Culture: High Park Harvest Festival

A group of children worked on carving small pumpkins at the High Park Harvest Festival in Toronto, Ontario on 3-October-2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Nighttime lows are closely approaching the freezing point. Days are shortening. The leaves in the trees are starting to turn. As hard as it is to accept, harvest time has arrived, and in the city of Toronto, that means time for the annual High Park Harvest Festival.


A singing group performed for children during the High Park Harvest Festival in Toronto, Ontario on 3-October-2010

For the most part, the High Park Harvest Festival is designed to help children learn about what harvest times were like during more agrarian times. Activities for children included bobbing for apples, making apple cider, carving pumpkins, story telling, horse-drawn cart rides, and performing groups.


Apple peeling was the first step in making cider, a part of the High Park Harvest Festival in Toronto, Ontario on 3-October-2010

Connections to the First Nations are always associated with harvest time in North America, and in High Park, the scene was no different. The primary performers around Colbourne Lodge were from the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, playing their drums and dancing in the field.


A pair of First Nations dancers performed during the High Park Harvest Festival in Toronto, Ontario on 3-October-2010

If all the harvest activity reminds one that's it is time for the feast, that's not a coincidence--Thanksgiving is celebrated in Canada next Monday.