Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and Professor Pieter van Vollenhoven will visit Ottawa, Canada from Thursday 7 May to Monday 11 May. The visit is a reaffirmation of the Netherlands’ special relationship with Canada, where Princess Margriet was born during the Second World War.
On Thursday 7 May the couple will visit the Canadian War Museum. On arrival, Princess Margriet and Professor Van Vollenhoven will lay a wreath in the main entrance hall. They will then be given a tour of the museum and meet current members of the Canadian regiments that fought for our freedom in the Second World War.
On Friday the couple will visit Ottawa City Hall, where they will meet Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and several city councillors. Here, a guard of honour will be inspected and the princess and her husband will sign the city’s official guest book.
On Saturday 9 May Princess Margriet will open the Canadian Tulip Festival, an annual event where displays of Dutch tulips across the city commemorate Canada’s role in the liberation of the Netherlands during the Second World War.
There will also be a tree planting ceremony. Canada gifted a maple tree to Queen Wilhelmina shortly after the war, which was planted in the gardens of Het Loo Palace. Now, a sapling of that tree will return to its native soil.
On the morning of Monday 11 May, Princess Margriet and Professor Van Vollenhoven, accompanied by Governor General Mary Simon, will visit a special exhibition on the Arctic at the Canadian Museum of Nature. The exhibition highlights Inuit communities, their way of life and environmental stewardship, and how Arctic flora and fauna are adapting to a changing climate.
Princess Margriet and Professor Van Vollenhoven will then go to the Perley and Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre, where they will meet with veterans and official representatives of the Royal Canadian Legion. This veterans organisation is celebrating its centenary in 2026.
In the afternoon the couple will visit the Special Care Nursery at The Ottawa Hospital, where the princess was born. They will present bouquets of tulips to some of the young mothers – and their babies – on the ward.
The ties between Canada and the Netherlands which took root in the Second World War remain strong today, owing in part to the many Dutch emigrants who settled in Canada after the war.
Government Information Service, no. 120