Canada Day was usually just another work day on the farm when I was growing up.

Not like today, when it’s a holiday with community parades and fireworks in Cambridge, Kitchener, or Waterloo. Or a backyard family barbecue might be more appealing.

Now that I’m a business communications professor at Conestoga College, I encourage the international students I teach to enjoy the break from classes, join in community events and learn more about Canada.

Canada Day events Waterloo Region

For my students at the Doon or Downtown Kitchener campuses, there are Canada Day festivities in Waterloo Region. The Canada Day parade down King Street in Cambridge ends at Riverside Park, where fireworks light up the skies.

And for my Brantford students, there’s plenty to do on Canada Day in Brantford, too.

July 1 now is so different than when I was growing up on a farm just south of Hamilton, Ontario.

Late June and early July was in prime time for cutting and bailing hay, before putting it in the barns to feed cattle over the winter. The weather was usually stinking hot and humid. And it felt even hotter when working the upstairs mow of the barn, under a sheet metal roof with minimal air circulation and clover dust burning my eyes.

Days that felt like 35 C outside felt more like 45C or 50C up in the mow. I remember sweat stinging my eyes and running down my back as I worked beside my dad and brother with hooks to drag, lift and stack 30 kg bales of cut and bundled grasses.

It looked like what was happening in this video, except we would always be wearing gloves. The video below shows how I remember the bales of hay carried up into the barn for stacking.

Didn’t care about Canada Day

Almost five decades ago, I didn’t care that most stores were closed on July 1. If was sunny and hot, we were putting bales up and in the hayloft, not shopping.

Now, I tell my international students that since July 1 is a national holiday, most stores and businesses will be closed across Canada.

It wasn’t until I turned 16, and started working part-time in a camera store in shopping centre off the farm, that I started paying attention to the Canada Day Holiday. Especially when it fell on a Saturday, like in 2023, when my holiday day might end up on Friday, or a Monday. I learned to like working on July 1, because I was paid a premium rate.

And later, when a newspaper reporter and assigned to work on holidays, the employee union contract guaranteed I receive double-time pay.

Some designated tourist areas, such as St. Jacob’s village and Farmer’s Market district north of Waterloo, Toronto and Niagara Falls, have exemptions that allow stores to remain open on a “statutory holiday” such as Canada Day.

You probably won’t find me at the St. Jacob’s farmer’s market on Canada Day now.

It’s a place far removed from the farm I grew up on. It’s dressed up for tourists driving Teslas, not this old farm boy who is fond of pickup trucks.

Without a bit of sweat on my brow, I have a tough time reliving warm memories of being with my family, on a working holiday celebrating Canada Day.