In 1967, Canada celebrated the 100th anniversary of Confederation and to mark the occasion, Montreal staged an international exhibition on two islands in the St. Lawrence, the Île St.-Hélène and the Île Notre-Dame. Expo 67 was to become the most successful of its kind in the twentieth century, praised for a “sophisticated standard of excellence [that] almost defies description.” Described as “a multi-sensory total-environment poem,” Expo brought millions of Canadians and international visitors to a city said to possess such “verve and panache” that citizens from the more remote regions were carefully coached in the media on how to measure up to the place. A microcosm of global competition, most notably between the United States and the Soviet Union and their satellites, an encyclopedia of the latest technological developments, and a compendium of 1960s popular culture, ranging from the campy exhibits of the United States to a “color-splashed display of Carnaby Street’s mad-mod styles” in the British pavilion, Expo 67 was also a unique opportunity to see important collections of art both traditional and modern, for which participating nations had all but ransacked their museums. The effect on Canadian visitors and artists was profound.