For the last 10 years Upper Canada Village has held the Alight at Night festival. Usually the park is shut down from sometime in early October to about Victoria Day. But from late November to New Years Day they open it up from 16:30 to 20:00 daily for you to walk around in the dark and see the buildings and many of the trees and fences decked out in Christmas lights. Visiting this is becoming a bit of a holiday tradition with us.
The village is a museo-park made up of buildings that were rescued and brought to that location just before the 1958 flooding of 10 communities in the area, (now known as the lost villages) due to the construction of the Moses Saunders Hydroelectric Dam and the St-Lawrence Seaway. Two communities were relocated, but many buildings were demolished, and 6500 people forced to move in the name of progress. The big picture clashed with people's lives as it does so often. For many older people who lived in the area this is still a very traumatic thing.
The first time we went to Alight at Night it was still a new event and they had decorated mostly just the buildings, and not all of them. This was before more serious hobby photography was happening, and the pictures we took then were either done with flash, or were wobbly. Now the decorations have grown to half a million lights, there is dining and hot chocolate available in the restaurants and some of the historic buildings, skating on a rink, music from some buildings, and an elaborate sound and light show at Chrysler Hall. (The photographer has a few more tricks up his sleeve too.) There are 5 horse drawn wagons equipped with sleigh bells that go around constantly. Avoiding horse shit in the dark can be tricky!
So, we drove down route 31 at sunset, bleak but pretty farm country under a thin blanket of snow, and arrived at the park at 16:50. We had to stand in line for 40 minutes to get tickets. The place was absolutely packed. The temperature was about -5, and there was no wind, which makes the cold very bearable, and therefore ideal conditions for this outing. While standing in line one of us went to the village store to get a loaf of the bread before it sold out, and took it back to the car. Eventually everyone in front of us had made up their mind if they wanted to pay for the horse-drawn wagon ride, and we got in.
Right inside the park entrance, the church's carriage shed
Ghost people, x-mas tree, and the Robertson house in the background
The blacksmith shop
Lighted poplars with shadow-me
Traces of the wagon lights. The red trace is from the horse harness
The schoolhouse looking inviting
The church was set up to be the showiest building. Some high tech light setup bathed the white building in a slow changing succession of red, brown, yellow, green, blue, purple and over again. It could be seen from almost everywhere in the village and the effect was absolutely gorgeous. A recording of a children's choir accompanied by piano played from the building
Christ Church and Cooks Tavern and Livery
Louck's farm was decorated mostly in blue lights. For some reason this is my favourite building in the village. Speakers on the porch played a recording of a tenor singing such classics as "Oh Holy Night" and "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" for a nice traditional touch. The apple trees were all dressed up in lights.
Although you can argue that putting half a million Christmas lights in a village that isn't supposed to have electricity to begin with is not very purist, I still think you can do it well,or do it poorly. For this reason I do not care for the sound and light show they put up at Chrysler Hall. (But I still post a link to it, so you can judge for yourself.) I find it is just too "Vegas" to fit with the rest, and the unapologetic modern electric sound of the Trans Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas Eve in Sarajevo" is also out of place. Oh well.
I love coming to this place. I saw it for the first time in 1983 when my friend came over from Europe. I had been in Canada just over a year. I had just finished studying Quebec pioneer history, including Upper and Lower Canada in high school for the past year. I'd seen old Montreal, and the old town in Quebec City, but those places are old buildings filled with modern businesses. I kept hearing radio commercials for this place called Upper Canada Village near Morrisburg, and persuaded my father to take us there.
This place was different, it was the anti-museum.Costumed park employees discussed who these homes had belonged to and how they lived. It showed how ordinary people lived in 1860 eastern Ontario, their farming and food production and building methods, and their households and small businesses. It allowed you to get a real sense of this period. At that time they also emphasised the history of the United Empire Loyalists much more than they do now. (No surprise they speak of it less now, that was more 1790 and not 1860.) It started off an interest in pioneer history that has remained ever since.
Much later I identified that first visit as the moment I first put down roots on this continent. Canada, as my new home country, acquired another dimension for me in that visit. About 7 years ago a customer at work, a man in his 60's told me that his older sister had been a maid in Chrysler Hall when she was young, and it was still a private residence. It's such a small world, isn't it?
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