A Day in Brockville – O Canaderp!

For Sylvain’s birthday, Manon organized a day-trip to Brockville, Ontario, “City of the Thousand Islands” — a historic town on the Saint Lawrence.

We took the train from Montreal, a two hour journey, arriving mid-morning. It was a beautiful day.

The city of Brockville as it’s known today was largely established by British loyalists fleeing the nascent United States in the 1780s, although the islands and the area have been inhabited as long as there have been people in North America. Brockville was later was the site of more conflict with the US during the War of 1812. It became the first self-incorporated town in the province of Ontario, and was a center of industry and transport (more on this later). The town bears its 1000-Island monicker for geographical reasons, and to my relief, not for any association with salad dressing.

We walked into town along Perth street, where brick houses from the 1880s sit next to stone houses from 1810 and pebble-walled or vinyl-sided homes from the 1970s. The main drag, King Street, has book stores and pottery shops, restaurants, thrift stores, cannabis shops, and even a record store.

The downtown area is a curious mix of water-side resort, historical locale, and retirement community. Locals attended the thrice-weekly farmer’s market, middle-aged gangs drove through on the Harley Davidsons and funny reverse trikes, people gathered at a church plant sale, one or two sketchy-looking folks hung out on the sidewalk near the drug store, and families wheeled their strollers into a place called The Fudgery.

We went in to a cafe for some coffee, and were surprised to see all manner of rare Japanese candies and Hello Kitty and Pokémon cookie-painting kits among the bagels’n’lox, Nanaimo bars, bánh mì, gluten-free donuts, and croissants. A surprising place! And they made a good cup of coffee.

As mentioned before, Brockville was a major transit hub, and formed an important juncture in the Brockville and Ottawa Railway (interestingly, not the B&O Railroad from the old US version of Monopoly — that one was the Baltimore and Ohio). To join up with the shipping on the Saint Lawrence, Canada’s first railway tunnel was dug under the town, which has been made into a walking tour.

The town has installed a walkway and lighting and some interpretive displays. It’s surprisingly airy and non-calustrophobic for a cave-like place. Interestingly, it’s old enough that leaking groundwater has formed accretions like any natural cave.

Next, we had a celebratory English Tea at an unassuming tea house right in the center of downtown across from a monument to the town’s lost soldiers. The view was vairy Bri’ish in a Victorian sort of way.

The British Cafe’s appearance was misleading. The tea was spectacular, with delicious cucumber sandwiches, scones, home-made strawberry jam, clotted cream, and far, far more. Everything was very fresh and extremely tasty! We stuffed ourselves.

After tea, we went down to the waterfront, and walked in the park. We passed big groups of Canadian geese and their young goslings, skulking dinosaur-like around the grass. Flocks of cormorants were swimming in the Saint Lawrence, and we could look across to Morristown, New York.

In addition to historical markers pointing out the sites of factories, shipping centers, cholera quarantine barracks, forts, and sunken ships, they had a fierce fighter plane threatening some luxe condos. There was also a memorial to abused women, right in the target path of the plane.

We spent more time wandering around downtown, looking at the churches and historical buildings. As the wind kicked up, we spent some time reading in the very pleasant public library, which also apparently serves as a sort of community center. We placed a few pieces on the communal jigsaw puzzle.

We had some cocktails, crusty bread, and salads on the patio at a nice bistro, and listened to their music which was all reinterpretations and covers of old songs.

Eventually, it was back to the train station, and the 8:15 train back to Montreal. The light faded very slowly, and for much of the ride back, there was a grand sunset with wild clouds.