St. Augustine's Anglican Church

In 1971 the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada declared June 21 as a “National Indian Day of Prayer” and requested all dioceses to commend this day to parishes and congregations throughout Canada. In 1995, participants of the Sacred Assembly in Hull, Quebec – a national meeting of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people – revived an earlier campaign to observe June 21 as a national day to recognize the contributions of Indigenous Peoples to Canada. The summer solstice, the longest day of the year, falls on June 21. For generations, this was a sacred day for many Aboriginal people on which they celebrated their culture and heritage. On June 13, 1996, Governor General Romeo Leblanc declared June 21 National Aboriginal Day.

In Winnipeg in 1994, representatives of the Indigenous people gathered and made a Covenant to build a truly Anglican Indigenous Church in Canada, claiming their place and responsibility “as equal partners in a new shared journey of healing, moving towards wholeness and justice.”

In July of 2001, the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada commended for study and implementation the working document A New Agape: A Plan of Anglican Work in Support of a New Partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Anglicans. This plan expresses the commitment of the Anglican Church of Canada to a new relationship with the Indigenous Peoples of Canada based on a partnership that focuses on the cultural, spiritual, social and economic independence of Indigenous communities.

Since the mid-1990s, the Faith, Worship and Ministry department and the Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples have worked together to develop worship resources for the National Aboriginal Day of Prayer, now the National Indigenous Day of Prayer. The observance was later added to the calendar in the Book of Alternative Services by the General Synod 2010 under the heading of “Other Major Feasts That Take Precedence of a Sunday”, reflecting its significance across the Anglican Church of Canada and the Church’s commitment to its ongoing celebration.

The summer solstice or estival solstice occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere. The summer solstice is the day with the longest period of daylight and shortest night of the year in that hemisphere. Therefore, on the day of the summer solstice, the sun appears at its highest elevation with a noontime position that changes very little for several days before and after the summer solstice. The summer solstice occurs when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer, which is located at 23.5° latitude North and runs through Mexico, the Bahamas, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and southern China. For every place north of the Tropic of Cancer, the sun is at its highest point in the sky and this is the longest day of the year.

The word "solstice" comes from the Latin solstitium, meaning "Sun-stopping". During the solstice, the Sun appears to pause at its northernmost (or southernmost) point before reversing its path.

Because the solstice marks the triumph of light, it has been celebrated for thousands of years by cultures all over the world.

Ancient Sites: Monuments like Stonehenge in England famously align with the rising summer Sun.
Indigenous Celebrations: Across Canada, the solstice is a sacred time deeply intertwined with National Indigenous Peoples Day.
Pagan/Wiccan Traditions: Known as Litha or Midsummer, it is celebrated as a time of vitality, abundance, and turning inward for personal reflection.

There is a lag between the longest day of the year and the warmest average temperatures for most mid and high-latitude locations.

The maximum daily temperature occurs nearly 3 weeks later in mid-July. Just as the warmest part of the day usually occurs several hours following noon, when the sun is highest in the sky, so too does the warmest part of the summer lags the summer solstice. This lag is due to the time required for ground and water to heat up. Average temperatures continue to climb until the sun drops lower in the sky. While the effect is evident in a daily temperature plot, it is more readily apparent by looking at changes in the monthly average temperature. July temperatures can averages 3.3°F degrees higher than June, with August also warmer than June by 2.8°F, even though the length of days in August is considerably less than the length of days in June.