Recently I had the opportunity to revisit Upper Canada Village (UCV), one of North America’s premier historical re-creations. Just as on my earlier visit six years ago, I was enthralled with the village’s authenticity and the sheer tenacity with which its citizens endured and thrived in conditions that would be almost unbearable for us today.

UCV is a 66 acre (c.26 ha) heritage park beside the St. Lawrence River near Morrisburg, Ontario. It depicts a typical 19th century village and small farm in what was then “Upper Canada” or “Canada West”. Owned and operated by the St. Lawrence Parks Commission, it was opened in 1961, after three years of construction work as part of the St. Lawrence Seaway project.

Dredging and creating the 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 been added. Today they number more than forty, which together recreate the buildings and (with top-notch re-enactors) the activities typical of a farming village prior to 1866.

Part I will give photos and descriptions of the earliest buildings in UCV and some of the daily activities which would have taken place. Subsequent articles will feature some of the later buildings, and two extraordinary activities that I was privileged to watch.

Adjacent to UCV is the 250 acre (100 ha) Crysler Memorial Park commemorating the nearby Battle of Crysler’s Farm, one of the major victories of the War of 1812, which pretty well put an end to American efforts to conquer what was to become Canada.

There are very informative articles at www.uppercanadavillage.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Canada_Village . Three years ago, 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 or contact with 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.