Cannons, conflict and costumes
Annual siege weekend in Fort Erie promises noisy step back in time
It’s more than just the chance to re-create life during the War of 1812 that brings re-enactors back to Old Fort Erie for the siege weekend, according to manager Travis Hill.
“We’re the only fort that blows itself up every year,” he says.
“I think the pyrotechnics that we use and the show that is provided keeps re-enactors coming back every year.”
The 33rd annual reenactment of the siege on Fort Erie is set for the Aug. 11 and 12 weekend.
Three battles will be fought, and all weekend hundreds of re-enactors dressed as early 1800s civilians, undertakers, musicians, weapon makers and field surgeons will show how they lived and worked back then.
They’ll take visitors as close as they can to the days when Canada, then only a British colony, and the U.S. were at war. When canister shot from a cannon could tear a soldier to shreds, and a torso wound almost surely meant death.
Meanwhile, history continues to reveal itself at Fort Erie.
Archeology students from Wilfrid Laurier University visit every two years and since 2012 have uncovered more than 100,000 artifacts — most of those being tiny shards of glass or pottery, but also numerous musket balls, flints, buttons, fragments of weapons and other historic pieces.
Many date back to 1812 and earlier, including evidence of indigenous communities that lived on the Fort Erie waterfront thousands of years ago.
Among the scraps from previous centuries, they also unearthed evidence of a blacksmith shop and officers’ quarters outside the existing fort grounds.
“Piece by piece, it tells a story and paints a picture of the earlier history pertaining to the fort,” said Hill.
The original Fort Erie was built in 1764 closer to the water. The fort that stands today was built in 1805, damaged during the war and abandoned immediately afterward, then restored during the 1930s as a federal government
project.
The siege weekend re-creations are limited to the fort property, but at the time of the war — when the Americans held the fort and the Brits wanted back in — the American lines stretched maybe a half-kilometre further west, and south into the Waverly Beach area.
Outside the fort, the British lines extended north probably as far as the Peace Bridge area.
“It’s named Garrison Road for a reason,” Hill said.
In those days, a cannon could fire solid shot from as far off as a half-mile, aimed to punch holes in stone walls and earthworks.
“Now we don’t have any cannons of that size that are used for our reenactment,” Hill said. “We do have field cannons, which are built on a field carriage. Those are the ones with the big wheels.
“If you were to visit inside the fort, you’d see a different type of carriage, with smaller wheels. Those weren’t designed to be mobile.
“So if you see the big wagon wheels, those were for easier transport.”
As many as 600 re-enactors, most from across Ontario and around the Great Lakes states, will live at the fort during the re-enactment weekend.
“Because we’ve been blessed with a pretty big property, we never face the issue of being overcrowded,” said Hill of the fort, which is operated by Niagara Parks Commission. “It may be one of the reasons why the reenactors like coming here, because it’s a bigger space.
“Other heritage sites or battlefields aren’t really blessed with big sites because of development, or one reason or another.”
Now, some fort facts:
No one knows for sure how many bodies are buried on the grounds and around the fort, but there is a mass burial site for 153 soldiers, marked by a tall monument.
During the nighttime re-creation of the British storming the fort walls, they re-enact the explosion of the ammunition magazine. Accounts from the day describe bodies blown 25 metres into the air, and the dead piled two and three-deep in the pit below.
In fact, the magazine that exploded is on the side of the fort closest to the water, near the kitchen. There’s not enough space there for re-enactments, though, so they use the other side of the fort.
Gord.Howard@ niagaradailies.com 905-225-1645 I @gordhoward