We decided to take a rest from boating down the St. Lawrence today as it is a very important day – our 26th anniversary! We haven’t even had a major catastrophe or any harsh words on this trip, so we consider ourselves lucky!

Since we took the day off, we went sightseeing. The first stop was the memorial at Crysler Farm. This was the site of an important War of 1812 battle and we fended off the American invaders even though we were outnumbered drastically! We just missed the re-enactment of the battle (thank goodness – it was on Saturday, one of the hottest days of the summer – yuck!). Anyway, here is a picture of the memorial.

After the memorial, we went to Upper Canada Village and because we had already been at Fort Henry in Kingston, we got in for free, so if you decide to tour the region, keep your ticket stubs.

Upper Canada Village was definitely worthwhile as it had many authentic working businesses such as the cheese maker, shoemaker, blacksmith, flour mill, woolen factory and a variety of farms as well as a school, physician’s home, tavern, tinsmith and bakery.

We took the tow scow from the beginning of the village down the canal to the top. Our day would not be complete unless we had a boat ride!

If you look closely on the left side of the above picture, you should see the horse pulling the scow.

The most interesting part for me was talking to the schoolteacher. She told me that instruction was totally individualized for each child because you never knew who would show up each day. Sometimes a child would miss six months of school because he or she would be expected to work at home on the farm. I thought that we have gone completely full circle since we individualize instruction for each child too and quite often their attendance is very poor (I doubt that they work on the farm).

The flour mill was also very interesting and the building was amazing.

After the tour of Upper Canada Village, Dennis worked on the boat while I biked into Morrisburg (on the paved shoulder – very nice!) to get a few groceries. We will head out tomorrow but I am not sure where we are stopping or if we have any locks to get through. I guess we had better figure that out before we set off!