Oktoberfest began as a party to celebrate the marriage of Bavarian royalty in Munich in 1810. The marriage occurred on October 12 but the partying continued for the next few days. The participants had so much fun that they decided to do it again the next year, then the next year, etc.
Eventually the participants and organizers lost enough brain cells that they thought, “ You know what would make Oktoberfest even better? If it was in September so we had even better weather!” So it was moved to mid September to the first Sunday in October.
That’s how Munich’s Oktoberfest went, anyhow.
Kitchener- Waterloo’s Oktoberfest in Canada was made to wrap around Canadian Thanksgiving. The second Monday in October (Canadian Thanksgiving) was the center of the two weekends and one week of partying. This K-W Oktoberfest went as 9 days of partying for many years.
But too much beer drinking eventually led to two factions developing. One faction said let’s keep up the original Canadian Oktoberfest. While another said, let’s imitate the Munich Oktoberfest better and have a Septemberfest, too!
The Septemberfest makes more sense, some say. The weather is nicer. Did I mention dead brain cells from drinking too much beer? So that faction still calls it Oktoberfest.
The main takeaway from this is that K-W Oktoberfest now runs longer than the Munich one. With four weekends, because both factions are still present in K-W, it’s a longer festival than the busier Munich one.
I think there should be truth in advertising and both large Oktoberfests should be called Septemberfest-Oktoberfest.
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Speaking of names, in Southern Ontario, this year, we had a proper Summer Echo. Early fall contained a week or more of summer like temperatures. I’m a stickler for Summer Echoes. I believe we must be officially out of summer for the term to be applied properly.
Summer Echo used to be called Indian Summer. To not offend the sub continent of India, which has nothing to do with our weather in the great lakes region, we could call it Indigenous Summer. But then we might be offending the indigenous of this same great lake region. So with me, anyhow, Summer Echo has stuck.
