Film explores explosive turning point of 1812
Toronto blast changed the course of war
This month’s 200th anniversary of the start of the War of 1812 will be marked with a colossal bang: the television premiere of Explosion 1812, a new documentary that argues the intentional detonation of Upper Canada’s main ammunition supExplosion 1812 ply at present-day airs tonight Toronto in April at 10 p.m. on 1813 — described History. as “one of the biggest explosions that had ever been witnessed in North America” — is a greatly underappreciated moment in history that was key to thwarting the U.S. conquest of Canada.
The two-hour, Canadian-made film — to be aired by History Television tonight, the eve of the bicentennial of the formal U.S. declaration of war on June 18, 1812 — recounts how retreating BritishCanadian troops at Fort York blew up the colony’s “grand magazine” along the Lake Ontario shore as U.S. forces closed in on Upper Canada’s capital on April 27, 1813.
The storytelling is framed by an archeological search for traces of the explosion, including the crater known to have been left when the military storehouse was blown up, along with its considerable contents: an estimated 14,000 kilograms of black powder, 10,000 cannon balls and 30,000 cartridges.
The field investigation near today’s Fort York heritage site, led by Toronto archaeologist Ron Williamson, ultimately yielded several discoveries that shed new light on the events that took place 199 years ago.
Though U.S. forces temporarily seized York, the well-timed destruction of the ammunition depot just west of the pioneer settlement killed or maimed more than 250 U.S. soldiers, deprived the attacking troops of a vital weapons cache that could have ensured the U.S. invasion’s long-term success, and covered the eastward escape of a major contingent of Upper Canada’s military to Kingston, Ont.
The story of the giant explosion is told partly through the eyes of a young boy, Patrick Finan, whose account of the fighting and the blast at York was also captured by the late Canadian writer Pierre Berton in his popular two-volume history of the war.
This “little-known and poorly understood” event, as it’s described in Explosion 1812, was in fact “the pivotal moment of the entire war,” according to the documentary’s executive producer, Elliott Halpern.
U.S. soldiers outraged at what they considered an act of extreme treachery — even a war crime because of their comrades’ fatal proximity to the explosion — went on a vengeful rampage in the captured capital, terrorizing the civilian population.
Those actions, in turn, prompted a similar assault on Washington in 1814, when the U.S. capital was stormed by British and Canadian troops who set fire to the White House.