Upper Canada Village Pt I - the early 1800s

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Upper Canada Village (UCV), one of North America’s premier historical re-creations, occupies a 66 acre (c.26 ha) heritage park beside the St. Lawrence River near Morrisburg, Ontario. Opened in 1961, it depicts a typical 19^thcentury village and small farms in what was then “Upper Canada”. It shows the sheer tenacity by which its citizens endured and thrived in conditions that we would consider almost unbearable today.

Dredging and creating the St Lawrence Seaway required flooding large areas and submerging ten riverside communities – the “lost villages” -- some going back to United Empire Loyalist times before 1800. Many of the buildings from these communities were relocated before flooding to the future site of UCV, and other buildings from the general vicinity have since been added. Today there are more than forty, which together recreate the buildings and (with top-notch re-enactors) the activities typical of a farming village prior to the turn of the century.

What follow are photos and descriptions of the earliest buildings in UCV and their way of life in the early 19th century (portrayed by re-enactors). Subsequent articles will feature later buildings and the everyday lives of villagers in the mid-century; finally I'll share two extraordinary activities that I was privileged to watch during a recent visit.

There are very informative articles at www.uppercanadavillage.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Canada_Village . In 2005 two young reporters from the Ottawa Citizen spent two weeks living and working in UCV exactly as their distant ancestors would have done, with absolutely no modern amenities and no way to contact the outside world. You can read their interesting stories by clicking on “Little House in the Village” at www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/features/littlehouse/index.html . As I believe this and the subsequent articles will show, UCV is definitely a place not to be missed when visiting Ontario.

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Comments

[Rainyb]

I love that effect ;o)

[Nanci Phelan]

Thanks
This was a nice walk back into history and my time living on the St Lawrence when we toured UCV a few times. I think they deck out in lights a la Christmas!!! I see many of those scenes here everyday with our Mennonite population!!! There is a broom making place in St Jacobs. Thanks for the memory.