The Ottawa Tulip Festival comes into full bloom every May. The display contains 10,000 tulips sent by air from the Netherlands to show their gratitude for the Canadian Armed Forces that liberated them from German occupation during World War Two.
The flowers are planted along Commissioner’s Park, a waterfront public space in front of the Ottawa Civic Hospital. The Dutch Royal family fled to the UK during the war and then to Canada in 1940. At the time, Princess Juliana (later becoming Queen) was pregnant with a girl. Princess Margriet was born at the Ottawa Civic Hospital in 1943, being the first royal to be born in the Dominion.
Ottawa Civic Hospital
To prevent the princess from being a Canadian subject, an act of parliament was passed to make any ground she was born on international territory. Today, she is solely a Dutch subject. Every so often, the princess makes an effort to return to Ottawa to show her gratitude to the city that hosted her family.
