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Around 1973-74, Fort York began to offer in-depth school programmes beyond the two-hour tours that had been a part of the site’s services for decades. This move was one element in a larger trend in historic site museums at the time to provide more ‘hands-on’ activities within day-long or multi-day programmes. At the time I was one of the interpreters charged with developing expanded services. From experience in adding a participatory tactical component to the standard tour, we knew that children liked to do drill. In those earlier events, the interpreters had their muskets, but the students had to perform on pretend ‘air muskets.’ However, when we went to our first in-depth programme – which was five days long (!) – we decided we had to do a better job in arming them.
The first classes were grades four and five groups from Etobicoke, so we had to find something small enough for children of that age to use. An immediate solution was to issue them with Martini-Henry rifles (think of the movie Zulu). While years out of date for 1812, being firearms of the 1870s and ’80s, they did the trick and were a lot easier for nineand ten-year-olds to handle. We also had lots of them because in the 1950s the late Brigadier John McInnis had bought a great pile of Martini-Henrys for two dollars each. Of course, the kids loved using them and shouted ‘bang’ with even more gusto than earlier classes had with their ‘air muskets.’ Naturally, this solution was only a temporary one. Fortunately an industrial arts teacher at an Etobicoke high school, Peter Clarke, on becoming aware of our plight, had his students make up a set of the first generation of wooden muskets (which were the same design as those currently in use). They were a huge hit with the kids of course – in part because they were a lot lighter than the Martini-Henrys. These black-painted plywood muskets quickly became institutionalized at the fort. Over the years, we’ve added to our stock of them so that we can deploy ever larger ‘forces,’ as well as replace the inevitable breakage that occurs from the ‘hard campaigning’ these props undergo in teaching children how soldiers deployed tactically during the musket era of the fort’s early decades. They remain popular, as anyone can see when a school group that used them before comes back to Fort York. On those occasions, as soon as the kids get a free moment – and without any prompting – they charge over to the big grey wooden box where the wooden muskets are kept, ready to defend the fort once again.
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