As a newspaper, The Hub has been on the scene for countless ribbon cuttings.
They are so common that we've never really stopped to think about what the ribbon cutters are doing, or why we think the ceremony is important enough for The Hub to be there to capture the moment for posterity.
Of course, we know a ribbon cutting is to officially open something. We've been to so many that it would be impossible for us not to understand what's going on.
We've been to three ribbon cuttings in the last couple of months – at the expanded daycare on the Hay River Reserve, the new daycare in what was once the Hay River Playschool and the Marine Training Centre.
We welcome each one and our curiosity about ribbon cuttings is not a reflection on any of them or their value to the community. It's just that so many ribbon cuttings so close together just got us to thinking about the tradition.
According to an Internet search, ribbon cuttings have been a long-time tradition at weddings in some European countries, apparently to symbolize a couple entering a new phase of their lives. We did not know this.
The modern concept of a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open a new or expanded business, or perhaps some community building, only dates back to the late 19th century and became popular in the 20th century. We did not know that, either.
Since ribbon cuttings are so common, we had actually believed that they probably dated back to biblical times or perhaps the Roman Empire and were common all over the world.
Apparently, that's not so. In the long sweep of human history, a ribbon cutting – in the sense that it is used in North America – is something that is relatively new.
That is a fascinating thing to us, especially since we've seen so many of them and the ribbon cutters put so much importance into the act. As we've already noted, we've never actually stopped to think about ribbon cuttings and we would bet that just about no one else has, either.
It's just something that we do in our society. We don't even have to think about it – it's tradition.
When you look at it that way, how many other things do we do in our society just because we do?
Of course, we're not hoping to inspire a backlash against ribbon cuttings, but we think it would be a good thing if people understood their traditions.
A ribbon cutting is a pretty innocuous thing to do – like turning a sod to mark the beginning of construction for a building, or smashing a bottle of champagne on the side of a vessel to launch it.
The one thing we might ask – just to mix things up a little – is that people could think about different ways to officially open something. For example, perhaps the Marine Training Centre could have been opened with the ringing of a ship's bell.
Traditions are fine, but there's no rule against something different once in a while.
Perhaps we could create a new tradition?