On 24 June every year, Quebecers celebrate Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, the fête nationale du Québec and, in the Catholic calendar, the feast day of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.   As a statutory holiday, most residents of Quebec have off of work to celebrate, and grand festivities occur in most of the major cities and towns of Quebec.

The origins of the holiday stretch back to Quebec’s history as a colony of France. The Catholic feast day had historically been a popular holiday in France, and the French settlers who came to Canada in the seventeenth century brought the celebration with them. As a Catholic feast day (Catholicism being the official religion of the French colony), celebrants engaged in both religious and secular festivities. Residents of the colony attended mass in celebration of the feast day, and often constructed large bonfires to continue the celebrations into the evening.

The holiday took on new meaning after the British took over the colony in 1763. In the 1830s, the festival gained new significance as a celebration of French-Canadian culture and its distinctiveness within the British colony. In the years following the failed Lower Canada Rebellion of 1838, in which French-Canadian patriotic sentiment had been rallied to first support political reform in the colony to favor French-Canadians and later armed insurrection to force reform, the celebrations became much more muted. They grew again in size and popularity in the late nineteenth century, emerging as a celebration of French-Canadian culture, tied closely to the religious character of the holiday, since many French-Canadians remained pious Roman Catholics. In the early twentieth century, the holiday acquired new dimensions as Pope Pius declared Saint John the Baptist the patron saint of French Canadians in 1908 and the legislature of Quebec declared the day a legal holiday.

In the 1970s, during the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, a period of intense social and political changed marked by profound secularization and the growth of intense nationalism, the holiday took on a new, highly political charge. The Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, the Queen’s direct representative in the province, made the holiday a statutory holiday in 1977. Along with the secularization of the Province in the 1960s and 1970s, nationalist and separatist overtones replaced the religious significance of the holiday. The holiday transformed into a semi-official rallying point for nationalist movements, with festivities sometimes punctuated with political protest in favor of Quebecois sovereignty or independence.

Today, the holiday has reemerged as a celebration of French-Canadian culture. Official festivities occur throughout the province, highlighting francophone artists, performers, and cultural figures. Major cities in the province often host parades where the provinces official colors, blue and white, and the Fleurdelisé, the flag of Quebec, feature prominently in the parade and amongst parade-goers. While the celebrations feature primarily Francophone performers, the holiday’s status as a legal holiday means that both francophone and Anglophone Quebecers celebrate, and recently the holiday’s official organizing body have focused on inclusivity as a theme, recognizing the multicultural nature of Quebec’s society today. Yet, if asked, many still take pride in the holiday as a distinctive Quebecois holiday, especially given its timing just prior to the federal holiday of Canada Day on 1 July.   Since provincial government officially recognizes the holiday, and supports the organization which plan and coordinate festivities, official accounts of the holiday and the public perception of the holiday often align. The current theme of a society “distinct, yet accepting” celebrated in the holiday coincides with how many in Quebec see themselves. Those who I spoke to agreed with this account for the most part, but also emphasized that it was a day where they could take pride in being Quebecois and having preserved their distinct culture within Canada.