WHERE WERE YOU WHEN WE TURNED 100?
Bruce Deachman asks people to share stories of the epic 1967 celebrations as Canada marks its 150th.
SYLVIA SCHATZ
In 1967, I had completed my first year of a German language course at U of O and was enrolled in a working holiday program sponsored by the German Embassy. I was hired as a chambermaid in a hotel in Steinhuder Meer, Germany. I never worked so hard in my life, up at 5:30 a.m., scrubbing floors and toilets for two hours till breakfast alongside Turkish and Spanish guest workers. I was also so lonely.
Early in the morning of July 1, the head of our cleaning crew rushed up to me and in a breathless voice urged me to come with her: “schnell.” I raced behind her to the hotel’s bar area which still reeked of beer and sweat, followed by half my workmates who knew something out of the ordinary was happening. And it was extraordinary: a transatlantic phone call from my mother and father back in Canada. With trembling hands I held the phone and my father’s voice came over the miles: ‘Happy Canada Day, sweetheart.’ My father had come home from shift work at midnight, woke up my mother and together they figured out how to make their first transatlantic call. This was no mean feat in 1967 as it involved several transatlantic operators and overland cable connections to reach a small hotel in a small village in Germany. The conversation was short and halting due to the delay in voice transmission back then, and also expensive as I well knew. A few minutes later I returned to cleaning toilets, but with great pride for my country and love for my parents who gave me this special gift on Canada’s 100th birthday.
JENNIE ALIMAN
In 1967, I was 16 years old and living in Toronto. I went with my parents and boyfriend to Fort York, where there was a re-enactment with soldiers and cannons.
Later, we went to visit an old friend of my mother’s who lived alone in a tiny house. She had baked a cake for Canada’s 100th birthday, complete with 100 candles! We sang O Canada and watched the glow of those candles until they burned down.
MARION KING
In 1967, I arrived in Canada as a young and naive immigrant from England. I had planned to stay for only one year, and so I knew very little about Canada except that English was spoken, and I had an aunt here somewhere, and therefore my mother deemed it safe for her daughter to visit.
When I first arrived, all I heard was “Canada’s 100th birthday,” to the point where I was left with the impression that there was nothing here before 1867 — a sort of Big Bang theory of Canada.
I wanted to go north where I understood there was a shortage of nurses, but the immigration people told me I should become acculturated in the south before I headed north. I found a job in Hamilton but, never having lived in an industrial city in England, hated it. So before long I was on the phone to Moose Factory asking when I could come. They said, “Get on the next train.” So I did, with a brief detour to Montreal to see Expo 67.
I marvelled at the amount of space there was in Canada on my journey between Hamilton and Montreal, so you can imagine that I was totally overwhelmed by even more space on my train journey north. The country seemed to have no end. I think that was the beginning of my education about Canada — lots of space and also lots of time, not just 100 years.
MARGARET HALL
In 1967, I was a young mother recently moved from Ontario to P.E.I. I was asked to direct the first Confederation Choir (originally called the Centennial Choir) which was a great opportunity. We gave a lot of concerts around P.E.I. in the summers of 1966 and 1967. It was a hand-picked choir of about 40 members. We were encouraged to send a tape to the committee that selected choirs to sing at Expo 67. We were chosen so we had the great adventure of taking the train to Montreal and singing four times in open-air venues at Expo. We were housed in a university residence.
We were also invited to sing on Parliament Hill, which was the highlight for me. I will never forget directing the choir as I looked at the Parliament Buildings with the flag flying as the sun set. I am sure that tears were flowing down my face. A very special experience in my life. Happy memories all these years later.
GEORGE CHAPMAN
I was a post-doctoral fellow at the Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford, U.K. during 1966 and ’67. When our Centennial was approaching, Canada House notified Canadians in Oxford that space had been secured for a party on July 1, 1967. Moreover, duty-free Canadian whiskey, beer and wine (such as it was 50 years ago) would be brought over by “diplomatic bag” for the party. Big bag, I thought! All Canadians in town were invited as Pierre Berton called it the last good year: 1967, when Canadians put aside their differences and gathered for a year-long, coast-to-coast-to-coast group hug to celebrate this young nation’s 100th birthday. Schools, arenas, libraries, highways, bridges and community centres were built, among the nearly 3,000 federally funded Centennial projects. The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, better known simply as Expo 67, drew 50 million visitors to Montreal — two-and-a-half times Canada’s population. And for those who couldn’t travel, Canada took the show, or some of it at least, to them, courtesy of the Confederation Train and Caravans — essentially mobile history museums that, over 11 months, stopped in communities across the nation. Almost three million visitors boarded the six-car train, while more than seven million Canadians took in the caravan displays.
Meanwhile, on radios and stereos from Victoria to St. John’s, Bobby Gimby’s jingly-jangly Canada song, a.k.a. The Centennial Song (one little, two little, three Canadians), was on the lips of youngsters and parents everywhere, selling an unprecedented 270,000 copies. Gordon Lightfoot’s Canadian Railroad Trilogy, commissioned by the CBC for its July 1 broadcast, lives on a half-century later as among Canada’s most iconic anthems.
More informally, though, Canadians celebrated like never before. Residents of St. Paul, Alta., chipped in to build a UFO landing pad, still awaiting (I believe) the touchdown of its first extraterrestrial visitor. A Vancouver woman, meanwhile, rode her horse, Cobbler, to Ottawa.
There were bathtub races and Confederation-themed parades. Born of little more than an urge to rejoice, choirs sprang up everywhere. Dry cleaners offered free flag-cleanings, while paddlers, donkey-riders and antique-car enthusiasts traversed the nation. Rummage sales were held, poems were written, trees planted and vows exchanged. We asked Citizen readers to share their stories of what they were doing on July 1, 1967. well as their English guests. Who could refuse such an invitation?
I had made a point of not seeking out other Canadians during my English sojourn because I wanted to fit into the English milieu. As a result, when I arrived with my English girlfriend at the Centennial party, I was astonished at the size of the crowd. There was singing of O Canada, music, dancing, food and a fair amount of alcohol in various forms. It was a fine celebratory occasion.
Ironically, we Canadians were constantly correcting our English guests who consistently called July 1 “Canada Day.” “No,” we kept saying, “it’s not Canada Day, it’s Dominion Day.” Ah, me, how things change when you’re not paying attention.
JEANNE INCH
In 1967, I was a Grade 12 student at Sackville High School in Sackville, N.B. The Rotary Club at that time organized a week-long citizenship “camp” every year, and one applied by writing an essay about Canada. I applied, but the girl with the highest grades did too, so I was sure I would not be selected. I was, and came to Ottawa for a week, along with young people from across Canada, to visit the Parliament Buildings and other sites and to learn about Canada. We also went to Expo for two days. That summer I moved with my family to Brandon, Man.
It was about that time that I decided I would not travel to Europe until I had been to all 10 provinces. I made it out west to the Prairie provinces and B.C. one summer in university, and to Newfoundland as part of the Mount Allison University synchronized swimming team. I spent a year in Europe upon graduation from university. Since then, I have been to the Yukon for pleasure and the Northwest Territories (Yellowknife) on business, flying back via Iqaluit (it was the dead of winter so not much to see).
This summer, to mark Canada’s 150th birthday, I am taking an explorer ship through the Eastern Arctic.
On my list of places still to visit in Canada: Gros Morne, Haida Gwaii, the Gaspé. And maybe one day through the Northwest Passage.
CHARLES TURNER
In the late hours on the last day of June 1967, I was sitting in the Brockville hospital waiting for my second child to be born. As the time went into the first of July, our doctor approached me and said that I might as well go home as the baby was stubborn and not ready to be born. I went in and kissed my wife goodbye and wished her good luck and went home to bed as I was supposed to work that day at 7 a.m. We lived 20 miles away in a town called Cardinal. Some time in the early hours of the morning, the wife called me and said we were the proud parents of a baby girl, Paula Elizabeth Turner. She said she was not the first baby born in Canada on July 1, but she was the first to be born in Brockville and area. That is how I spent July 1, 1967, celebrating a new baby girl, a sister to another daughter.
ANNE ROUNDING
I turned 10 in the summer of 1967. My parents, sister and I were on Parliament Hill on the afternoon of July 1 and we had a piece of the huge birthday cake. My mother, Gwen Terentiuk, made my sister, Carol, and I dresses that were the fashion in 1867 and we proudly wore those to the birthday party. I also wore a gold locket that has been passed down to the oldest daughter in the family since 1861.
RENEE HOOPER
I remember centennial year, 1967. Dad was guarding the Queen on Parliament Hill. My mum took her two girls down to Parliament Hill by bus. We lived way out in Manordale and the bus ride was so exciting. I remember how hot it was and we were very close to Queen Elizabeth because my father was on guard. Life was so much simpler back then.
My dad looked so handsome in his RCMP uniform. He passed away on Feb. 11 and I had wished he could have lived to see one more Canada Day celebration. It was my hope he could have been on the Hill 50 years later.
SHIRLEY SAINTHILL
It was a sunny and hot day in Pembroke, July 1, 1967, the day of our wedding. All was progressing as planned until Herb’s best man discovered that he had forgotten his rental suit in Ottawa. How to solve this problem? Seek out a men’s apparel store in Pembroke and rent another suit. However, since it was July 1, stores in Pembroke were closed for the holiday. Fortunately, a local undertaker came to the rescue and supplied an appropriate suit to match the other suits worn by the wedding party. Problem solved.
And so, 50 years later, we remember this little glitch with smiles as we celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary on Canada’s birthday. bdeachman@postmedia.com