10th annual Tulip Days celebrates bond between Canada, Holland

Chilly winds and grey skies did not dampen the enthusiasm of the crowd that gathered to celebrate Tulip Days in Stayner. Last week marked the 10th annual Tulip Days Festival, presented by the Stayner Garden Club.

Emcee, councillor Marty Beelen said the event honours the strong Dutch heritage in Simcoe County.

“Many Dutch immigrants came here after the war and the Dutch are very grateful for the role Canadian soldiers played in the liberation of the

Netherlands in May 1945,” he said. Following the Second World War German invasion, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands took refuge in Ottawa along with her two young daughters, Princess Beatrix and Princess Irene. While in exile in Canada, she gave birth to her third daughter, Princess Margriet. One room of the Ottawa Civic Hospital was declared Dutch territory, to allow the new princess to be born a Dutch citizen. Following the war, the government of the Netherlands sent a gift of thousands of tulip bulbs, which became the start of The Canadian Tulip Festival in Ottawa. To this day, the Dutch send more bulbs each year and the Canadian Tulip Festival has become the largest of its kind in the world.

While much smaller than the national festival, Beelen says Tulip Days in Stayner celebrates the strong bond and enduring friendship between the two countries. Beelen’s father spent much of the war in a German POW camp where he met some Canadians and decided that he would move his family here for a fresh start in a land of opportunity.

The event featured representatives from Canadian Forces Base Borden and the Stayner and Creemore branches of the Royal Canadian Legion which is marking its 100th anniversary this year. The Grade 7 choir from Stayner Collegiate Institute led the crowd in the national anthem. There was a free barbecue run by the Stayner and District Kinsmen, and a fly-past of vintage aircraft from the Edenvale Classic Aircraft Foundation capped off the festivities.