What IS Dominion Day, anyway?

Here on this very hot Western Canadian afternoon, I'm thinking about a few Dominion Day memories (for those much younger, Dominion Day was the original name for the holiday we now know as Canada Day!).   For those who want more information on that name-change, here's an article about it.

 Just to keep this stitching-related first,  here's a photo of the piece of needlework I've hung in every place we've lived - the Provincial Flowers of Canada: 

Provincial Flowers of Canada

This was my first larger stitching project, ordered  from Chatelaine Magazine where it was offered as a kit in 1967 in honour of Canada's Centennial of Confederation.  Although it was just a stamped embroidery design, it was printed on a good-quality linen, and there were lots of different stitches, including stem, satin, buttonhole, straight, lazy daisy, chain, amongst others - oh, and of course, dozens of French knots!    I cringe now at how I executed some of them, but I did finish it in a reasonable time and my mother had it framed for me.   I've visited most of the Canadian provinces, with the exception of Newfoundland/Labrador and Yukon and points north and have seen most of these flowers growing in the wild. 

We've celebrated July 1 over the years with the usual picnics and BBQs at home and with friends,  but also in a hospital clinic in Manitoba during a cross-country trip, waiting for a doctor to check out a toddler with a fierce ear-ache; watching fireworks at Henderson Lake in Lethbridge and at Waterton Lakes National Park; cooking and serving burgers at a Stampede booth in a northern Saskatchewan town, with chuckwagons thundering past on the other side of the booth's back wall; canoeing on a quiet river in the Saskatchewan wilderness; riding back to a friend's ranch house in the southern Alberta foothills after a visit to a century-old homestead hidden back in the shadow of the Rockies; being the dinner for swarms of blackflies and mosquitoes while we were out on the lake fishing for pike, pickerel and trout  -  and so  many more memories than I can write just now.

Happy Canada Day, Dominion Day, Memorial Day, etc.  to my fellow Canadians, and wishes for a good summer to others  - O Canada, eh?