Morrisburg - Upper Canada Village

Upper Canada Village

Province: Ontario

Hwy. 2 (eastbound) from Morrisburg, exit to Hwy. 401 at Upper Canada Road for Cryslers Farm Battlefield Park.

"Living history" is a specialty of the Canadian museum service and Upper Canada Village near Morrisburg is one of the most outstanding and fascinating examples of the technique which involves faithfully reproducing a period from the past in every living detail. Many of the buildings in the village came from sites in the old St Lawrence Valley condemned to extinction by the great new inland waterway. Now re-erected here they convey all the appearance and atmosphere of a real 19th C community, a community which has progressed over the years between 1780 and 1867 through the efforts of its white settler inhabitants. Upper Canada Village very vividly re-creates the everyday lives of people in the St Lawrence Valley from the beginnings of settlement and the initial cultivation of the land to the first phase of industrialization.

A walk around Upper Canada Village

A bridge and a gate lead into the museum village.

The village has 35 houses in all. These range from simple timber shacks built by fur trappers and pioneer settlers to homely farmsteads, brick-built houses exuding solid middle-class comfort, and the refined elegance of a Greek Revival villa.

Everything a 19th C community would have possessed in the way of public buildings is reproduced here - schools, an Anglican church, shops, and even a doctor's surgery; likewise tradesmen's premises - bakery, smithy and sawmill.

A great bustle of activity prevails in the streets and houses of Upper Canada Village. Dressed of course in the costumes of the day, the "villagers" go about their routine daily business (visitors are welcome to join in if they feel so inclined).

The Asselstine Factory is a reconstruction of a textile mill. Regular demonstrations are given showing how cloth was manufactured in the early days of industrialization.

Life on a 19th C North American farm is portrayed in detail, all kinds of authentic farmyard activities being carried out for real.

In Willard's Hotel the meals as well as the architecture are in the style of the 1850s.

Anyone wanting to try out the transport of the time can venture on a boat trip or take a drive in a horse-drawn carriage.