Historic fort builds on the future Wellington builds on the future
Posted Feb 18, 2010 By Conan De Vries
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By preserving the past, Parks Canada has assured a bright future for Prescott's iconic Fort Wellington National Historic Site. 
Conan de Vries, St. Lawrence EMC
Conservative Member of Parliament Gord Brown was on hand at Fort Wellington in Prescott last week to announce a $1.1 million investment in the historic site, which will allow Parks Canada to install an exhibit featuring a genuine War of 1812 British gunboat.
A genuine British gunboat from the War of 1812, lifted from the bottom of Brown's Bay in 1967, will be relocated from its current home at Mallorytown Landing to the fort's brand new visitors centre when the building opens next year.
Last summer, the federal government announced a $2 million investment in a new building to house the site's interpretive centre and reception area.
The centre will feature exhibits elaborating on the fort's role in the War of 1812 and the Upper Canada Rebellion.
Construction will begin in the fall of this year and finish by the following April, in time for an opening in July of 2011.
Once completed, the new visitors centre will house the 50-foot long gunboat hull in a 1,500 square foot display space. It will cost Parks Canada a little more than $1 million to move the boat from St. Lawrence Islands National Park in Mallorytown, as well as to undertake some further conservation on the artifact and to install an expanded War of 1812 exhibit, of which the gunboat will be the most prominent part.
"It's exciting for Fort Wellington and the Town of Prescott to have both a new visitors centre and an artifact of this magnitude," said Parks Canada's Elizabeth Pilon, who will oversee the new gunboat installation.
Last week, Parks Canada officials joined Leeds-Grenville MP Gord Brown at the fort to announce the $1.1 million investment, a stimulus grant provided through the federal government's Economic Action Plan.
"Fort Wellington is important to Canada's history," said Brown. "By investing in these sites, our government is helping to preserve and protect these special places."
The federal government has made investment in tourism one of the priorities of Canada's Economic Action Plan and has set aside $374 million for expansion and improvement of the nation's parks and historic sites.
The new visitors centre is still being designed, with the final blueprints due for approval in about six weeks, and will incorporate into its design critical environmental controls that will be more conducive to the preservation of delicate historical artifacts. "It's very difficult to take organic material out of the water and have it survive," said John Grenville, National Historic Sites program manager for Parks Canada's Eastern Ontario Field Unit.
The raising of the gunboat in 1967 was one of the first projects undertaken by Parks Canada's then nascent underwater archaeology program, now regarded as one of the finest in North America.
"It's a very important artifact," said Grenville. "It is one of the larger artifacts that Parks Canada is responsible for."
When the boat was removed from the waters at Brown's Bay, it was immediately plunged into a bath of ethylene glycol, which forces the water out of the engorged wood and replaces it with the preservative.
"It has withstood its time out of the water," said Grenville. "It's in really good condition."
Gunboats were broad, flat-bottomed vessels intended to carry troops and equipment, able to carry up to three naval cannons, without drawing much water, an ideal design for the shoals and shallow waters in and around the 1000 Islands.
This particular boat was built in the early 1800s but shows signs of subsequent remodelling, deviating in a number of ways from the standard British design of the time. A heavier centreboard, enlarged rudder and extra planking suggest the boat was adapted to the waters of the St. Lawrence.
Bringing this artifact to Fort Wellington will contribute significantly to the site's capacity to animate the War of 1812 for visitors and to make clear just how closely tied the fort, and the Town of Prescott, has always been to the St. Lawrence River.
"This was a really important announcement for us," said Grenville. "It brings a lot of our planning to fruition."
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