Adopted on February 15th, 1965 for national and civil usage, the Maple Leaf flag is a relatively recently adopted symbol of Canada, which became a nation of it's own all the way back in 1867 when four existing colonies at the time (Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Bruswick) formed the Canadian Confederation. Eventually six other provinces and two territories would join bringing Canada to more or less it's present configration today. The red in the flag represents the sacrifice made by the Canadians in the First World War, while white represnts the snowy north of Canada and of course, the maple leaf has been Canada's national emblem
Here's the interesting kicker, kids: they were a country for nearly a century before pressure for a distinctive flag grew in the 1960s- prior to that, they used the British Union Flag and this, the Canadian Red Ensign:
The Union Jack has been retrained to symbolize Canada's link with the Commonwealth while the quarters of the shield represent England, France, Scotland and Ireland- the homelands of many Canadian people. This flag still remains in use! But the best thing that I discovered about the flag of Canada is that there was a GREAT CANADIAN FLAG DEBATE! How cool is that? The debate lasted from June to December of 1964 and bitterly divided people especially given that then Prime Minister Lester Pearson's preferred design looked like this:
(The blue bars represent the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with the cluster of maple leaves in the middle representing Canada.) All told, per Wikipedia (the Font of All Knowledge), there were 3,541 entries. 2,136 contained maple leaves, 408 contained Union Jacks, 389 contained beavers and 359 contained fleur-de-lys.
So there you have it kids- put your hands together and celebrate learning something about our neighbors to the north that we didn't know before. Give it up for Canada!
And remember, until next time, keep your flags flying. FREAK or otherwise!
No comments:
Post a Comment