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Canadians will soon have to adjust their clocks an hour ahead as we draw closer to the start of spring.
Daylight time begins Sunday, March 10 at 2 a.m. local time this year. Observers will set their clocks forward, or “spring ahead,” by one hour.
The change takes place just nine days before the official first day of spring, which this year is on Tuesday, March 19.
Daylight time, also called daylight saving time or daylight savings time, ends on Nov. 3 this year, and when clocks will be turned backward an hour on that Sunday.
Who observes daylight time?
Daylight time begins for much of Canada on the second Sunday of March each year. Municipalities decide whether to observe the change, and some have opted not to take part in the practice.
Yukon, most of Saskatchewan, eastern Quebec, northwest Ontario and some areas in the east, northeast and southeast of British Columbia use standard time all year.
Why do we change the clocks?
While people will lose an hour of sleep on March 10, the seasonal time shift was created to maximize sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere, according to National Geographic.
There are conflicting accounts on when DST began.
Residents of Port Arthur, Ont., now Thunder Bay, were the first in the world to advance their clocks by one hour on July 1, 1908, according to several online sources.
While reports suggest this area was the first to try it out, many history sites say Germany was the first country to adopt it on April 30, 1916, in a bid to conserve electricity, followed by the United Kingdom weeks later.
And the University of Canada West says the credit for the idea belongs to a New Zealand entomologist, who first suggested a shift of two hours in 1895 – a move he proposed to provide more daylight hours after the workday during the summer.
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