Fort George, some sailboats and a great day...

 So last Saturday, Timothy and I spent the day together - having chosen a wonderful, beautiful day for a dagje uit...our goal was Fort George in Niagara on the Lake... neither of us had ever been there and since we both like history, it was a good fit! 

First we had a history lesson from an officer and a gentleman... he was an excellent historian (all the docents were) and told his tale very eloquently with funny little memorable bits in between the facts.  It was an excellent nutshell War of 1812 historical review and i must say i didn't remember much of this from school.  The fellows sitting beside me were from across the river and i wondered what they were thinking listening to his tales...

This smartly dressed fellow gave us a musket demonstration - having read a lot of the Bernard Cornwell books about Richard Sharpe,  it was neat to see the whole process done step by step in front of us, albeit without live ammunition - i wonder, where do they get musket balls nowadays?  Does anyone still make them?  Can't be much call for them with modern warfare being all technology, automatic weapons and ICBMs and stuff like that... people don't seem to like standing in lines about 200 feet apart and firing at each other pointblank and hoping that the other guys musket would either misfire due to damp black powder, blowing winds or just plain failure of the flint to spark and light the powder...Doesn't sound like much fun, does it?  So much for the glory of war...  This nice fellow let us hold the musket afterwards and it sure was heavy - probably about 10 pounds - can you imagine marching across rugged countryside, having to carry that thing, plus your ammunition, food and equipment while dressed in an itchy uniform?  I certainly can't - i think i might have deserted pretty quickly...

It might have been sunny, but it was definitely not super warm... the interpreter lady was dressed warmly!  I would have liked to have stolen her gloves!

The good old Union Jack waving proudly in the breeze.. i do like this flag!

Take that, you menace across the river! 

It's spring at Fort George.. pretty yellow flowers nestled in the shelter of the barricades.

The inner part of the fort - it was hard to get a good shot of the whole place but the whole place was basically destroyed during the war, not much left except the powder magazine (which was super neat - totally well thought out as far as safety goes - you needed to wear special clothes to work in there, there was high-tech ventilation and storage for all the different types of blackpowder and thick walls and doors to insulate it against the shock of cannonballs falling).  This fort was totally rebuilt and set up like there was a regiment of soldiers staying there - with advanced kitchen facilities,bunk houses and officer's quarters.  Quite a different life than what we're used to.

The buildings were constructed using old building techniques - i loved the look of the crossbeams..

We were attacked by a troop of mini-red coats who came charging over the field.  I'm not sure if they were something like a scout group or a huge birthday party or some other education group but it was kinda funny to see all these mini-soldiers!  They were even trying to march later on "left, right, left, right, left"

Checking out the enemy across the river at Fort Niagara!

We witnessed the amazing and totally crazy aftermath of the wind storm last week.  We could not believe how many trees were ripped from the ground like matchsticks and snapped in half, huge root balls torn up and almost every other property with one, two, sometimes three huge trees down.  We wondered a lot why certain trees went and others didn't... why one was taken and the other left - isn't there a Bible verse about that?  Some of the trees were likely diseased and weak already and maybe other kinds of trees just don't have deep roots like evergreens.  We were duly impressed to be sure and realized that Hamilton got the light end of the deal to be sure!

Fort Niagara looming across the river - just waiting to pounce on its unsuspecting Canadian neighbours!  It certainly isn't far away and i entertained visions of smuggling goods across the river with a highly advanced plan, however, my plans were promptly evaluated and found lacking by program evaluators and i was forced to abandon my nefarious money-making schemes!   Good thing one of us is level-headed!

A selfie... not too bad for a first go at it!