Yum! Try Some of This! by John Caverhill The holiday season is upon us and once again the various social media are engulfing us in a flood of celebrations to try/ buy the countless gifts, decorations, activities, food etc... all contributing to “Make this the best holiday ever”. In keeping with this practice, I too am offering some suggestions to help you prepare for your upcoming holiday festivities. Instead of featuring the latest fads and foods, however, my offerings date back to the 17-1800s. All quotations are taken from a book – Christmas in Canada – a fascinating compilation of stories of Christmas celebrations down through the years, co-authored by Mary Baker and Flora McPherson and published in 1959. My first suggestion comes from a Christmas dinner that took place in a Quebec seignory back in the days of Champlain in the early 17th century: “There was but little silver plate in those days, but squares of birchbark and Indian bowls of polished basswood served the same purpose. Everyone carried his own knife; there were no forks, but bark spoons were provided… There were cakes of corn bread, great kettles of eels, salmon, and beans all boiled together, and served in the bowls. Then the same bowls were filled with a rich meat soup thicken with pounded nuts. Corn, peas and baked squash formed the next course, and then after the appetizers, came the piece de resistance. Great joints of roast venison were carved up and deep squirrel pies were served, and there were baked wild pigeons, partridges, blackbirds, and owls, usually all together. For dessert there were cakes of maple-sugar, and a sweetmeat compounded of nuts and sunflower seeds with a sauce made of dried berries and boiling water.”
Over the years, Christmas and New Years have been celebrated in many different ways at the remote Hudson’s Bay trading posts, as shown in the following accounts. One of these festive occasions was curious in that merrymakers drank the health of a queen nearly five months dead. Michael Grimington, in the journal of Albany Factory, James Bay, wrote on Christmas Day 1714 (though the queen had died on August 1st, and George reigned in her stead): “In 1747, Christmas at Moose Factory could hardly have been described as merry. ‘Spent the day in Religious Exercise’ wrote dour John Potts, ‘and to prevent hard Drinking I did Read over to them one of the Little Books Your Honrs was pleased to send us. Last Year, weh, is a Disswasive from the Sin of Drunkeness. I gave them a Little Liqur. in the Evening and at Eight O’Clock Ordered all hands to bed and the Lights out.’” In 1847, Paul Kane, the artist whose paintings of the Canadian west are still highly prized, spent Christmas Day at Fort Edmonton, the headwaters of the Saskatchewan District. He writes: ‘ On Christmas Day the flag was hoisted and all appeared in their best and gaudiest style to do honour to the holiday… Our party consisted of Mr. Harriet, the chief, and three clerk Mr. Thebo (Thibeault?), the Roman Catholic missionary from Manitou Lake about thirty miles off, Mr. Rundell (Rundle?) the Wesleyan missionary who resided withing the pickets and myself…. The dining hall in which we assembled was the largest room in the fort, probably about fifty by twenty-five feet, well warmed by large fires, which are scarcely ever allowed to go out…
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