Anonymous® Radio Show
The Internet's Premier LIVE Programme™Archive for June 24, 2009
St-Jean-Baptiste Celebrations!
Popular annual celebrations take place in French Canada on 24 June (the feast day of St John the Baptist) or on the days before or after this date.
Following a tradition the origin of which is lost in antiquity, many people, among them the Gauls, lit fires to celebrate the summer solstice. According to the Jesuit Relations and the Journal des Jésuites, this tradition was revived on the banks of the St Lawrence in 1636. In 1646 the Journal reported that ‘on 23 June the fire for St-Jean was lit at half-past eight in the evening… One heard five cannon shots and two or three discharges from muskets.’
Read the rest of this entry »