For the President, Mrs McAleese, Saturday was a day of meeting and learning about three of Canada's largest ethnic groups: the French, the Scottish and the Irish.
Arriving in Canada on Friday, before her State visit started officially in Ottawa yesterday, she detoured to Prince Edward Island in the Maritimes, to which 11 of her great-grandmother's brothers and sisters had emigrated.
With her husband, Dr Martin McAleese, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, and his wife Annette, the President had a low-key, homely start to her visit.
That changed yesterday evening with the official welcome at Ottawa's Government House, Rideau Hall, by the Governor General of Canada, Mr Romeo LeBlanc.
She was driven to the dais by horse-drawn landau and viewed a presentation of arms by the guard of honour, followed by the national anthem and a 21-gun salute. She then inspected the guard of honour.
Last night she attended a reception for the Irish community in Rideau Hall and tonight, after a day of engagements including lunch with the Prime Minister, Mr Jean Chretien, she will be guest of honour at a State dinner.
On Saturday though, the President and her party were entertained by the French, Scottish and Irish, in that order, people of Prince Edward Island. The early inhabitants, the French, were driven out after military defeats by the British in 1758.
Many were deported to France but most emigrated to Louisiana or hid out locally and returned to promote the Arcadian culture which is still thriving. At the Arcadian Museum Mrs McAleese was told of their struggle to maintain their identity, despite the fact that the most common surname on the island is MacDonald. The Catholic religion had helped greatly in keeping their language and culture alive, she was told.
Then it was on to the College of Piping and Celtic Arts in Summerside, where she was entertained to a display of fiddling, drumming, bagpiping and dancing by kilted descendants of Scots settlers - and was presented with an specially woven and inscribed wool shawl in Prince Edward Island tartan. The college, she said, was a ambassador for Celtic culture and sent a strong message to us in Ireland about our Celtic roots.
Next it was the turn of the Irish and particularly those from Monaghan who arrived as the French were banished in the 18th century. They were so influential that the legislative assembly of what was then called St John's Island chose to rename the new British colony New Ireland but the privy council refused to allow it.
Today on Prince Edward Island - renowned in many parts of the world as the home of Anne of Green Gables - a quarter of the people claim Irish descent, mostly from Monaghan and other parts of Ulster. In Kinkora on Saturday afternoon Mrs McAleese met many of them.
She told the Provincial Minister of Agriculture, Ms Marion Reed, the chairman of the Kinkora Community, Mr Leo Flood and representatives of six Monaghan communities that seeing the fields of potatoes, the island's main crop, reminded her of the potato's significance in Irish history.
She had always been fascinated at how two Celtic races, the Irish and Scots, had come to live side by side in Atlantic Canada. The Irish had come before the famine and their migration was led by Father John McDonald, who had inherited land on Prince Edward island.
Yesterday the presidential party attended mass at St Dunston's Basilica, Charlottetown, celebrated by Father Gerard Tinsley.