Now known as the Toronto Caribbean Carnival, Caribana began as a one-time celebration of the Canadian Centennial in Ontario's provincial capital city. The festival continues to bring a full display of Caribbean culture and traditions, attracting more than a million viewers each year. Caribana has continued to draw people from across the world to Toronto, with travellers coming from places such as the Caribbean, Europe and the United States.
Onlookers get to see a variety of colourful costumes as participants play mas in a variety of events such as The Grand Parade, Junior King & Queen Showcase, King & Queen Showcase, Junior Carnival Parade and more. Spectators are exposed to a variety of Caribbean music and sounds such as soca, chutney soca, calypso, reggae and dancehall, r&b and hip hop along with sounds from instruments such as the steelpan. Festival attendees also get a chance to try a variety of Caribbean foods such as jerk chicken, roti, black pudding, rum cake, roasted fish and more.
The festival takes place during late July to the first few days of August, coinciding with Emancipation Day and its commemoration of the abolition of slavery in British colonies in the nineteenth century. Caribana includes the tradition of "parading" through the streets, originating from celebrations of freedom from enslavement in the 19th century.
Within the first five years, 1967 to 1971, the festival aimed to share West Indian (Black Canadian, Indo-Caribbean and Chinese-Caribbean) culture with the community at large, and to fund the creation of a permanent West Indian cultural centre. During the era, the festival took an early shape, different from recent celebrations, growing and gaining the support of the City and Toronto's Protestant Caucasian majority. The event attracted Caribbean country leaders and top musical and stage acts to supplement the parade. In late 1968, a new festival called Carnival Toronto was proposed; receiving government funding, Caribana resisted their merger attempts, which sought to combine several existing festivals into one event. The event was largely unsuccessful, ending after one year. Four largely peaceful years were marred in 1971 by a car accident causing parade route deaths, and public transit fumbles which led to fighting.
The festival has a long history since its beginnings in 1967, where multiple changes took place between the 1970s to the early 1990s. During this time, the Caribbean Cultural Committee and Caribana had undergone route changes, financial issues, an increase and decrease in spectators and participants, negative media attention, along with a rise in violence and an increasing police presence at various events within the festival.
The goal of establishing Caribana within the African Canadian/Caribbean community was to build it into "a cultural force that would support the community and enhance the wider city of Toronto."
News outlets such as The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and Caribbean-Canadian community newspapers such as Share and Caribbean Camera have played a crucial role in reporting information focused on the festival.
Origins Caribana is based on Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago and has become a festival to celebrate and reflect Caribbean culture on a whole. The carnival tradition derives from traditions within Trinidad in the 19th century. Carnival originally began as a festival that took place before Lent for only the elite White French and French Creole population in Trinidad. This festival involved African and Afro-Creole masks and costumes, where the festival took place within the fields of plantations or in the streets of Port of Spain. African folk developed their own festivities, known as cannes brûlées or canboulay. Enslaved Africans would mimic French enslavers by painting their faces White and dressing in eccentric costumes.
After their freedom from enslavement, their festival had evolved and inevitably caused White elites to retreat from the Carnival space in Trinidad. Emancipation gave way to this disruption and created a change as this Euro-Catholic tradition had been transformed into an Afro-Trinidadian tradition. These roots trace back to Caribana today.
1967–1971
1967
Planning and proposal Across the country, the Canadian Centennial was celebrated by the federal, provincial, and municipal governments with an array of special projects, events, and other creations. Along with government projects, other groups started their own events to celebrate. Among the happenings on Toronto's Centre Island was a hedge maze,The Netherlands Community of Greater Toronto offered to build the construction of 120 square foot hedge maze at Toronto Island. the newly created Centreville Amusement Park, and Caribana, a festival for the Caribbean population of 12,000 in Toronto. The Toronto Star said that the event "plans to blow the Centennial works in a whing-ding, one-week celebration designed to pale the '67 efforts of any other Metro "ethnic" community." Organized over nine months, its committee included a doctor, two lawyers, a town planner, and a teacher, all Caribbean emigrants working in Metro Toronto.
During a late 1966 meeting at a downtown Toronto firehall, it was decided that the concept of carnival was universal amongst Caribbean cultures, and Trinidad and Tobago's celebrations were the best model. The August long weekend was chosen for its heat and low chance of rain.
On February 21, 1967, Caribbean Centennial Committee executive chairman Samuel A. Cole sent a letter requesting "permission to stage an exhibition of West Indian trade and cultural achievements at Olympic Island during the period of August 5 to 12, 1967:
The Metropolitan Parks Commissioner issued a report to the Parks and Recreation Committee on March 6, recommending the approval of a "Caribbean Centennial project at Olympic Island, Toronto Island". Thompson asked that approval be granted, with all details approved by the Metropolitan Parks Commissioner, and he asked to be authorized to co-operate with the group, so long as no direct costs were incurred to Metro.City of Toronto (1968). p. 572.
Events The Caribbean Centennial Committee announced the "Caribana '67 Week" event on July 12. On Olympic Island event was to include the importation of coconut trees. The group sought information from the parks department "officers regarding irrigation systems and turf repair", in relation to planting tropical trees.City of Toronto (1968). p. 571. The event would represent the 10 "main" Caribbean islands, plus Bermuda and Guyana. The event would include "a series of performances covering steel bands, calypso, dance, drama, night club and variety acts, films, water-skiing, kids' carnivals and adult carnivals." Calypso ferry cruises, teen fashion shows, a Caribbean fruit and vegetable market, Caribbean Queen contest, and the "usual" booths. A water-skiing festival was held on the island, simultaneously, on the weekend.
Byron Lee and the Dragonaires were featured at a semi-formal ball at Casa Loma, August 4. The ball would become an annual tradition for some years, rotating from location-to-location.
The parade launched the week's public events, heading from Varsity Stadium down University Avenue, to a reception at City Hall with Mayor William Dennison, and onto the docks. "As a carnival style parade, it'll be wide open to anybody who feels in the mood." Event chairman Dr. J. A. Liverpool explained to The Star that participants paid $10 or more for their costumes, which cost $30 to $40 a piece. Liverpool told that the subsidy was because "many of the paraders have jobs as maids or clerks." The Star reported with a single photograph, captioned that "a mile-long carnival procession of a thousand people in gaily-colored costumed gyrating to the music of five calypso bands." Ten of the floats and a thousand paraders didn't leave the stadium until 11:30 am, despite a 9:30 am start time. Dr. J. Alban told the Toronto Telegram that "West Indian time is different than North American time." The first parade attracted 50,000 spectators, but given Torontonian's typical reserve, it was considered quite quiet, compared to other carnivals.
On Sunday, August 6, the concerts on the Toronto Islands attracted 32,000, "a record mob"; "statistically, Caribana '67 is the event of the year". The Trinidadian performers from Expo 67 performed hourly from 6 to 10 pm on one day, the Journard Trinidad Players performed at their top level, despite no chance to rest after their trip from Montreal. There was a rainstorm at the start of the show, and a steel band played three numbers in the dark, flawlessly, when the lights short-circuited. Thanks to popular demand, Caribana '67 was extended an additional day, to the next Sunday. That final day set a one-day record for ferry use of 35,000, upping the old record by 3,000. Governor-General of Jamaica Sir Clifford Campbell, the first Jamaican-born Governor-General of that country, made a surprise guest appearance when returning home from Expo 67.
The entire event was to cost $50,000. Only $4,000 of that was contributed in advance, the rest being "paid as they occur by scores of West Indian Canadians." The Ontario Centennial Commission contributed $1,000 in advance. Within two months before the event, the "big islands" decided to send exhibits, but none funded the event. A group of sponsors agreed to cover any debt at the end of the festival, if box office tallies failed to result in a profit. If a profit was reached, it was to go to establishing a West Indian cultural centre.
During the final Saturday and Sunday of the event, the Trinidad Theatre Workshop performed at the Central Library's theatre; founder Derek Walcott would earn a Nobel Prize in 1992. The troupe came for free, with only airfare, room, and board covered, to perform the world premiere of Walcott's play "Dream on Monkey Mountain", and two one act plays the following night, "Albee's Zoo Story" and "Walcott's Journard: A Comedy Until the Last Minute". The group had performed in open air, as Caribana organizers had provided, but the plays were drowned out by crowd noise. The library was arranged at the last minute.
Reception
Toronto Mayor William Dennison urged festival chairman Sam Cole to make the event an annual one. Parks commission Tommy Thompson agreed, having participated in the event himself, and estimating the island's year-end attendance would have set an all-time record.Along with helping choose Sharon Watson the Queen of the festival, Thompson donned a straw hat and danced solo on stage during the Sunday finale event. Boat crews abandoned their schedules, simply going to and from the islands as fast as possible, with the sole off-duty crew called on-duty, and the boats running to midnight, an hour past their normal stop. Chairman Cole agreed the group would try to organize a follow-up event: "We made a few mistakes, wasted a little time and money. But it was worth it. It's been very successful and next time we'll know what pitfalls to avoid. One will be to forget any attempt to raise contributions or assistance from businesses."
The organization began a year-round presence. The Caribana Serenaders performed at the Royal York hotel on Boxing Day, during the Mayor's annual clinic for the Canadian Red Cross Society.
1968 Scheduled to run from July 31 to August 7, the second annual event was to launch with a steel band performance at the Canada Trust Tower, however the local musician union asked them not to play, as they hadn't been informed in advance; Hell's Gate of Antigua did manage to perform at Queen's Park. A grand ball at the Royal York hotel on August 2 picked the king and queen.