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Robin Williams said that Canada is a loft apartment over a great party.
That may be true.
We can tend to be a quiet bunch.
Especially compared with our neighbours to the south, who aren’t afraid to belt out loud music punctuated by fireworks to celebrate their history, culture or, really, anything else.
But…
Canadians CAN get rowdy…and party.
And
No, I’m not talking about the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Although that was a good one.
This party took place in 1967 and in the words of author Tom Hawthorn, it was the year Canadians lost their minds and found their country.
I’m Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx and today I am sharing the story behind one of the biggest parties in our history. One that had our downstairs neighbours hitting the broom on the ceiling as we celebrated 100 years… this is, the Canadian Centennial!
Dec. 31, 1966.
11:59 p.m.
Bowsman, Manitoba.
Reverend Jim Liles pulled out a piece of paper and read a poem of his own creation.
“The time has come to destroy friends,
Who have held up their ends,
Through the years.”
Then, with the flick of a match, 33 outhouses went up in flames.
The village, located 500 kilometres north of Winnipeg, had just opened its new sewage treatment plant and hooked up every home to it.
The days of the outhouse had come to an end.
To thank them for their years of service, the community gave their biffies a parade before torching them.
It was the Bonfire of the Lavatories, or the Biffy Burn, but it was not the only lighting that took place in Canada.
While Bowsman watched their outhouses burn, about 2,000 kilometres southeast, a man in a top hat held a torch and put it to venting gas.
In a flash, a flame erupted, and the gathered crowd cheered.
That man was Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, and he had just kicked off the Centennial Celebrations of Canada.
But…
Before we celebrate Canada’s Centennial Year, let’s go back a few years to when it was just a twinkle in the eye of the man, they called Dief the Chief.
In 1963, John Diefenbaker was six years into being Prime Minister.
In that time, he had completely altered Canada. He appointed the first female federal cabinet minister, Ellen Fairclough, gave the vote to the Indigenous Peoples and created the Bill of Rights.
All in all, not a bad bit of success for a prime minister.
There was one more thing he wanted to do though.
He wanted to give Canada one heck of a birthday party and the date was quickly approaching.
At the time, work had already begun on Montreal’s Expo 67 which was to be the biggest celebration of the Centennial Year, and I recommend listening to my 2023 episode about it because I will only be glossing over it in this episode.
To begin work on his plan, Diefenbaker formed the Centennial Commission and appointed John Fisher as the commissioner.
Fisher was known as Mr. Canada because of his CBC program. From 1943 to 1955, John Fisher Reports was a 15-minute program which aired three times a week and it took him on the road as he endeavored to build national pride by reporting on the people and places of Canada.
He later became the executive director of the Canadian Tourist Association.
He was also close friends with Diefenbaker and served as his special assistant.
With the commission formed, work could begin.
Diefenbaker just had one more thing to do.
Win the 1963 federal election.
When John Diefenbaker won a minority government in 1957, he ended 22 straight years of Liberal rule. One year later, Canadians went back to the polls and handed Diefenbaker 208 seats in the largest landslide victory in history.
Diefenbaker was on top of the world, but over the next four years his popularity slowly eroded.
His decision to cancel the Avro Arrow program decimated the Canadian aerospace industry and put nearly 30,000 people out of work.
It seriously hurt him in the polls and even today anytime I post something about Diefenbaker on social media, someone will comment “Dief killed the Arrow”.
When the 1962 election arrived, Diefenbaker won but with a minority government of only 116 seats, a drop of almost 100 seats from the previous election. A minority government meant it wouldn’t be long before Canadians once again marched to the polls.
Diefenbaker believed he would win the 1963 election, and hopefully hold onto power for the rest of the 1960s.
But that was not to happen.
Lester B. Pearson and the Liberals won 128 seats to capture a minority government.
Diefenbaker was out.
Would the Centennial Commission die with him?
Thankfully…no.
Lester B. Pearson saw the benefit of the Centennial, and he was not about to cancel it. He also kept John Fisher on as commissioner rather than replace him with a Liberal supporter.
Pearson decided to take a hands-off approach beyond having Liberal MP Judy LaMarsh, Secretary of State of Canada, serve as the government representative.
He had more important things to do before 1967 like bring us universal health care, a new flag, the Canada Pension Plan and Canada Student Loans.
The plate of the man I consider our greatest prime minister was quite full.
Pearson gave the commission only one stipulation… He wanted a yearlong event that would involve all Canadians.
The commission was provided with $25 million, and the federal government pledged to match, dollar-for-dollar, any centennial event, or project a community was involved in.
With the commission formed, and money secured, now the Centennial just needed a logo.
In 1964, the Centennial Commission turned to Canadians to create a logo just like the federal government did in its efforts to design a Canadian flag.
They offered a prize of $2,500 for the winning design and over the course of a few months there were 496 entries. Of those, 307 had the maple leaf.
The commission chose three winning designs, but none could be used.
The first design featured concentric Cs, which was too similar to the logo of a Canadian canning company.
The second design featured two doves of peace and looked too much like the logo of a paper company.
The third design had a C embracing ten stars representing the provinces. That one was very close to the logo of a meat packing firm.
All three entrants received cash prizes, even though their designs were not chosen.
Still in need of a logo the commission turned to the professionals as 1965 was on the horizon and with time running out.
Stuart Ash was working as an up-and-coming graphic designer for the Toronto firm Cooper and Beatty Limited, when the firm received the Centennial logo commission.
Ash was told by his bosses to create something, and he could not have been more surprised.
He had just recently graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1964 and this was a major career opportunity for a young graphic designer.
Wanting something simple that evoked Canada, its culture and history, Ash played around with various concepts before he settled on the perfect logo.
His design featured a Maple Leaf made up of eleven equilateral triangles representing the provinces and territories.
The design was simple enough for anyone to draw and for children to colour.
It was also easily recognizable as Canadian.
The design was unveiled by Commission Chairman John Fisher in January 1965.
Soon, Canadians saw it everywhere.
Over the next two years the commission produced 225,000 table flags, 1,400 giant banners, 30,000 posters, 96,000 stick on emblems, 4.5 million lapel pins, 700,000 small flags and 85,000 full-sized flags featuring the Centennial symbol designed by Ash.
In 2021, I walked into an antique shop in Edmonton and happened to see one of those full-sized Centennial flags for sale. I bought it immediately and it hangs in front of my desk as I write this episode.
Now that the Commission had its logo, it could focus on bringing the party to everyone in the country.
And it all began with a train…
Back in 1961, when John Diefenbaker was just starting to think about the Centennial, he hit upon an idea of a traveling history exhibit but nothing much happened until around 1965 when the Commission put into motion the creation of the Confederation Train.
The train was made up of six cars, each specializing in a period of Canadian history. As a person entered the first car, they would progress through history.
The first car depicted the pre-colonial era from the ice age to the arrival of the First Nations. Small Indigenous villages were constructed to give people a look at how the First Nations lived centuries ago.
The second car highlighted the arrival of Europeans from the Vikings to the French and English. An electronic map traced the routes of John Cabot, Jacques Cartier and Henry Hudson. Samuel de Champlain had a life-sized statue, and his 1632 map was on display next to him.
The third car focused on the era of settlement. A drawing room window allowed visitors to see what 19th century French Canada looked like. There were also exhibits that gave viewers an idea of the isolation communities felt, and the move towards Confederation.
The fourth car covered the Confederation era of 1867 to 1876. An old printing shop was on display as was Sitting Bull’s rifle. Statues of Prime Ministers Sir John A. Macdonald and Alexander Mackenzie greeted visitors, followed by displays of the Riel Resistance and the North West Mounted Police. The back of the car focused on the Numbered Treaties, the CPR and the Klondike Gold Rush.
The fifth car explored the first decades of the 20th Century, from the Boer War to the First World War. Visitors could go into a dug-out roofed by corrugated iron and sandbags to see how First World War soldiers lived. Exhibits on The Great Depression were at the back of the car.
In the last car, the Second World War was the focus, followed by displays detailing the careers of Prime Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie, Louis St. Laurent, John Diefenbaker, and Lester B. Pearson.
To pull all those cars, two locomotives were provided by Canadian National Railways and Canadian Pacific Railway.
And on top of those locomotives was a horn that played the opening notes of O Canada.
But what about someone who didn’t live along the main line of the railroad?
The Centennial Commission had you covered with the Centennial Caravan, which consisted of tractor trailers that had smaller exhibits of Canada’s history.
The caravan travelled to 655 smaller communities in the country.
The commission also set up the Confederation Barge, which went up and down the Mackenzie River in the Arctic to reach remote communities.
When Canadians decide to celebrate, we go all in and after years of planning, Canada was ready to party as the clock struck midnight on1967.
If you are hungry, go grab a snack because Canada’s Centennial party catered to our stomachs and the following details might make tummies grumble.
To kick off 1967, the Centennial Commission released the Centennial Menu featuring a collection of dishes from across the country to be made at events throughout the year.
Appetizers featured pea soup from Quebec, hot apple cider flavoured with cloves and cinnamon sticks from Nova Scotia, and sour-cream maple syrup salad dressing from Ontario.
Moving onto the main course, we have smoked and garnished Atlantic salmon from Newfoundland and scalloped potatoes from Prince Edward Island. And we aren’t done yet!
There was green beans and tossed pearl onions with pimentos from New Brunswick, roast beef from Alberta, along with pickled red cabbage and spiced apple rings from British Columbia.
I hope you have room after that smorgasbord for dessert.
Because there were buttermilk tea biscuits from Saskatchewan, blueberry torte with chocolate sauce from Manitoba and cheddar cheese from Ontario.
All in all, it was a delectable menu of Great White North culinary delights.
But not everyone was a fan.
One food critic stated,
“It reads a bit as if it all boils down to plain old roast beef and blueberry pie, but then, the chefs have fancied it up a bit.”
That critic may have just described fine dining while passing it off as a criticism…either way Canada was ready to party and who doesn’t get a little frilly before a big event?
Once the menu was set, we needed to print it and for that the Centennial Commission created a new font.
The Cartier Font was designed by Car Dair, who spent a decade creating Canada’s first typeface for Roman letters. Named for explorer Jacques Cartier, many official documents throughout 1967were written in this font.
Know something else written in Cartier?
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms but that wouldn’t happen until 1982.
No party is just menus and fonts.
Once those are locked you need music!
For that the Centennial Commission turned to one of Canada’s greatest musicians, Gordon Lightfoot.
In 1966, they asked Lightfoot to write a song to celebrate the Centennial.
It took Lightfoot three days to write the six-minute song describing how the l Canadian Pacific Railway was built.
The song aired in a special broadcast on CBC on Jan. 1, 1967 and later appeared on Lightfoot’s album The Way I Feel.
Years later, Pierre Berton, who wrote The Last Spike told Lightfoot,
“You did more good with your damn song than I did with my entire book on the same subject.”
When Lightfoot met Queen Elizabeth II in the 70s, she told him it was one of her favourite songs.
Was it the best-selling song in Canada that year?
Nope!
That belonged to another song made for the Centennial written by a man who played the trumpet.
Bobby Gimby was known as the Pied Piper of Canada, a role he leaned into by wearing a Pied Piper costume and leading children in parades.
He composed CA-NA-DA.
The song commemorated the Centennial and used children’s voices for the chorus. Throughout the year, Gimby made over 50 recordings at various places in Canada, along with another 250 recordings made by school choirs and bands.
Teachers loved the patriotic message of the song, and they demanded it be released as a single. It quickly was made into both French and English.
Within the first week of its release, it sold 25,000 copies. By the end of the year, 270,000 copies had flown off the shelves.
Judy LaMarsh, Secretary of State for Canada, presented Gimby with a gold record for this accomplishment.
Gimby also made the most of his new fame by leading countless parades through the country in 1967. By the end of the year, he had worn out four pairs of shoes and travelled coast-to-coast four times.
The Victoria Times Colonist wrote,
“In a country where nationalism was always regarded as a foreign disorder, a song called Ca-na-da, is suddenly the all-time best seller.”
Nine days into the Centennial party the aforementioned Confederation Train blew its whistle for the first time in Victoria on Jan. 9, 1967 as it left the station.
Blytha Pearkes, the wife of Lt. Governor of British Columbia George Pearkes pulled the lever and also on hand was Secretary of State Judy LaMarsh, and May Bennett, wife of B.C. Premier W.A.C. Bennett.
A crowd of 1,500 people were present as the train began its journey as three RCAF jets roared across the sky, 1,000 balloons were let loose.
During its first week in Victoria, 40,000 people toured the train.
A week later, the train began its journey across Canada, reaching the Maritimes at the end of October.
By the time it finished its journey in Montreal on Dec. 5, it had visited 87 communities and been boarded by hundreds of thousands of Canadians.
So far, I have talked about big events, big names, and big trains but you might be wondering about regular Canadians? What were they doing to celebrate the Centennial?
As it turned out, everything you can think of.
Hank Gallant, a 24-year-old man living in British Columbia had spent the previous few years working in mines, learning to weld and operate heavy equipment. As the Centennial Year began, he decided he wanted to do something to celebrate it.
He chose a relatively easy task.
He was going to walk across Canada.
He told his friends about his plan, and they told him he wouldn’t finish it. When he asked local businesses for support, they didn’t take him seriously.
Eventually, Gallant stopped telling anyone about his plan.
On Feb. 6, 1967, Gallant dipped his toe in the Pacific Ocean, turned east and put one foot in front of the other chasing sunrises day after day.
In a backpack he had some food, supplies and clothes, he strapped a Gibson guitar to his back and covered it with a flap of canvas where he wrote a sign that stated,
“Victoria to Bonavista, Centennial 67 Walker. No Rides Please.”
Throughout B.C., he found the kindness of strangers was front and centre.
When he pulled a ligament in his leg, a rancher treated it. In the Kootenay region, near Creston, a couple gave him a home cooked spaghetti dinner.
When he reached the outskirts of Cranbrook, 40 people welcomed him.
On March 9, he crossed into Alberta, having endured constant snow since Cranbrook.
It was far from an easy walk, but Gallant refused to give up.
He swore he would complete the journey or die trying. To keep his mind occupied, he wrote songs in his head as he walked.
By early April, he reached Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and newspapers were starting to take notice of his journey.
In Oak Lake, Manitoba, the principal of the local school cancelled all classes so students could greet him as he walked.
On May 1, Gallant arrived in Winnipeg and endured his ninth blizzard since leaving Vancouver. He said to the Winnipeg Free Press,
“I can’t offer any Centennial project a thousand bucks. This is what I have to offer as an individual Centennial project. It proves to the outside world that Canadians themselves are doing something about Centennial, not only governments, with their libraries and statues.”
After a few days working at a meat packing plant in Winnipeg to put some cash in his wallet, he set back out towards the east coast.
As he made his way through Northern Ontario along Lake Superior, drivers would go to the next town and buy him a meal at a restaurant to enjoy upon his arrival.
When he stepped foot in Montreal, he was given a special tour of the Expo 67 grounds.
In late-September, he reached New Brunswick, took a ferry to Prince Edward Island, then back to Nova Scotia.
On Nov. 13, his 25th birthday, he walked into St. John’s, Newfoundland and finished his journey after 280 days of walking.
He said,
“I went to the harbour. I took off my boots and my socks and did what I had done on the Pacific Coast at Beacon Hill Park. I dipped my toe in the Atlantic.”
Gallant wasn’t the only person inspired to take a journey across the country.
Filip Moen walked from Halifax to Vancouver with his German Shepard Bruno. That journey took only 131 days.
Stan Guignard took his family in a 1915 Model T from North Bay, Ontario to Montreal, a distance of 550 kilometres.
Kurt Johnson, a 24-year-old gold mine surveyor from Timmins decided 1967 was the best year to see the country.
On June 20 in Vancouver, with a scroll that brought greetings from Timmins’ City Council & 1,000 business cards to thank drivers for rides, he stuck out his thumb and got ready to hitchhike across the country.
Did I mention he wore a top hat, claw-hammer jacket with twin tails, bow tie and boot spats?
The first person to pick him up, a truck driver, told him to lose the circus costume and dress like a normal person.
After that, he put his 1867-accurate clothes into an army bag and changed into modern clothes,
His costume may have been a bust, but his hitchhiking journey was a success.
He got his scroll signed by the mayors of all the major cities from Vancouver to St. John’s, as well as Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson and Newfoundland Premier Joey Smallwood.
After 7,281 kilometres of hitchhiking, he turned his scroll over to the mayor of Timmins, Ontario.
Mission accomplished.
Other unique Centennial activities included one individual flying to the North Pole to plant a Centennial Flag there, a barge on the Mackenzie River bringing a Ferris wheel to the Northwest Territories for the first time, and the community of Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan conducting a 200-kilometre centennial wagon train journey along the Old Mountain Trail.
On the newly named Centennial Range, which separates Alaska from the Yukon, 255 members of the Alpine Club of Canada spent their summer climbing all 13 peaks.
Various companies in Canada attempted to jump on the Centennial band wagon in the hopes of securing some business.
Peterborough Guns Limited sold the Canadian Centennial Gun, while the John Inglis Company marketed special edition Centenary washers, dryers, and dishwashers.
The Hope Furniture Company out of Vancouver thought far ahead and registered a copyright in 1958 for the use of the word centennial in advertising for household furniture and furnishings.
Some companies weren’t on board.
The Brunswick of Canada Limited had been using the word Centennial since 1943 when the company celebrated 100 years of business. The company chose not to copyright the use of Centennial, stating it was not in the spirit of Canada. S.J. Merson, the general sales manager, said.
“We think it would be dirty pool to do that this year.”
While companies were trying to make a buck, and people were taking epic journeys, a group of canoers began the greatest race in history.
On May 24, 1967, ten teams of canoers, representing eight provinces and two territories, set off on the North Saskatchewan River from Rocky Mountain House, Alberta in the foothills of the Rockies.
It was an epic race, retracing the steps of the voyageur fur traders from two centuries earlier.
The Centennial Voyageur Canoe Pageant was a test of endurance across 5,283 kilometres of Canada. Paddlers not only had to navigate Canada’s rivers from Alberta to Quebec, but they dealt with heat, storms, mosquitoes, and grueling portages.
On Aug. 29, they arrived in Ottawa and were greeted by the federal agriculture minister Joe Green, who said,
“After seeing so many of these flabby fellows around Parliament Hill, it is good to see there are still some rugged Canadians around.”
On Sept. 4, the canoers reached Montreal where Manitoba finished first with a recorded time of 507 hours, 21 minutes and 21 seconds. They were awarded $1,500 each. British Columbia’s team took second in the race, and each paddler took home $500.
In 2010, the Manitoba crew, most of whom were from the tiny northern community of Flin Flon, were inducted into Manitoba’s Sports Hall of Fame.
If you want to learn more about this epic race, I encourage you to listen to my episode from 2023.
During the Centennial year, you didn’t need to paddle in a grueling race to win an award. The government was giving them out left and right.
There were two main awards issued during 1967.
The first was the Centennial Medal– given to those who had made a contribution to Canada during their lives.
Graphic designer Bruce Beatty was responsible for the design of the circular silver medal on a white and red ribbon.
A total of 29,500 medals were issued with 30 per cent going to members of Canada’s Armed Forces.
But there was another medal, also designed by Beatty, that has become much more famous.
For decades, the highest honour for a Canadian was a knighthood.
That stopped during the First World War, before it was briefly revived in the early-1930s.
With the Centennial approaching, Lester B. Pearson wanted to create an award that celebrated the accomplishments of Canadians.
Thus, the Order of Canada was born.
The snowflake pattern of the medal was suggested by diplomat John G.H. Halstead. The medal also features the Latin motto desiderantes meliorem patriam, meaning “they desire a better country”.
The first Order of Canada was awarded to Governor General Roland Michener on July 1, 1967. Six days later, another group of Canadians received the honour including former prime minister Louis St. Laurent, novelist Gabrielle Roy, painter Alex Colville and hockey icon Maurice Richard.
The Order of Canada still exists, and features three levels of awards, Companion, Officer and Member. The Order ranks third in civilian honours in Canada after the Cross of Valour and the Order of Merit.
To date, 8,375 people have been inducted to the Order of Canada, including the man who designed it, Bruce Beatty.
There were many celebrations and events around Canada in 1967 but nothing compared to the big event in Ottawa on July 1 when Canada officially turned 100 and the country pulled out all the stops to make it memorable.
In the capital, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip were the guests of honour, joined by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, Canadian dignitaries and 50,000 Canadians on Parliament Hill.
The centerpiece was a birthday cake that was six metres high and decorated with the national coat of arms and provincial crests.
To cut the cake, Queen Elizabeth II used the same knife her father, King George VI, used for an event in Ottawa during his Royal Tour in 1939.
The huge cake may have looked tasty, but in truth it was a lie!
Only the part that the Queen cut into was a real cake.
The rest was made of plywood and Styrofoam, covered with 320 kilograms of icing sugar but guests didn’t go home empty handed.
They were all served cupcakes.
Following the cake cutting, the Queen was given a coin by Pearson, which she tossed into the fountain at the Centennial flame.
The Queen and Prince then greeted the crowd.
Upon seeing one young man with long hair, Prince Philip asked him what kind of fertilizer he used for it.
450km away, in Toronto, the city had a huge celebration.
Over 50,000 people lined the downtown streets for a parade, which was followed by a party in Nathan Phillips Square.
Across the country in Vancouver’s Empire Stadium, 32,000 came out to watch poet and actor Chief Dan George give his soliloquy, Lament for Confederation.
The piece was an indictment of Europeans for taking Indigenous land.
Lament for Confederation dropped like a bomb for many and helped inspire an increase in Indigenous activism and pro-Indigenous Peoples sentiment among non-Indigenous Canadians.
Following the performance by Chief Dan George, the Vancouver Sun wrote,
“The man who took the boldest look into Canada’s future at her Empire Stadium birthday party Saturday was probably the person most tempted to look into the past.”
Three years later, Chief Dan George became the first Indigenous actor to receive an Oscar nomination.
He was nominated for his role as Old Lodge Skins in Little Big Man. Despite his stellar acting career, many felt his greatest performance came on that night in 1967.
Denny Boyd said in 1981 upon the death of Chief Dan George,
“I believe his greatest performance was played in Vancouver, speaking outdoors in a voice that rose and fell in vivid cadences of anger and sadness. It was the day they invited him to a party, and he sat on the birthday cake. Chief Dan George stoned that crowd of 32,000. He stopped them cold and nailed them to their seats. Even the smallest children, who could not possibly understand his words, were hushed by the sibilant melancholy in that voice.”
On the day Chief Dan George took Canada to task for its history, a baby was born 50 kilometres west across the Georgia Strait.
She was born at 4:08 a.m. local time and was one of the first centennial babies. You may have heard of her.
She grew up to become actress and animal rights activist Pamela Anderson.
While Pamela Anderson was entering the world, 110 kilometres to the east in Abbotsford, B.C., William Hardman jumped out of an airplane.
Don’t worry, he had a parachute.
Three hours after that first jump, he jumped again.
Every eight minutes, he was back in the air and jumping out down to the Earth once more.
Over the course of 17 hours, from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m., he made 100 parachute jumps.
He took only two 15-minute breaks, once after the 50th jump and once after the 81st jump.
His 100 jumps broke the record set by two Americans for most sky dives in one day.
As he landed on his final jump of the day, a crowd of 10,000 people applauded him.
After July 1, things began to quiet down.
There were still people walking coast-to-coast, and families driving to visit Expo 67 but in truth Canada Day was the climax of the yearlong party.
That isn’t to say there still weren’t fun things happening.
One of the most famous events happened on July 30, 1967.
The Nanaimo Bathtub Race!
Frank Ney had the idea and began planning it for months.
During the annual Polar Bear Swim on Jan. 1, 1967, he put a bathtub with a boat motor attached into the water to make sure it would float.
It did, and Ney was ready to take his idea of a grand race across the Georgia Strait using nothing but bathtubs to the public.
Through the spring, Ney pitched his idea and started organizing the event. Anyone could take part, but there were four rules.
- The tub should be a tub.
- No outboard motors that had more than six horsepower.
- Each tub had to be accompanied by an escort.
- Each pilot had to have a life jacket on and be able to swim 200 metres.
The event took off and a week before the race, there were 130 entries.
Ney said on July 29, the day before the big race,
“We have bathtub enthusiasts from all over Canada entered and the tubs are still rolling into town. There were bathtubs all over the harbour the other night, practicing.”
On July 30, over 200 racers came out in tubs of all shapes and sizes.
There were classic heavy claw-footed bathtubs, to lightweight tubs made of fiberglass.
Some tubs were powered by sails, others by oars but the majority had a small motor to make the 50-kilometer journey across the Georgia Strait from Nanaimo to Fisherman’s Cove.
Just before the start of the race, Ney told the crowd that they were going to show the world that Canada was a leader in bathtub technology.
Along with the hundreds of escort crafts and bathtubs, there were two Coast Guard cutters and the RCMP boat Sydney.
Ney then set off a flare and the race was on.
Thirty seconds in, the tub helmed by George Dorman capsized. For being the first out of the race, he earned the Silver Order of the Toilet Plunger.
By the time the bathtubs were out of the harbour, 80 had floundered and leaving just over 100 tubs to finish the race.
Bob Robinson led the race for most of the time until his bathtub’s engine stalled one kilometer from the finish line.
He jumped overboard and towed his tub himself into Fisherman’s Cove.
By that point he was overtaken by several other bathtub captains.
The winner of the race was Rusty Harrison of Richmond, B.C., who finished the journey in three hours and 16 minutes. He earned $100 and the Centennial Order of the Bath.
Of the 208 bathtubs that started the race, 46 made it to Fisherman’s Cove.
And the 46th tub to pass the finish line? Well, that was quite the story.
With a crew of ten who alternated helming while the others sat on the escort boat the tub ran into constant problems.
One of the crew fell overboard and had to be rescued, while another had to go underwater to untangle a line from the propellor.
Throughout their journey, they were hit by rain and gale-force winds but the soldiered on.
The team arrived at the finish line 30 hours after they set out.
As for that Bathtub Race, it was such a huge success that it is now held each year in Nanaimo and is put on by the Loyal Nanaimo Bathtub Society.
Across Canada, various other events took place that have continued to exist to this day.
Toronto hosted its first Caribana Festival in 1967. Now known as the Toronto Caribbean Festival, it celebrates Caribbean culture and traditions. This multi-week event is the largest festival in North America, bringing in 1.3 million tourists to the city and having an overall attendance of 2.3 million people. The Grand Parade is the centerpiece of the celebration.
To start that first festival, Toronto’s West Indian community put up their own money. Dr. J.A. Liverpool, the head of the board of directors that first year, said,
“The Centennial gave us an opportunity to give back something to this country. No other cause could have united West Indians so completely. Politicians have failed in the past, but Canada has brought us all together.”
Out west in Alberta, Edmonton used federal funds to build the Provincial Museum and Archives of Canada, while the Edmonton Flying Club built the Aviation Hall of Fame.
The Alberta Native Centennial Festival was also organized, featuring dancers, performances, and a celebration of Indigenous history.
Not to be outdone by its northern neighbour, the Calgary Stampede expanded to nine days and called itself the greatest birthday party in Canada.
An hour and a half to the southeast of Calgary, Lethbridge opened its Nikka Yuko Centennial Garden, which is the largest authentic Japanese Garden outside of Japan.
For Canadians who wanted to create a lasting impact, the federal government gave out tens of thousands of crabapple tree saplings that were planted in honour of the Centennial and, it is quite likely, many of those trees are still alive today.
But…as with all great parties, this one had to eventually come to an end.
Once winter set in, and Expo 67 ended in October, the country settled down.
The plan was to extinguish the Centennial Flame at the end of the year, but Canadians requested it be kept alight.
And it is still burning to this day to mark the emergence of Canada as a mature and self-confident nation in 1967.
When the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, 1968, Canadians went back to their regular lives and the country closed the door on its centennial and a year that Pierre Berton called, the last good year.
Centennial Commissioner, John Fisher, said,
“I think Canadians suddenly realized the land they live in is something to brag about. I even think that eternal search for the Canadian identity is over. I don’t know what it is yet, but I think we found it this year.”
But before I leave you, there is one more interesting story to tell.
Remember at the beginning of the episode when I mentioned that the federal government matched dollar-for-dollar any community centennial project?
Across Canada, 860 communities took the government up on its offer and used funds to improve something or build a structure for residents.
In my hometown of Stony Plain, Alberta for example, a hockey arena was built.
$90 million was spent on Centennial projects from coast-to-coast.
But there was one that was truly…out of this world.
In St. Paul, Alberta, about an hour and a half northeast of Edmonton, the town created a project that would welcome visitors from across Canada, the world, and even outer space.
St. Paul built a UFO Landing Pad.
At a cost of $14,000, the structure was built by Alex Mair, an engineer from Edmonton. Wolly Polinsky, one of the men behind the idea, said,
“Everybody was getting in on the Centennial act, so we decided we had to do something too. Maybe we had too many beers. I never thought this would happen.”
The landing pad was completed on May 15, 1967 at the urging of John Lagasse, a member of the town’s Centennial committee.
He knew that on July 30, 1967, Mars would be at its closest point to Earth and said,
“We have the Northern Alberta Radio Association helping us out. Every night they beam signals into space telling the people out there that we are building this pad and will welcome them.”
That UFO Landing Pad still there, and while no extraterrestrials have stood on the landing pad… that we know…. millions of humans have, including myself.
Information comes from The Year Canadians Lost Their Minds and Found Their Country, Canadian Encyclopedia, Indigenous Corporate Training, Wikipedia, City of Edmonton, Canada’s History, Macleans, Ottawa Citizen, National Post, the Windsor Star,
