Plains battle moves south
Published Thursday July 2nd, 2009
Thousands expected to head to New York state town to re-enact historic 1759 siege
MONTREAL - Thousands of people whose hopes of re-enacting the Battle of the Plains of Abraham were dashed will be in New York state this weekend to replay another British military victory over the French.
The National Battlefields Commission cited safety and security reasons when it announced in February it was cancelling the planned re-enactment in Quebec City this summer.
Some Quebec sovereigntists had threatened to disrupt the event which they said would have rubbed salt into the wounds of the French defeat 250 years ago.
Most of those who had been planning to re-enact the Plains battle are instead gearing up for action this weekend in Youngstown, N.Y., across the river from Niagara-On-the-Lake, Ont.
More than 2,500 people will re-create the siege of Fort Niagara, where French defenders of the garrison at the mouth of the Niagara River surrendered to the English on July 25, 1759. British mortars had been pounding the fort for two weeks. The capture of the fort was one of the key events leading up to the French defeat outside the walls of Quebec City later that year on Sept. 13.
"Everyone has thrown their support behind Niagara and that has become the event of the year," said Horst Dressler, president of the Quebec Historical Corps.
Dressler says Fort Niagara organizers originally weren't expecting more than 1,200 costumed re-creators, but that figure doubled after Quebec City was cancelled.
In the original battle, more than 2,300 British soldiers and 1,000 Iroquois took on 600 French soldiers.
Eric Bloomquist, a programs manager at the Fort, says the re-enactment typically draws about 10,000 visitors every year.
"This year we will have perhaps, upwards of 15,000 visitors," he said in an interview.
Bloomquist couldn't put a dollar figure on the impact on the local economy because tourists also take in the sights around Niagara Falls.
But based on three previous re-enactments in Quebec City, the cancellation of this year's event will hurt that city's economy.
The last depiction of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 2004 generated nearly $30 million.
Disabled
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
Comments (3)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.