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Welcome to the first Welcome to Historic Fort York – the birthplace of Toronto! Our plan is to publish this newsletter quarterly, giving visitors, patrons, volunteers, staff and the community brief but informative insight into daily life at “the old fort”. You will read about special events, volunteer activities and opportunities, and staff news. You’ll learn some interesting facts about artifacts, buildings, and exhibits. You’ll get advance notice of special events and how you can become more involved in this National Historic Site. The last few months have been the usual mixture of excitement, activity and recovery: January danced with Queen Charlotte’s Birthday Ball; the Storytelling Festival stopped by on a snowy Sunday in February; miserable weather meant low attendance for the March Break Time Machine; the 1813 Battle of York was remembered in April; in May, many first time visitors came for Doors Open, the free, city-wide celebration of built heritage. Also in May, the honourable James K. Bartleman, Lt. Gov. of Ontario, stopped by for a brief ceremony to officially welcome the Mercury Trek Team (pictured above) to the province. These soldier-cyclists are part of celebrations marking 100 years of military communications in Canada. Exercise Mercury Trek has them cycling from B.C. to Newfoundland, (averaging 140 km per day!) and Historic Fort York was honored to be the host site for their official welcome to Ontario. Check out the whole project at: www.commelec2003.ca In June the Buffalo Jump Peace Walk wound its way from Nathan Philips Square and finished up at the fort. Music and dancers entertained in the west moat for the afternoon.
Birthplace issue of ! Perhaps you weren’t aware that the fort is open all year round? During the winter and spring, most of our visitors are students on class trips. Some stay all day and even over-night for intensive “living history” experiences. This is repeated on weekends for cubs, brownies, guides and scouts. May and June are usually even busier with end-of-the-year class trips -a scheduling challenge to book as many groups each day as want to visit. Yes, the SARS issue has caused many cancellations from out-of-town groups. Add to that a short workto-rule restriction for some Toronto schools and some days were not as busy as they could have been. However, most days during the last few weeks of June saw the familiar clusters of students touring the site and descending upon the canteen for their assault on the candy sticks, chocolate bars and ice cream! Repair and restoration projects this spring and summer included a re-working of the modern “bunker” kitchen. Walls and public washrooms were removed; facilities upgraded and much needed storage space was created. The final stage of the Blue Barracks project is almost finished, and will provide a brand new archaeology lab/office and another set of public washrooms to replace those removed from the “bunker”. Anyone who has been at a function in the Blue Barracks and had to trek halfway across the site to the washrooms will be very pleased with these new facilities. Other capital upgrade projects include replacement of the wooden gun platforms, and repairs to porches, gates both east and west, and the windows of the North and South Soldiers’ Barracks. The newly restored Brick Oven in the Officers’ kitchen is almost ready to be fired up. It won’t be long now before staff and volunteers are baking cakes, pies and breads for visitors to enjoy!
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