Thanksgiving offers a moment to look beyond our daily worries and recognize the blessings beneath our feet, across our countryside and around our tables.

In Canada, there is much to be grateful for.

We live in a country where fertile farmland produces wheat for bread, potatoes for family dinners, fruit from orchards and feed for livestock. Across the Prairies, fields and pastures sustain families, support communities and help feed people far beyond our borders.

Here in rural Alberta, that connection is especially close. The harvest is something we watch from our windows, pass on the highway and measure in the long hours worked by neighbours and family members.

Behind every meal are people who planted, tended, harvested, raised, processed and delivered what we eat. Thanksgiving is an opportunity to remember their work.

Beneath the land lies another kind of abundance.

Canada’s oil and natural gas provide energy to heat homes, move goods and keep businesses operating. Our rivers generate electricity. Uranium helps fuel nuclear power, while wind and sunshine offer further sources of energy.

These resources support livelihoods and give this country the means to build, produce and provide for its people.

Our mineral wealth is another blessing. Potash nourishes crops. Copper carries electricity. Iron ore helps produce the steel used in buildings, machinery and transportation. Nickel, gold and other minerals connect Canadian communities to industries around the world.

Then there are the treasures whose value we feel without needing to calculate it.

A clear lake. A cold stream. Fresh air on an autumn morning. The wide Alberta sky, stretching beyond the last fence line.

Canada’s forests, wetlands, mountains and coastlines offer habitat for wildlife, places of quiet and room for adventure. They are part of the inheritance we share and the responsibility we carry for those who come after us.

The land also holds generations of knowledge and work. Farming families, fishers, forestry workers, energy workers and miners have built livelihoods around what the country provides. Their skills and perseverance help turn natural abundance into food, shelter, warmth and opportunity.

Our communities give us further reasons for gratitude.

We see it when neighbours help finish a harvest, volunteers prepare a community meal or someone quietly delivers groceries to a family having a difficult month. Those acts of care belong among the country’s treasures, too.

Thanksgiving leaves room to recognize hardship while appreciating what sustains us. It can remind us to share what we have and take good care of what we have been given.

As we gather this Thanksgiving, there is reason to pause over the bread, the warmth of the house and the people beside us.

So much of what sustains us begins with this land and the hands that work it. That is a blessing worth remembering.