Canadian Tulip Festival

Canadian Tulip Festival

Tulips from the 2006 Tulip Festival.
Genre Horticultural
Dates 3 weekends in May
Location(s) National Capital Region (Canada)
Years active 1953–present
Website
www.tulipfestival.ca

The Canadian Tulip Festival (French: Festival Canadien des Tulipes; Dutch: Canadese Festival van de Tulp) is a tulip festival, held annually in May in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The festival claims to be the world's largest tulip festival, displaying over one million tulips,[1] with attendance of over 500,000 visitors annually.[2] Large displays of tulips are planted throughout the city, and the largest display of tulips is found in Commissioners Park on the shores of Dow's Lake, and along the Rideau Canal with 300,000 tulips planted there alone.[3] As well as tulip displays, the festival also includes music performances, speakers and exhibits of international cuisine.[4]

History

In 1945, the Dutch royal family sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa in gratitude for Canadians having sheltered Princess Juliana and her daughters for the preceding three years during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, in the Second World War.

The most noteworthy event during their time in Canada was the birth in 1943 of Princess Margriet to Princess Juliana at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. The maternity ward was temporarily declared to be extraterritorial by the Canadian government, thereby allowing Princess Margriet's citizenship to be solely influenced by her mother's Dutch citizenship.[5][6] In 1946, Juliana sent another 20,500 bulbs requesting that a display be created for the hospital, and promised to send 10,000 more bulbs each year.

The festival begins

Princess Margriet returns to Ottawa to attend the Canadian Tulip Festival in May 2002.

In the years following Queen Juliana's original donation, Ottawa became famous for its tulips and in 1953 the Ottawa Board of Trade and photographer Malak Karsh organized the first "Canadian Tulip Festival". Queen Juliana returned to celebrate the festival in 1967, and Princess Margriet returned in 2002 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the festival.

Outdoor music concerts

For many years, the festival featured a series of outdoor music concerts in addition to the tulips. The 1972 festival saw Liberace give an opening concert, and at the 1987 festival, Canadian singer Alanis Morissette made her first appearance at the age of 12.[7] The Trews first became widely known after opening for Big Sugar at the 2003 festival. Montreal's General Rudie also gained valuable exposure early in their career with a performance at the 2000 festival.

After several years of cold and rainy weekends drove the festival to the brink of bankruptcy in 2006, the outdoor music concerts were discontinued. Even though concert admission fees were a source of revenue for the festival, rainy weather contributed to low concert attendance on many occasions, making the concerts a heavy financial risk.

2007: Reorganisation

In 2007, the festival was reorganised under new leadership. The festival was redesigned to focus on promoting international friendship, the original symbolic role of the gift of tulips. Park admission charges were eliminated and a new feature called Celebridée: a Celebration of Ideas was introduced. Another component of the 2007 festival was a fund-raising effort in support of War Child Canada.

Celebridée

Beyond celebrating the tulip as a symbol of beauty and friendship, the Canadian Tulip Festival, through Celebridée, aims to present some of the most brilliant thinkers of our time speaking about ideas that matter.

Celebridée has continued to grow since its inception in 2007. 2008’s speakers included such diverse and thought-provoking individuals as Sir Salman Rushdie, Wired Magazine's Chris Anderson, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond, and world-renowned pianist Angela Hewitt.

Festival sites and themes

Recent Canadian Tulip Festival Themes
1994 A Tribute to the Origin Country of the Tulip - Turkey
1995 The Friendship That Flowered

50th anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands

1996 Floral Tribute to Nice
1997 Floral Artistry of Japan
1998 A Celebration of Canada's Provinces and Territories
1999 Between Friends
2000 Tulips 2000: A Capital Celebration!
2001 Tulips Forever! A Salute to Britain
2002 Tulipmania! 50th Anniversary
2003 G’day Australia – Tulips Down Under
2004 Canada’s Tulip Experience
2005 A Celebration of Peace and Friendship
2006 Tulips 2006 – World Flower Rendezvous!
2007 "CelebrIDÉE A Celebration of Ideas" inaugural year
2008 Where Ideas Bloom
2009 The Tulip Route
2010 "Liberation" - The 65th anniversary of the liberation of Europe.
2011 "Kaleidoscope" - A celebration of Spring awakening through colour, culture and community

Tulip Sites

Attraction Sites

Partner Sites

Trivia

Because of the ongoing Canadian support for the Netherlands during the war, Seymour Cobley of the Royal Horticultural Society actually donated 83,000 tulips to Canada from 1941–1943, several years before the Royal Family followed suit.[8]

Photographer Malak Karsh became widely known for his photographs of the Tulip Festival.

While the Netherlands continues to send 20,000 bulbs to Canada each year (10,000 from the Royal Family and 10,000 from the Dutch Bulb Growers Association), by 1963 the festival featured more than 2 million, and today sees nearly 3 million tulips purchased from Dutch and Canadian distributors.[8]

Attractions

Commissioner's Park

Tulips at Dows Lake in 2014

Commissioner's Park, on the shores of Dow's Lake is a major centre of activity for the Tulip Festival. The largest concentration of tulips in the National Capital Region — some 300,000 — can be found planted along a section of the lake shore. Commissioners Park also features buskers and musicians, and artists demonstrating their skills.

Major's Hill Park

Major's Hill Park tulips during the 2006 festival

In addition to tulip beds and buskers, Major's Hill Park features a large tented International Pavilion with culture, food and entertainment from a number of different countries. Crafts and activities for children are offered by some of the international pavilions which are operated by embassies and local community groups.

Varying international exhibits have been featured during many years of the festival's history, but international representation was expanded to 15 countries in 2007, and again to 25 in 2008.

Aberdeen Pavilion

Lansdowne Park Tulip Gallery – The Friendship Floral & Art Experience

Aberdeen Pavilion and the Great Lawn will be brimming with tulip art and floral exhibits, artistic installations, culinary experiences, interactive family programming and entertainment with special features including:

Byward market

ByWard Tulip PARK(ing): THE URBAN TULIP EXPERIENCE

Pop artist, Bex, creator of the Festival’s One Tulip One Canada flag icon, brings his stylized tulip art to this city central marketplace with massive art installations on the City Parkade, interactive, artist-led creative workshops, plus, in collaboration with the ByWard Market BIA, animation throughout the streets and courtyards, and a host of merchant promotions throughout the neighborhood.

Annual Urban Tulip Experience… an experience like no other, an adventure around every corner! Together with the City of Ottawa, the ByWard Market BIA and many amazing local businesses, we are proud to be transforming Canada’s oldest market into a colourful garden filled with fun animations, special offers and tons of awesome photo opportunities! We will be announcing our schedule of events in the ByWard Market on Facebook and the Festival site while April is doing its thing to bring us May flowers. The centrepiece of the Urban Tulip Experience is the ByWard Tulip Park(ing), a parkade wrapped in colorful Bex Tulips. Simply head to Clarence Street, you can’t miss it! On your way, you will be enjoying planters and banners and shop windows so make some room for photos on your phone.

This year’s featured artist BEX is thrilled to be part of this urban experience: “I am so proud and happy and ecstatic to be working with the Canadian Tulip Festival on this. I live in the Market and this is just so awesome to be happening in my backyard. My tulip is an homage to my Grandpa and to my Dutch roots. But beyond that I feel the tulip represents a common, unique, and colorful beauty we all possess. Big thanks to Michel, David and Laura for letting me be their first!”

BEX will be doing a little behind-the-scenes thing on his website, his Facebook and Instagram pages…

THE CITY TULIP TOUR EXPERIENCE

The Garden Promenade celebrates Ottawa’s garden culture with over 70 experiences through 40 of the region’s most beautiful must-visit gardens. Join us during the Canadian Tulip Festival and delight in a self guided or escorted showcase of Ottawa’s public gardens exploding with millions of tulips in bloom.

THE GARDEN PROMENADE’S ROUTE: http://www.tulipfestival.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/map.jpg

Other sites throughout the National Capital Region

2005 Garden of the Provinces & Territories

The Garden of the Provinces and Territories, located directly across from Library and Archives Canada on Wellington Street is one of many sites that the National Capital Commission plants with thousands of tulips. Others include Parliament Hill, the banks of the Rideau Canal, and in Gatineau, Jacques Cartier Park, Montcalm-Taché Park, and the Malak flowerbed behind the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Tulip Times" (PDF). p. 4. Retrieved October 12, 2010.
  2. ↑ "Showcasing Canada's Capital Region" (Press release). Canadian Tulip Festival. 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-18.
  3. ↑ NCC
  4. ↑ "Tulip Times" (PDF). p. 7. Retrieved October 12, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Proclamation". Canada Gazette. 26 December 1942. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
  6. ↑ "1943: Netherlands’ Princess Margriet born in Ottawa - CBC Archives". CBC Archives. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 23 January 1992. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
  7. ↑ Archived March 1, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
  8. 1 2 "Crown princess Juliana in 1945 said thanks with loads of tulips". The Windmill news articles. goDutch. 1943-01-19. Retrieved 2012-05-24.
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