Today is a HOLIDAY but Guess What?

August 1st already meaning only 16 more sleeps until I leave and board that airplane, can you feel my excitement mounting?  
TODAY is a CIVIC HOLIDAY in Ontario, formerly named "Simcoe Day"  after Canada's first Lieutenant Governor Lord John Graves Simcoe, 

or "Emancipation Day"  in the African Canadian community, here is an interesting look back to the African Canadian Culture as interpreted through the SERMONS and NOTES for Black History Sunday - The Rev'd Fr. Theadore Hunt .  This in particular I found most interesting.  Getting back to the present year 2011, many fetes and events are planned all over the province for people to participate and enjoy.   I wonder just how many of us reflect back to that time when people of color were not free, where peoples of other nations were maligned for their backgrounds and ethnicity?   For instance, at the Historic Fort York  site in Toronto, Ontario one can take in how life in the Fort was back in 1793, battles put on by true blue reconstuctionists and wearing authentic uniforms. The visitor to Old Fort York will enjoy life the way it was and marvel at the futuristic skyscrapers surrounding the Fort today, from the outset the scene must be quite the conundrum.  IF your at all interested you will find great images of Fort York here at this site.   What is so interesting is this was the "quilt" era, when people left their homelands to dare fine themselves taking a risk in crossing the wide expansive ocean and through many endured hardships on board a wooden sailing vessel finally landed onto the shores of North America  and began to somehow after all they had endured to set up housekeeping and business' right then and there.  A most interesting blog site is The Proficient Needle you will see some pictures of pioneer quilts from this era during the time when soldiers inhabited Fort York and Pioneer Settlers began inhabiting the area chartering villages and towns not too far from the Fort.
You might also enjoy some of these pictures from Flicker photostream , and a rare book titled Three Hundred Years Of Canads's Quilts 

which is a rare book and if you ever find a copy and don't wish to keep it all for yourself, let me know, I would love it.
It is wonderfully interesting to look back into the root stem of the wonderful world of quilting, that these women who endured unspeakable hardships, left their homelands for a chance at a better life only to face many many more obstacles in their paths of which they never knew existed and through sheer determination having to face them.  Face them they did and from their stark and very humble beginnings the great cities grew up around them, such is the case of Old Fort York in the very heart of downtown Toronto and the pioneer settlement resurrected on land not to far from the fort where people can go and experience the way life was then, of course, even Pioneer Village doesn't make it look as harsh as it was written to have been.  Somehow this very holiday we are celebrating here in Ontario today somehow relates to quilting!  Looking back through our history is the easy part, but if I had had to live it, well, I do not believe I would have had the courage.
I want to thank you for stopping by to read what I have had to say today, sincerely, this is a day for reflection, no it isn't about the giving of gifts or the attendance at church services to give thanks, but reflect upon all of those brave men, women and children who arrived on the shores of North American in the early 1700's and settled the many villages, towns and cities we now inhabit and in most cases we take for granted?