What does the Canadian Tulip Festival commemorate?

The Canadian Tulip Festival commemorates the gift of tulips from the Dutch royal family in gratitude for Canada's role liberating the Netherlands during the Second World War and for sheltering Princess Juliana (later Queen Juliana) and her family during the Nazi occupation. The annual festival, founded in 1953, runs for three weeks in May around Dow's Lake and along the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, drawing about 650,000 visitors a year.

The Dutch royal family fled the Netherlands in May 1940 ahead of the German invasion. Princess Juliana, her two daughters Princess Beatrix and Princess Irene, and their household took refuge in Ottawa for the duration of the war. Princess Margriet was born at the Ottawa Civic Hospital on January 19, 1943; the Canadian government temporarily declared her birth room extraterritorial Dutch soil so that the princess would have only Dutch citizenship and remain in line for the Dutch throne.

The First Canadian Army liberated the Netherlands during the winter and spring of 1944 to 1945, with the final liberation on May 5, 1945, the day Dutch Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart's surrender was negotiated by Canadian General Charles Foulkes. Some 7,600 Canadians died in the campaign and are buried in Commonwealth cemeteries across the Netherlands. Dutch families have tended the graves continuously since 1945.

After the war Princess Juliana sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa as a thank you, and committed to send 20,000 bulbs every year of her life. Her successors, Queen Beatrix and King Willem-Alexander, have continued the gift. About one million tulip bulbs now bloom in Ottawa each spring, with the largest displays at Commissioners Park, Dow's Lake, Major's Hill Park, and the Garden of the Provinces and Territories on Wellington Street.