The massive front gates were the last to be completed. A log “Trading Post” was built as a reception centre well outside the fort’s reconstructed perimeter.
The first official visitors to the fort never stepped inside. In June 1939, Niagara-on-the-Lake was included in the Royal Visit by King George VI[37] and his consort Queen Elizabeth.[38] As the Royal cavalcade proceeded along the road skirting the western flank of the fort, three thousand excited school children cheered and waved their flags. Even the recently transplanted Lonely Sycamore bravely showed its leaves.
With the work finally completed, plans were underway for a gala opening party. The restored Fort Niagara across the river had enjoyed a grand celebration in 1934, as had Fort Erie in 1939. But Canada was now in the midst of another world war and the NPC decided that such a party was not appropriate. The gates quietly opened to the public on July 1, 1940. There was even concern that the Department of National Defence might exercise its right to reclaim the fort site for military purposes. Much to the relief of local officials, the fort itself was not needed as part of the war effort. In fact, for the tens of thousands of service men and women training on the Commons at Camp Niagara, the fort became a gentle reminder of their rich military heritage.
St. George’s Lonely Sycamore at Fort George Heights, Niagara, photo, circa 1890. The eighty-foot tall Lonely Sycamore stood proudly near Brock’s Bastion. A favourite picnic spot, it inspired patriotic prose and poetry. Courtesy of the Toronto Public Library, Toronto Reference Library, T 13478.
Moving the Lonely Sycamore, photo, 1938. This was the largest known tree removal of such a mature tree attempted at that time. The huge root was balled and burlapped. Under the careful supervision of students from the newly inaugurated Niagara Parks School of Horticulture, the tree was pulled through a timber-lined trench to its new site outside the fort.
Courtesy of the Niagara Parks Commission Archives.
Finally, in June 1950 the official opening and dedication of Fort George was held in the presence of ten thousand spectators with marching bands and a cross-border exchange of cannon salutes. Festivities were capped off with a very twentieth-century phenomenon — a stirring fly-past by American and Canadian Air Forces. Initially Fort George was operated as a passive museum with displays of military artifacts in the blockhouses. A custodian lived on the premises (the site of the garrison hospital in the original 1799 fort). In 1969 the ninety-nine-year lease was broken and the NPC officially transferred ownership of the site to the federal Parks Canada. Navy Hall and Fort George were named a “National Historic Park.” Reflecting changing attitudes about museums, Fort George became a “living history” site with emphasis on interpreting the garrison on the eve of the War of 1812 with live demonstrations of various aspects of garrison life, including the soldiers and camp-followers.
Bird’s-eye view of Fort George, 1950, artist Tiffany Merritt, graphite on paper, 2011. Although not exactly as it was originally built, the restored Fort George captures the essence of the original fort as a living museum.
Drawing based on conjectural drawings in an unpublished report. Gouhar Shemdin, David Bouse, “A Report on Fort George” (Ottawa: Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, 1975). With permission of Parks Canada.
To accommodate increased visitation, a larger parking lot was carved out of the Commons to the west and north of the fort site, partially camouflaged with berms and a newly planted small forest of native trees. Part of the American earthworks and campsite (1813) and possibly an American soldiers’ burial site may lie under the northeast edge of the parking lot, the bush, and the grassy fields beyond, along Byron Street.
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