I went to the Canadian Tulip Festival yesterday and I was really frustrated when I saw this sign saying no bicycles. I told myself what kind of festival doesn’t accept that people travel on their bikes? The good thing is that I walked to the festival but still. So we go in and after about a minute of walking I saw some bike rakes beside the lower entrance. Not only I was relieved to see that but I was very happy to see that a lot of people were using them. Read more about the Canadian Tulip Festival after the jump.

The Canadian Tulip Festival has grown into the largest Tulip Festival in the world from a gift of International Friendship given six decades ago. In the fall of 1945, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands presented Ottawa with 100,000 tulip bulbs. The gift was given in appreciation of the safe haven that members of Holland’s exiled royal family received during the Second World War in Ottawa and in recognition of the role which Canadian troops played in the liberation of the Netherlands.

The tulips have become an important symbol of international friendship and the beauty of spring. They also have special meaning to people of Canada’s Capital Region. During the war, the Dutch royal family was hosted at Government House in Ottawa. Princess Margriet was born at the Ottawa Civic Hospital; her hospital room declared “Dutch soil” and the flag of the Netherlands flew on Parliament’s Peace Tower.

A few years after the Dutch tulips arrived in 1945, they became a strong attraction. Stunning pictures appeared in newspapers nation wide. More and more events began to centre around the annual bloom of tulips.

The first Canadian Tulip Festival was held in 1953. The Ottawa Board of Trade, at the suggestion of world-renowned photographer Malak Karsh whose photographs have immortalized the tulip, formalized the Canadian Tulip Festival to coincide with the tulip’s annual bloom. In the next 10 years the Festival grew in size, with a staggering display of over two million flowers.

Over the decades the Festival has been opened by Governors General, Prime Ministers and Royalty, including several return visits from Queen Juliana and Princess Margriet. In addition, international superstars – Liberace in 1972 – and Canadian superstars have performed at the Canadian Tulip Festival. Singer Alanis Morissette made her debut on the Tulip stage at the age of 12 in 1987.

Through the 1990s and into the new millennium, the Canadian Tulip Festival celebrated the Tulip as a symbol of Peace and Friendship creating an annual international bond by twinning with Friendship Countries including the Netherlands, Turkey, France, Japan, the United States, Great Britain and Australia.

In 2002, the Festival celebrated its 50th Anniversary dedicated to its founder, Malak Karsh, having expanded to an event showcasing over 3 million tulips throughout Canada’s Capital Region.

Each spring over 600,000 people from all over North America, Europe and Asia make over a million visits to the Canadian Tulip Festival. Studies show it has a $50 million economic impact annually on the Ottawa region. The event, which grew from the Dutch gift of friendship, has become the world’s largest Tulip Festival and Ottawa, with its Official Flower – the Tulip, has become the Tulip Capital of the North America.

In 2007 the Canadian Tulip Festival returned to its roots in celebrating International Friendship and, in partnership with the 15 Embassies and local international groups, created the International Pavilion in Major’s Hill Park attracting 125,000 people in just 11 days. In 2008, this will be expanded to the full 18 days of the Festival and will include more countries. The Tulip Festival also became the “festival without fences” with all tulip park events having free admission.

2007 also saw the introduction of Celebridée – A Celebration of Ideas, with its inaugural event – The Power of Ideas – hosted at Rideau Hall by the Governor General of Canada. In 2008 it is the goal of Celebridée to transform the presentation of ideas the way the Cirque du Soleil TM has transformed live spectacles.