no-one posted answers to my questions, so i went a-googlin':

excerpts from many sources.....

Thanksgiving Day in Canada has been a holiday on the second Monday of October since 1957. It is a chance for people to give thanks for a good harvest and other fortunes in the past year.

The history of Thanksgiving in Canada is related to Martin Frobisher, who was an English navigator. He made a lot of efforts to find a northern passage to the Orient. Though he did not succeed in his efforts but he was able to establish a settlement in Northern America. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now known as Newfoundland, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This is considered the first Canadian Thanksgiving. Martin Frobisher was later knighted and an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada was named as ' Frobisher Bay' after him.

In 1604, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, also held huge feasts of thanks. They formed 'The Order of Good Cheer' and gladly shared their food with their First Nations neighbours.

The Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest Parade serves as the nation's only Thanksgiving Day parade and is broadcast nationwide on CTV and A. Canada's top professional football league, the Canadian Football League, holds a nationally televised doubleheader known as the "Thanksgiving Day Classic."