Sharing Hugs on Canada Day

Posted on July 1, 2023 by Mike Nelson Pedde — 2 Comments ↓

Hi Folks:

This being the first Saturday in July, as you’re likely well aware, today is International Free Hugs Day! If you’re lucky enough to live here, today is also Canada Day! 🇨🇦

To that end we thought we’d combine the celebrations and take our sidewalk chalk down to our old hugging spot at the Homecoming Memorial. For full disclosure, we scanned the Canada flag image into the computer and used CorelDraw to create and print out the template.

We had fun making the drawing and interacting with those who stopped to chat, and when we were finished cleaning up, we retired to a nearby bench to people watch. While it felt a little strange not to be there with our FREE HUGS posters, in the short time we were there we were immensely gratified to see people stop to photograph the hugging spot and even more so to watch two couples and a group of three engage in hugs at our hugging spot! We know our hugging tree (a western white pine) was also happy to witness these events.

Speaking of our hugging tree, the oldest image we have is from July 2, 2011. At that time our tree was a sapling, barely reaching the top of the fence:

Eleven years later, you may notice that our tree has grown, just a little bit. We’ve been feeding them love, hugs and gentle needle caresses for 14 years.

A very tall image showing Marcia standing in front of our hugging tree, with the chalk art before her. The pine tree is now approaching 30 ft tall.

Same hat, same jacket, same beautiful smile. 🙂

We had such fun downtown that we decided to use the same pattern to update the hugging spot in front of our house.

So, if you’re in Canada, help us celebrate Canada Day and International Free Hugs Day by hugging the ones you love! Today and every day…

Hugs,
M&M

Happy Canada Day!!

Posted on July 1, 2022 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

Today is officially our country’s birthday! We were a part of the Living Flag event here in Victoria for Canada’s 150th birthday a few years ago, and after the past couple of years it’s good to see the city starting to come to life again. People still need to be cautious, but people are being cautiously optimistic as well. Yes, we have challenges to overcome, both as a country and as a planet, but Canadians overall are quietly proud of who we are. We can’t forget the past, but we can move forward together.

2022 also marks the third Canada Day we haven’t been out with our Free Hugs posters (maybe next year) so we wanted to share an image with you from our first Canada Day Free Hugs session back in 2010. This was just three weeks after our first ever session, and we were already hooked!

image © D. Gibson

Whatever Canada and Canada Day means to you, we encourage you to invest some time with loved ones! Continue Reading →

Free Hugs on Canada Day!!

Posted on July 4, 2017 by Mike Nelson Pedde — 2 Comments ↓

Hi Folks!!

Wherever you are, we trust you had a wonderful Canada Day!! It’s hard to believe that a) we’re at 150 already, and b) both of us were around for the 100^th birthday!! 🙂

We invested a part of the morning and early afternoon being part of the ‘Living Flag’ on the Legislature lawn, and then, wearing our bright red Canada Day 150 T-shirts we headed off to our usual location at the Homecoming Memorial to give out some hugs! Several sections of downtown Victoria, including a portion of Wharf St. where we like to go were closed to traffic. That worked out well for us as there was no shortage of pedestrians and cyclists in a celebratory mood!

Free Hugs on Canada Day

Continue Reading →

Happy Birthday, Canada!

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

While we may not always be very vocal about it (typically Canadian), us up here in the Great White North are proud to be Canadian, and that’s never more evident than it is today – Canada Day.

When we were downtown yesterday there was someone from the local news channel who was asking people whether (as with this year) Canada Day should be celebrated on July 1, or whether it should be celebrated on say the Monday of that week (like Easter Monday, for example) to allow for a long weekend. While there are some celebrations that are based on a certain day of the week (for example, Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox), July 1, 1867 marked the signing of the British North America Act that made Canada into a country. We’ll keep our date, thanks – quietly, but proudly! Continue Reading →

Happy Canada Day!

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Mike Nelson Pedde — 3 Comments ↓

Hi Folks:

It’s now well into the evening and the last of the Canada Day fireworks will be drifting away down at Victoria’s Inner Harbour.Â The weather here was absolutely perfect for a celebration – sunny and warm but not too hot.Â As is our wont, Marcia and I brought our ‘Free Hugs‘ posters downtown with us and invested some four hours this afternoon giving out Free Hugs to anyone who was willing to share one!Â It’s always a delightful experience for us.Â We hugged someone who was two weeks old, and someone who was celebrating his birthday today – possibly into his nineties.Â We shared hugs with a couple from Brazil on their first day in Canada, and we hugged a gentleman who knew about two words of English – ‘Thank-you’ and ‘Iran’.Â There were people from Australia and Ireland and the US, from Alberta and New Brunswick, and yes, people from Victoria!Â We even had two young women ask us for the loan of a marker and two sheets of paper torn from a notebook – they made their own ‘Free Hugs’ signs before heading on their way. Continue Reading →

Being Green – Celebrations

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

Well, the topic for this week’s ‘Being Green’ post is ‘Celebrations’, and there’s a lot to celebrate this weekend. If you live in Canada or are an expat Canadian living elsewhere in the world, Happy Canada Day, +1!