Travel: Niagara Falls area, Canada gear up for big battle re-enactment
Oct 5, 2012
by Warren Gerds
Green Bay Press-Gazette
FILED UNDER
Life & Style
Canadian citizen Des Corran is pumped about next weekend. He’s a re-enactor with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment*, and he’s participating in the re-creation of the Battle of Queenston Heights.
Two hundred years ago on Saturday, American and British soldiers and their support forces engaged in the first major battle of the War of 1812 at Queenston, Canada, which is a few miles north of Niagara Falls.
Some perspective: Green Bay is near one end of the Niagara Escarpment, and Niagara Falls is near the other end of the massive, looping geological formation.
As rock solid as the escarpment has been for eons, politics around the time of the War of 1812 included shifting sand.
Of note, many people living in the Green Bay area backed the British, in part for economic reasons. In a sense, the residents considered the British “we” and the Americans “them.”
For this weekend’s events by 1,000 re-enactors at Queenston, Corran will be among the “we.” Meantime, “they,” the Americans, will kill revered British Gen. Isaac Brock but will lose the battle.
In the re-enactment, Corran said, the “body” of Gen. Brock will be carried a few miles north to Niagara-on-the-Lake, just as happened in history. Brock was a member of a church in town.
Corran and other re-enactors are being paid for their participation.
Signs of local, provincial and national government money supporting bicentennial activities pop up in many places along the Niagara River in Canada between Lake Erie on the south and Lake Ontario on the north.
Corran, who we met in the St. Catherines Museum and Welland Canal Centre, said he is surprised by the enthusiasm for events.
“Canadians usually are blase about historical things,” he said.
On the other hand, Debra Antoncic, curator at RiverBrink Art Museum at Queenston, said she read about government polls that found few Canadians appear aware of the bicentennial.
Antoncic sees the government trying “to ‘rebrand’ Canada as a nation forged by military events such as the War of 1812. This is a very different identity than most Canadians are used to.”
Whether Canadians are running hot or cold, my and my wife’s American eyes saw fresh improvements throughout the region on a recent trip. RiverBrink was among museums with related exhibits, historical signs looked gussied up and lecture series were abundant.
At a drug store rack filled with colorful cards commemorating historical events surrounding Canada’s role in the War of 1812, you can pick out a biographical remembrance of Gen. Brock for $4.95 Canadian. (I didn’t bite).
The bicentennial activity is in addition to other attractions on the isthmus.
• Niagara Falls. Yes, the area is crowded, but you can still easily find space to stand at the edge of one of the wonders of the world and feel its power mere feet away .
Driving toward the Falls, you can its rising mist for miles.
“It took 12,000 years for Niagara Falls to get to where it is today,” Corran said of the carving along the Niagara River.
• Niagara Parkway winds along the river from Fort Erie (opposite Buffalo, N.Y) and provides numerous vistas and lookouts.
For people accustomed to the Fox River, the aquamarine of the Niagara is eye-popping.
Across the river are bluff upon bluff upon bluff — picturesque settings galore.
Stop atop Queenston Heights, and you see for miles along the Niagara River as you look out and north, and, as you look up, you see a statue of Gen. Brock atop a massive monument. You can see Gen. Brock’s statue from more miles away than you can see the mist of Niagara Falls.
Not far away is “the birthplace of Canadian democracy,” we’re told by a guide. It’s the printery of the maverick William Lyon Mackenzie, who published the region’s first independent newspaper and didn’t bow to the British line.
In its neighborhood are new buildings and displays, along with the historic house of Canadian heroine Laura Secord, who warned “us” about an impending attack by “them.” Mostly, the name Laura Secord trips triggers among Canadian chocolate lovers. It’s a brand.
A short, scenic drive north is RiverBrink. It’s a small museum but is stuffed with art and artifacts that express the area. Until Oct. 28, it houses “RiverBrink’s War of 1812,” a substantial exhibition.
The area around the museum will be busy next weekend — real busy.
“I am nervous about the Oct. 13 events because I’m not sure what to expect — numbers of people, re-enactors, parking — all the logistics of such an event,” Antoncic said. “It’s exciting but also worrying.”
• Driving north, soon you will see a vineyard, then another and another. Some have wineries, and some of those are mansions.
A tour of wineries will take you for miles and miles along back roads and neat rows of vines and, at harvest time, clusters of grapes.
Make no mistake, wine is big business in the area. The ground and ecosystem are conducive to quality.
Attractions continue in and around Niagara-on-the-Lake, a town of about 15,000 where the Niagara River flows into Lake Ontario.
The water temperature is 23 degrees Celsius — “room temperature” — a scientist for the Canadian government tells us in a lighthouse/laboratory where he measures water quality every two weeks as he swings through the area.
Shopping is hot in the town that prides itself on quaint shops and fine restaurants — benefits of the wondrous Shaw Festival there. The season of challenging plays in one of North America’s great theater festivals is winding down.
From a play, you can walk to Fort George, reincarnated to its day as a British fortification. Be sure to take a guided tour (free with admission) with Elizabeth, an enthusiastic walking encyclopedia.
Walk in another direction, and you feel like you’ve walked into a painting at Queen’s Royal Park. Look north, and you can see the skyline of Toronto. Look across the Niagara River to New York, and there’s formidable Fort Niagara, in a sense feeling too close.
If you imagine a cannon report from “them,” you feel nervous being one of “us.”
* Corran noted the regiment was so decimated on July 1, 1916, in the Battle of the Somme in World War I that July 1 is observed as Memorial Day in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Interested History i heard first time about this. Visited Niagara falls from both side and its one of my all time favorite destination.
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