6.21.10 Upper Canada Village

Today we left the lovely Migratory Bird Campground on the St. Lawrence Waterway.

The Upper Canada Village was awesome!  It was an 1860's recreated village, using the old buildings that were relocated when the St. Lawrence waterway was flooded to make passage of goods possible, rather than the rapids that they currently were betting against. 

It was living history and just fascinating for us all!  http://www.uppercanadavillage.com/home.htm

We saw cheese being made, visited a one-room schoolhouse, took a carriage ride drawn by two horses, and watched huge tree logs being cut into boards with a water-powered, 3-foot long saw blade! 

We saw wool being carded and woven; saw some 200 year old, water-quartz, French, flour-grinding millstones; and we bought fresh bread from the bakery, waiting in line with others at the gift shop to snap up the loaves.

  It was GREAT!

At each location, the costumed teachers provided fascinating information.  If you stayed an hour, you'd learn new information the entire time.  It was fascinating how they stayed in character and really knew their stuff!

Did you know that cows here are not milked AT ALL in the winter?  It is too cold!

Did you know that cheddar cheese is orange only so that England knew it was from the Colony?  The English cheddar cheese is white.  Food coloring was added to the cheese from Ontario.

Did you know that Loyalists from the U.S. Revolutionary War could come up here and England would give them 200 acres of their own?

It was also fun to hear how often French was spoken.  In fact, the Medical lady providing awesome gory descriptions of the "treatment" and tools for illnesses, spoke everything in both English and French.

  Like this:  English (new info), French (repeating), French (new info), English (repeating), etc.  No pauses interrupted her fascinating dialog.  Her language ability was inspiring. 

A teacher told Jazy, nearly all in Canada who speak French, also know English, but most who speak English, only know English.

Canadian kids are still in school- tomorrow is the last day for one busload from Ottawa (an hour away).  High Schoolers have exams this week. Others finish at the end of the week.

One fascinating cultural difference is that the children here in Canada are not afraid to talk to adults. They reply to greetings and questions like, "Hey, where did you find that Kettle Korn?" and "Are you still in school or did you get out for the summer?" and things I must know.

  They have not apparently been indoctrinated with "stranger danger!" such that they're unable to communicate with adults. 

Teaching the stranger-danger neurotic avoidance response does our kids a disservice - it has not been shown in studies to work anyway.  If a parent is right there, then replying to others ought not be a scary thing.  I seriously doubt that a generation of "stranger danger" indoctrinated kids will create warm, communicative, and connected adults.  

True, kids likely have less to fear in Canada, so perhaps "stranger danger" is not such a concern.  Whatever the reason, the children are much easier and more pleasant to communicate with up here in Canada.  They respond with confidence and assistance.

 

And Yes!  We got our kettle korn after their excellent instructions. 

And the nice parking guy just waved us through after learning that we didn't get to go through the Village yesterday.

And everyone we meet is so friendly and nice- we are having a blast!

We *tremendously* enjoyed Upper Canada Village (thanks, Harvey! :) )