Sir Martin Frobisher’s Thanksgiving
The first Thanksgiving ever celebrated in Canada is believed to be the one held by Sir Martin Frobisher in 1578 in was is now the Canadian Territory of Nunavut. Frobisher had set out on his third voyage to the Canadian arctic hoping to find the Northwest Passage and gold. His fleet of 15 ships had been blown off course up the Hudson Strait between Baffin Island and Northern Quebec. Surrounded by ice and dangerous uncharted waters, many of the ships became separated and some were lost. Frobisher managed to turn his fleet around and they all met in the relative safety of Frobisher Bay. In gratitude for their safe arrival the survivors proclaimed “a general thanksgiving to God,” and the expedition’s Chaplain Robert Wolfall “made unto them a godly sermon, exhorting them especially to be thankefull to God for theyr strange and miraculous deliverance in those so dangerous places.” The meal most likely consisted of salted beef, crackers and mushy peas.