You’d think it was a new national hol­i­day today here in Canada.

But no, the occa­sion is sim­ply U.S. President Obama’s first inter­na­tional visit to Canada’s cap­i­tal, Ottawa.

There’s plenty of hoopla in the Canadian media, includ­ing the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and CBC News, among many others.

The CBC has put together an espe­cially inter­est­ing fea­ture from its archives about past vis­its to Canada by American pres­i­dents, from Franklin Roosevelt to George W. Bush.

Among the high­lights — John F. Kennedy’s 1961 speech to the Canadian par­lia­ment where he famously said:

Geography has made us neigh­bors; his­tory has made us friends.

Photo by Jurvetson (flickr)