Red Ensign.
The celebration was rather muted at our house.It's not that my parents were not proud Canadians.But celebrating was just not a really big deal.My father still hadn't really gotten used to our new flag, and sometimes called it"Pearson's bastard flag." There was a lot of sentiment among some of our neighbors too,that we should still be flying the old flag, that the new flag was a slight of tradition, that tradition being essentially British. Our driveway was newly paved-sort of- but there was no though of painting the Centennial Symbol, And, as for going to Expo, that was too far away, and to expensive, hard to have small children sit in a car for that length of time just to view something that we were thought to be too young to have any real appreciation of anyhow.My father was more interested in his own building projects anyway, thinking them to be more important in enhancing our lifestyle.The money was better spent at home, so we came to see Expo through the stories and pictures of our neighbors who had gone.
In 1967,not a lot had changed in regards to the historical tensions that defined the part of North America now called Canada. Everyone was proud to be Canadian, but tensions still existed from the past.Certainly in our hometown there were tensions between French and English.And, as much as we'd heard stories about how our country was discovered, and created some of the stories were not being told. We got to hear about the building of the railroad, for instance, but not about the many Chinese who were instrumental in building it.Or we would hear about the settlement of the west, but not about the displacement of native people from their land.We knew about places like Toronto, and Montreal, because they were large, world class cities, and because much of Canada's affairs took place there, while our region had nothing comparable, and people sometimes had to leave to scratch out a living. But our parents were right.At the time, neither my sister or I had much of a concept of, or appreciation for Canadian History.
Canada had it's beginnings as a nation in 1867, and at the time consisted of only four provinces.Our home province of New Brunswick was one of those, along with Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Actually, though, what was to become the one hundred year old nation of Canada in 1967, was the result of the world wide conflicts of two European nations, England and France, as they tried to carve up the "New World " between themselves, forgetting,for the most part that there was a world here long before they stumbled across it. So,the world that was brought together politically in 1867 reflected these tensions, as it did on it's one hundred birthday and beyond.
In it's first hundred years as a nation, Canada had grown from four provinces to ten,that spanned the North American continent from The Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans.It had managed to unite itself geographically by rail, and to fill in the empty territory between it's eastern and western most parts with Eastern European immigrants and others, so that it was not absorbed by America.It had fought two world wars, and survived a Great Depression and a dust bowl that threatened to blow it away.It participated in the Korean War,and had become a respected member of the world community.In 1967,Canada was a nation of nearly twenty million people, most of whom lived rather close to the nation immediately to our south.
1967 was a year of great celebration in Canada, as it should have been.It was a year of building and artistic performances.Money was spent on heritage buildings across the country,so as to leave lasting infrastructure. The center piece of the building, the celebration was, of course Expo 67,the World Exposition held in Montreal between April and October.All through that year, it's all anyone seemed to talk about in Moncton."Are you going to Expo?" And many people did. We did not.
Expo was built for the most part on some man made islands, and one existing island in the Saint Lawrence River.It got off to a rather rough start, and it was questionable as to whether it could all be brought about on schedule,but it was.It went on to be a very successful exposition, with about fifty million visitors,or more than twice the population of the country at the time. Some of the structures built for the exposition are still standing, most notably the geodesic dome that housed Man and His World, and a development called Habitat, a housing complex that resembled, more than anything else, a scattering of Lego blocks, stacked one on top of another.My father took an look at Habitat in the newspaper, and pronounced it a monstrosity.
The most noticeable sign of the celebration in Moncton was the Centennial symbol, a maple leaf composed of eleven different colored triangles representing the ten provinces, and the Northwest Territories.All over town people were painting the symbol on houses, and even on buildings.There was one house on Crandall Street that had the symbol painted on a recently paved driveway.The symbol was seen on flags as well.The Park we would to go too, in Moncton's west end was now called Centennial Park. There had always been an old Canadian National Railway steam locomotive displayed at the park entrance.In 1967,it was joined by a silver fighter jet,erected on a big cement pedestal, the later, by a tank. A line of flags was erected as well, one for each of the provinces, a centennial flag,the new Canadian flag, and perhaps even a holdover older style Canadian flag, variously referred to as The Union Jack or the Red Ensign.
The celebration was rather muted at our house.It's not that my parents were not proud Canadians.But celebrating was just not a really big deal.My father still hadn't really gotten used to our new flag, and sometimes called it"Pearson's bastard flag." There was a lot of sentiment among some of our neighbors too,that we should still be flying the old flag, that the new flag was a slight of tradition, that tradition being essentially British. Our driveway was newly paved-sort of- but there was no though of painting the Centennial Symbol, And, as for going to Expo, that was too far away, and to expensive, hard to have small children sit in a car for that length of time just to view something that we were thought to be too young to have any real appreciation of anyhow.My father was more interested in his own building projects anyway, thinking them to be more important in enhancing our lifestyle.The money was better spent at home, so we came to see Expo through the stories and pictures of our neighbors who had gone.
In 1967,not a lot had changed in regards to the historical tensions that defined the part of North America now called Canada. Everyone was proud to be Canadian, but tensions still existed from the past.Certainly in our hometown there were tensions between French and English.And, as much as we'd heard stories about how our country was discovered, and created some of the stories were not being told. We got to hear about the building of the railroad, for instance, but not about the many Chinese who were instrumental in building it.Or we would hear about the settlement of the west, but not about the displacement of native people from their land.We knew about places like Toronto, and Montreal, because they were large, world class cities, and because much of Canada's affairs took place there, while our region had nothing comparable, and people sometimes had to leave to scratch out a living. But our parents were right.At the time, neither my sister or I had much of a concept of, or appreciation for Canadian History.
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