Every year, once the snow has melted, tulips are dis­played through­out the city of Ottawa.

It isn’t the result of luck though, but of the fruits of labor. Indeed, Ottawa is home to the largest tulip fes­ti­val, thanks to his­tory and… the Netherlands.

Dur­ing the Nazi occu­pa­tion of the Nether­lands, Princess Juliana and her daugh­ters, then in exile, found shel­ter in Canada. Princess Mar­garet was even born in Ottawa, and the mater­nity ward was declared to be offi­cially a tem­po­rary part of the Nether­lands, so that the birth could for­mally be claimed to have occurred on Dutch territory.

Right after the war, the Nether­lands begun send­ing tulips bulbs to Ottawa as an expres­sion of their grat­i­tude. Today, about 20,000 tulips bulbs are given by the Royal fam­ily. Over 3 mil­lions tulips are on dis­play for about three weeks through­out Ottawa, and that’s just what we need after hav­ing watched snow melt (some­times lit­er­ally) for so many months!

Aren’t they beautiful?

Related posts:

1. Ottawa’s Tulips Festival
2. In Bloom
3. Tulips at Dow’s Lake
4. And The Tulips Bloomed!
5. Latina Dances in Ottawa