03/06/2026
It amazes me that, occasionally, we can still come across cat fancy artifacts that are well over 100 years old. We have just acquired this Canadian National Exhibition Dog & Cat Show pass.
Dated Wed, Aug 28 to Fri Sept 6, the year 1907 is shown on the back of the pass. That makes sense as the pass is signed by W.K. George, who was President of the CNE during that year.
What doesn't match is that the exhibition was called the Toronto Industrial Exhibition 1907, and the name was officially changed to the Canadian National Exhibition in 1912. Coincidentally, those same days/dates also occurred in 1912. But, a copy of the 1906 cat show catalog includes "Canadian National Exhibition" on the cover, so obviously they were using that name prior to 1912. A conundrum, indeed, and I'm inclined to believe the 1907 date is correct.
Whichever year is the correct one, 1907 or 1912, remains to be confirmed but we are delighted to add this CNE pass to our collection of memorabilia from past CNE shows in Canada.
Shows during this era were CFA shows produced by the Royal Canadian Cat Club. We will be adding a history of the CNE shows in Canada to The History Project web site (cat-o-pedia.org) in the coming days.
