The Man with Two Hats
Dutch-Canadians and One Million Tulips
Every May, one million tulips bloom in Ottawa. It is a crescendo of colour, festival and Canadiana. With an estimated 750,000 people in attendance, it is one of the largest tulip festivals in the world. It criss-crosses the city of Ottawa offering different festival areas and gardens.
In Dow’s Park, there were huge swathes of tulips. We arrived before dusk on Sunday evening. It was so impressive, the smell was fragrant and intoxicating. Everyone was smiling, despite the long line-ups and crowded exhibits. At Dow’s, we only found two food trucks: a classic Canadian ice cream truck and a Butter Chicken Poutine Truck. The line-up at the Butter Chicken Poutine grew and grew. By the time we left, just before the final Drone Show played over the water, the wait for Butter Chicken Poutine was over an hour, a sign of how the traditions of Canadiana are changing alongside its demographics.
Wandering around amongst the tulips, I felt like I was experiencing one of the most multi-cultural communities in the world.
Luckily for me, the ice cream truck was parked beside the statue of The Man with Two Hats. This was the statue that I had come to find.
Inscription found on memorial
[plaque]
NETHERLANDS - CANADA
LIBERATION MONUMENT
THE MAN WITH TWO HATSDuring the Second World War, Canadian soldiers played a crucial role in the liberation of the Netherlands. With the donation of this monument- an expression of joy and a celebration of freedom- the Netherlands pays a lasting tribute to Canada.
A statue identical to this one stands in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. The twin monuments symbolically link Canada and the Netherlands; though separated by an ocean, the two countries will forever be close friends. Her Royal Highness Princess Magriet of the Netherlands unveiled the monument in Ottawa on May 11, 2002, and the other one in Apeldoorn on May 2, 2000.
Artist: Henk Visch
My daughter was only interested in the ice cream truck. The Man with Two Hats stood before us, black as night with arms reaching outward, a wide-brimmed hat in either hand to signify two nationalities forever intertwined, Canada and The Netherlands, a physical representation of the true ethos of the tulip festival and its history - but it’s absorbing effect held little attention or appeal to my daughter.
“Hold my shoes,” she said, and took off barefoot to join a set of twins she had just met in the line-up. The game became running around The Man with Two Hats, through his legs, jumping up and slapping him on the butt. I looked around to see if other parents thought this was okay. No one seemed concerned. I examined the face of The Man with Two Hats. He seemed stern, but detached. I decided to plead ignorance and took a long, deep in-breath, turning my attention inwards. It had been go, go, go for two days straight, and standing in the line-up that curved around The Man with Two Hats, I finally had time to think.
It had been an amazingly hot Ontarian long weekend, with temperatures hitting 27c earlier in the day. My daughter had toughed it out, but she wasn’t as enthralled with tulips and war memorials as I was. I had had the brilliant idea of turning this weekend into a homeschool opportunity, but navigating the raucous street party in the ByWard Market had taken it out of us. There was no respite from the blistering sun unless you sat down on a shaded patio, and the waiting list for tables was 30 names deep, so we just kept walking. I was determined to see “stuff”.
My daughter would take refuge in long, angular strips of shade, shadows cut from the edges of tall buildings, and refuse to walk forward into the sun, whining and teary. I had to carry her most of the way through Confederation Park and back to the hotel, flip flops flailing into the middle of intersections, a general misery that most parents around the world can commiserate with. As parents, we try to create special family memories, and I am always surprised how often it’s kind of miserable in the moment. Hopefully looking back, it’s all these funny, little miseries that make her childhood experiences memorable. Sigh.
The whole trip to visit the Canadian Tulip Festival began at the invitation of my FIRST PAID SUBSCRIBER EVER, Charlotte. Charlotte is a champion in my life and my cousin on my mother’s side. She and her husband Michael had a brand new baby girl named Everly and were hosting a fancy Sip & See at the Andaz Hotel in the heart of the ByWard Market. It was a great opportunity to visit Ottawa, celebrate the new baby, and soak in the Canadian Tulip Festival.
Side Bar: Oh, have you never heard of a Sip & See? It’s a new*ish tradition of hosting a party after the birth of the baby, instead of a baby shower before. Obviously, there is champagne. The idea is you “sip & see” the baby. It was fabulous. It was also taking place in Ottawa because that’s where most of Charlotte’s family lives.
The happy happenstance of the Sip & See occurring on the weekend of the Canadian Tulip Festival was just that, a coincidence, but in researching the story behind the Canadian Tulip Festival, I became genuinely intrigued. I recognized that I didn’t know anything about the Liberation of the Netherlands and I wanted to learn more.
I had been fascinated with Dutch culture since I was a kid. Many of my childhood friends came from Dutch families: burly outdoorsmen and tall, elegant women, all of whom seemed intelligent and capable. The parents always seemed to really like each other, and there was a warmth to the home that I couldn’t quite place. Being in Dutch homes made me feel…safe.
The Dutch parents I encountered were strict. For my Dutch friends, there were chores and physical discipline. Getting outdoors every day, skiing and sport were important, as was knowing how to keep your business to yourself.
I decided to seize the opportunity to fête the arrival of baby Everly and teach my daughter Zazie a homeschool lesson about sacrifice, war, and looking after one another…but I had deeply conflicted feelings about Canada and war.
I hadn’t felt a lot of reasons to be proud of Canada or “being Canadian” for a long, long time. I had all but given up patriotism in the pain of enduring Canadian governance, but the Canada that existed in the Dutch mind appealed to me. It was a Canada with moral goodness. The Canada of yore, the Canada of my grandparents, a people that harboured slaves and enabled the Underground Railway, a place of wild beauty and healthy ecosystems.
It is a Canada that doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe a Canada that never existed.
In light of residential schools, our treatment of First Nations People, our abuse of water and the environment, our malcontent during the mandates, Gaza; I hadn’t felt like celebrating “being Canadian” for a long time. But here I was, standing in an ice cream truck line-up, in a city overflowing with tulips, thinking about an Olden Day Canada, when we were the land of the strong and the free.
My grandparents survived the dirty thirties to fight a clear and evil opponent.
In war, no one wins, but there was a time when good and bad felt…clearer.
I knew I wanted to write a Substack about all these conflicting feelings, and make a homeschool lesson about it. I am decidedly anti-war, and wanted to impart some lesson on peace, but I also wanted to learn about Dutch-Canadian identity.
I wrote to my Dutch friend,
- another PAID SUBSCRIBER. God bless the Paid Subscribers. He’s a Dad and a filmmaker, and he grew up spending summers in Holland and winters in Canada. He boasts a reserved intelligence and good genes. His mother was Dutch and his father was a Canadian Military Commander in the Royal Canadian Air Force. I wrote to him about his experience growing up Dutch-Canadian.My email to Oliver
Context: This weekend we're travelling to Ottawa to tour the Tulip Festival and take the opportunity to teach Zazie about the liberation of Holland after WWII. The tulip festival itself is a memorial for the role Canadian troops had in the liberation of the Netherlands and Europe...
So many of my best friends growing up were Dutch, and such a vivid culture was retained by Dutch immigrants who settled in Canada after WWII that I really noticed in their homes. More than just stroopwafels - there was a focus on traditional family values. A reservedness and quiet intelligence that I recognize in your own nature.
I know you were an army brat and moved around a lot, spending time in Europe and in Canada, so you may have an even more unique understanding of how Dutch culture has adapted over time...but here's a couple questions...
His Response
Waaaary intewesting.
My Opa was a Dutch Spy. We have some amazing historical documents of his War Adventures. That's for another time.
1. When did your mother and/or her parents immigrate to Canada? Or did your parents meet in Europe?
My Mom came to Canada on an exchange to Bishop's University in Quebec in 1973. She meet my Dad at Bishop's. The married shortly after they graduated in Holland in 1977. She was the oldest of 4 and the only one to immigrate to Canada.
2. Did you grow up honouring the anniversary of the liberation of Holland in your family? Were you aware of Canada's good relationship to the Netherlands from a young age?
Yes. I spent every summer when I was little in Holland. I went to sail camp and had many Dutch friends and knew many Dutch families. The older generation would always tell me how special Canadians were to the Dutch. How we were pivotal in the liberation of Holland. The image of the Canadian Lumberjack Soldier was told to me over and over. My Dad being 6'3 220 pounds and a Canadian Soldier only cemented this image further. We went to the graves of Canadian Soldiers. I saw the massive tulip fields. I was told how Holland sends 10,000 Tulips to Canada every year as a thank you for their contribution to their liberation. The ties have always been very strong in my mind and I've always been a very proud Canadian in Holland and a proud Dutchy in Canada.
We used to go to the 4 Day March https://www.4daagse.nl/en/about-the-4days-marches/history And we'd see Soldiers from all over the world. I'd always wear my Canadian flag and Dutch people would greet me with big smiles.
3. Do you remember a time when you realized your family celebrated unique traditions that other families in the neighborhood didn't celebrate? What were your favourites?
By far my favorite was Sinterklass. Dec 5th. Sinterklass who arrived by boat and was helped by the now controversial Black Peter (Swarte Pete). He rode a white horse and would visit all the children and leave them sweets and games - the bad children would be given coal.
He came in the evening after dinner. We'd hear a knock on the door and by the time we got there he was gone, but left behind a big bag of goodies.
We'd open presents. Sing songs. Make up poems. It was much more about the coziness than the gifts, but the gifts didn't hurt.
There was also Kings Day. April 27th I believe?? My Mom would bake a cake and hide a coin inside. Whoever got the coin was declared King for the day and got to chose dinner plans, activities etc. That was always exciting.
4. Do you keep certain traditions and/or foods alive in your own home now, for your children?
Gezellig is the biggest tradition. Which is the Dutch concept of coziness. Coziness can be food, company, furniture, attitude, anything really. It's a great world and it really is a lifestyle. That's what I love the most about Dutch people. It's hard to describe it, but when you feel it, it's the only world that captures the essence of what it is.
We celebrate Sinterklass with the kids. They love it. Double Christmas they call it.
Chocolate sprinkles on toast (which is called Hagelslag)
Stroopwafel
We make an Indonesian dish (Indo was a colony of Holland until 1941) called Katjang Sauce or Pindasaus. That takes me right back to childhood. My Mom spent the first 5 years of her life in Indonesia. My Opa had a job with the Dutch Trading Company. So I have this connection to it. My Mom was always very fond of her memories there.
5. There is a deep pride and hard-working ethic in Dutch culture, with a focus on traditional family values. How has Dutch culture influenced you in your career and family life? Do you credit your Dutch heritage for becoming the committed Dad you are today?
My Dad, an Anglo-Montrealer was amazing. He had a very rough childhood. His real Dad and Step-Dad both died very tragically when he was around 19. My Mom's Dad died when she was a young teenager.
My Oma and My Nanny (Canadian Grandma) were both incredible women - very dedicated to their children. I was, however, much closer to my Oma. My Mom ruled the home with whimsy and joy and my Dad was like my third brother, up for anything when he wasn't off being a super soldier. He was incredibly involved in all our sports, events and activities. My Mom was singularly devoted to supporting him and us children. I'm not sure if they both decided to make our childhood magic because they had such deep sadness- but they sure did make it magic.
When I think back, I always felt much more Dutch than I did Canadian. I was really proud of my Dutch heritage. I thought of myself as a sailor. I loved bikes. Wooden shoes. Tulips. Anything that was Dutch I was proud of. I'd have chocolate sprinkle sandwiches at school, which other kids thought was crazy, and I loved that. My Mom always encouraged manners and silliness. It was a fun combination. We only spoke Dutch with her. It was our special language. In the summers I was shipped off to Holland. I have nothing but fond memories.
I take a lot of that with me into being a Dad. My Mom's care for gezelligheid (coziness in all things) and comfort for the kids, and my Dad's example of how not growing up, telling stories and playing with the kids is the best fun you can have.
Hup hup Holland.
Oh yes. I love watching the Dutch in the World Cup and I was a solid voetbal (soccer) player. We won the Euro cup in High School. As a Canadian being able to hang with the Euro kids was a big accomplishment for me.
Any spelling mistakes and grammar is because I'm Dutch and therefore ESL.
Back at The Man with Two Hats statue, the ice cream truck line-up moved a few inches, and I realized my Uncle had joined me. My Uncle Roger had lived in Ottawa nearly all his life. He knew everything there was about the tulip festival and had been attending for years.
“It’s weird that there’s only two food trucks for all these people…” I ventured, making small talk.
Uncle Roger nodded, wiping his brow from the heat. “It’s kind of sad to see how it’s evolved because it’s become a lot more commercial,” he said. “When we first started coming here, there was a lot more Dutch culture. There was a table with a local artisan who made Dutch wood shoes and sold Dutch sweets…That’s all gone, now.”
"People don’t even know the history of why the tulips are here!” he said.
Mm. I nodded in agreement, realizing I hardly knew how the tulips had gotten here, either. He continued to explain the tulips are a gift that have accumulated year by year. When Holland fell to Nazi occupation, the Dutch Royal Family fled to Ottawa. They harboured in Ottawa for the duration of the war, and had a daughter, Princess Margerit, at the Ottawa Civic Hospital in 1943.
“They actually denationalized the hospital so she could be born a Dutch citizen,” he explained.
After the war, the Dutch Royal Family and the people of the Netherlands sent 100,000 tulips as a thank you for liberating the Netherlands, and made a promise to send 10,000 every year following. They kept that promise.
The story of the liberation of the people of the Netherlands is riveting and bloody.
In the final months of the second world war, the First Canadian Army fought the deadly Battle of the Schedlt. Allied victory came at a cost. 13,000 casualties and 6,300 Canadian lives were lost clearing the estuary of German forces, but they succeeded in taking the Schedlt and opened crucial supply lines to bring badly needed Allied aid through the port of Antwerp. The people of the Netherlands were starving to death.
In retaliation for a railway strike that had harmed the German war effort, the Dutch were enduring the “Hunger Winter”. Germany had stopped food shipments to the western Netherlands for the entire winter of 1944-1945. By spring 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were facing starvation. Canadian allies arranged emergency food deliveries, even before the fighting ended.
The raw footage of the “Hunger Winter” moved me to tears. Hollow, thin arms scooping watery gruel rations from a shared pot and spoon. The desperation.
Canadian airmen convinced German forces to let them drop aid from the sky.
The starving Dutch planted messages in long lines of tulips for airmen to read:
THANK YOU BOYS
There are countless stories of Canadian courage in clearing Nazi forces from the Netherlands, but one soldier’s tale particularly stands out.
Canadian soldier Léo Major single-handedly took the city of Zwolle. Accounts differ, but this article written after Major's death in the Canadian Army Journal Vol. 11.3 Fall 2008 describes Léo taking Zwolle like Chuck Norris on a bad day:
Major was carrying two Sten guns and a sack of grenades. He arrived in the centre of Zwolle at about 0100 hours and found the streets silent and deserted. Here, he spotted a German machine-gun nest which, since the crew was sleeping, he promptly attacked and eliminated. He then found a German scout car and forced one of the Germans, who he had captured, to drive through the streets with the lights on, flying a white flag. For several hours, Major moved through the streets in this manner, shooting at any target he could find, making an impression that a large Canadian force had arrived. The citizens were awakened but were afraid to come out of their houses. By a stroke of luck, Private Major came across the head of the local resistance, Frits Kuipers, and three of his men. By now the Germans appeared to have fled the city in panic. The group therefore returned to the town hall and the resistance fighters brought the citizens out into the streets. The local radio station was used to announce that the town had been liberated. Major was exhausted but he had to complete his mission by bringing back the body of his comrade, Wilfrid Arsenault, to his lines. The resistance fighters arranged for a car to transport the body back, but were fired on by outposts of the Chaudières. Major was furious and climbed onto the top of the car so that he could be easily seen from a distance. In this manner, he returned to the Canadian lines to report the result of his mission to his commanding officer.
In the end, more than 7,600 Canadian soldiers, sailors, and airmen died fighting in the Netherlands. Today, the city of Ottawa is awash in tulips of gratitude.
When we got home, I wanted to ground our experience by incorporating the The Man with Two Hats into our weekly homeschool rhythm.
We both painted watercolours and beeswax drawings of the statue, remembering his stern facial features and discussing what it means to “wear two hats”. At six years old, my daughter doesn’t have a concept of war. I have worked to protect her from knowing war, actively avoiding news on the radio and television. Her world is still magical and full of wonder, and I want to keep it that way for as long as I can, but I also want her to understand sacrifice and the importance of remembering the past.
We wet felted wool tulips using this blog from Warmth and Weather and talked about the colours we saw and the fragrant smell of the blossoms. She understood the tulips were a memory, a living memory of gratitude and a lasting commitment to friendship.
I don’t feel I came to any conclusion on my conflicted sense of Canadian identity, but it did feel good to remember how hard fought for our freedom is. I learned a lot. I will shield my daughter a little while longer, and teach her why we plant tulips for spring.
Post Script: The History of Tulips
I didn’t get a chance to incorporate this info but this is a cool read:
https://www.sarahraven.com/articles/the-history-of-the-tulip