Here in Canada, we celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria (May 24th) on the Monday before it. Today would be that day this year.

When I was growing up I knew the holiday as firecracker day. My parents and their best friends would buy fireworks and set them off in the back yard, always ending with the burning school house. Secretly, this was my favourite.

Ours was the size of the first one they lit.

As I moved into adulthood, however, the holiday became better known as the May 2-4 weekend. This meant the first long weekend of camping, cases of 24 beers, and if we were smart, a few packages of hot dogs came on the trip along with a few bottles of Jack Daniels.

My first experience of the kind would have been about 1988. We piled into half a dozen cars and headed to Sauble Beach, to a campground run by bikers. There were guard geese there – my first encounter with those particularly vicious animals was luckily not a close one.

Much booze and a few cold weiners (it was too rainy to light a fire) into the weekend… let’s just say I was longing for the burning schoolhouse – or burning anything by the time Monday morning rolled around.

But such is the experience of life. Ah, youth. Now I’m just trying to get through a day off school for the kids.

Are you a Canadian with a great remembrance of Victoria Day? A favourite camping trip, perhaps?