The Role of Hippies in The Canadian Counter Culture

The Canadian Counter Culture in the 1960s – 1970s: it refers to an antiestablishment cultural phenomenon that developed first in the United Kingdom and United States of America then spread throughout most of the western world. It was all started by the youth. Many people were influenced in many ways from the counter culture. Hippies were a big part of the counter culture movement the way they lived/dressed was unique. The counter culture was a big movement and how it started is very interesting.

The Counter culture started because hippies supported peace, drugs and love and shunned war, inequality, materialism and the United States federal government. Hippies were non-violent and turned to drugs and music to rebel and to feel freedom and a new experience of life, the peace sign became a major symbol of the counter culture. The hippie movement started to form after President Kennedy’s assassination and became even more apparent because of the Vietnam War. Most of them were young, they didn’t want to do what their parents told them and go to war they wanted to feel free and live life. A lot of people thought different after this started.

Hippies coined in the 1960’s, their style were hallmarks (a type of dress), jeans, tie die shirts, and beards. Hippies created their own communities, listened to psychedelic music, embraced the sexual revolution, and many used drugs such as marijuana, LSD, and psilocybin mushrooms to explore altered states of consciousness. Hippies were generally middle-class whites. Some of the earliest hippies were university students living in California’s Bay area. Many lived in an area of San Francisco called Haight-Ashbury, which became famous as one of the main areas for people looking to live the hippie lifestyle.

There were many famous events/festivals that all the hippies would go to and have a fun time. The most famous event/festival was the Woodstock music and art festival, it might be the most famous rock concert and festival in history, it was held at Yasgur’s dairy farm in the town of Bethel, New York from 15–18 August 1969. It was a 3-day concert which involve lots of sex, drugs, and rock n roll plus a lot of mud. The Woodstock festival has become an icon of the counterculture.

The Canadian counterculture in the 1960s and 70s inspired many people to focus more on peace then fighting and war. The peace sign and hippies were basically what the counter culture is. Hippies focused on nothing but freedom, drugs, sex and getting the word peace out in the world to stop all the violence and work together instead of fighting and killing each other. Hippies grew In population after president Kennedy’s death and the Vietnam war it started, it first started in the united kingdom then the united states then spread to the rest of the world. The counter culture was a huge impact on war inspiring many people to do better then what they were doing.