Hi there. I'm Yvonne, and I'm a wife, Mom of 2 and business chick. Welcome!
During WW II a single room in Ottawa was ceded to the NetherlandsOttawa, Ontario - In 1943 Princess Margriet Francisca (younger sister of Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, the current Queen of the Netherlands) was born at the Ottawa Civic Hospital - the only royal ever to be born in North America. The Dutch Royal Family had fled to Canada in 1940 after the WWII invasion of their country. Among their problems - the expected royal child needed to be delivered on Dutch territory to be a Dutch citizen.
So, Canada ceded this one hospital maternity room temporarily to the Netherlands.
Each year Ottawa receives 20,000 tulip bulbs from the Royal Family and the Dutch Bulb Growers, as a thank you for sheltering the Royal Family, and for Canada's help with liberation of the Netherlands during WWII.
Each May the gardens of Ottawa burst into bloom and the city celebrates the world's largest tulip festival. About three million flowers blossom in the region, 300,000 of them at Commissioners Park near Dows Lake.
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8 comments:
I knew this would be your first "Ottawa" post! Funny, I knew about the tulips but I always thought it was just about Canada's help to Holland in WWII. I like the royal story!
.....oooo....I love tulips!
That's the bldg I work in! It doesn't quite look like that in the tulip beds yet, but it will be the weekend.
They send so many tulips every year, that the city doesn't bother recycling them. They dig up the bulbs & toss them. Last year they gave me two bags :) I'll be sure to get some this year for your new house!
Ha ha...and you are worried about feeling at home there??!!!
Good thing you like Tulips!!!
:)
That has to be so beautiful. Now I have an excuse to come up in May.
We love to take our girls to the Tulip Fest every year, this year we are stuck waiting until Thursday to go. We planted tulips around the house but I think the squirrels got a lot of the bulbs. We have a few up, but only one is flowering so far.
He Yvonne,
That is so true that story. I hope one day to see the flowers blooming over there. I think I will cry..(smile) Life eh!
Pauline
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