Now Hamilton's Côte d'Acier is the place to be.
BY MARY K. NOLAN
Yeah, sure. The Hamilton waterfront is where it's at, the hottest spot on Lake Ontario, a totally happenin' place.
You may have seen it from the Skyway Bridge that separates the harbour from the lake... all those slag heaps to climb and effluent to inhale… they say you can even walk on the water there. Ha ha ha ha ha.
But Steeltown is getting the last laugh as it finally reclaims the waterfront so long monopolized by belching smokestacks, rusty ore carriers and grime-layered foundries.
To deny the existence of the mills that forged this gritty city would be as realistic as ignoring the wart on a witch's nose. They're part of the scenery, if not particularly attractive, and occupy some prime real estate. Unfortunately, they taint the observer's impressions of an ambitious city that has more treasures to hide than a very efficient pirate.
If that oft-scorned view from the bridge appears to symbolize what Hamilton is not, it is also a metaphor for everything the city is – tough, hardworking, spirited and darn good-looking when seen in the right light.
It's a discovery immediately made by anyone who strays off the Queen Elizabeth Way between Niagara and Toronto – not the "Step on it, George" crowd who avert their gaze and hold their collective breath as they hurry down the highway, but the bold adventurers who've heard what's going on in Hamilton and are curious to investigate just what the buzz is all about.
These days, it's about the spectacular new Canada Marine Discovery Centre, an attraction so... well… attractive that Hamiltonians are afraid to breathe lest it vanish like a genie's ephemeral wish.
Inspired by marine themes, the centre has a shell-shaped roof, a ceiling that looks like a canoe under construction, and a view from the water that gives the impression of billowing sails. Beyond the nine-metre-high foyer are an intimate theatre and four galleries filled with great exhibits like replicas of a kelp forest, the prow of a Newfoundland fishing dory, the Saguenay lighthouse, the wheelhouse of a Great Lakes freighter, and three 455-litre aquariums of local aquatic life.
Her legendary and sometimes abrasive tenacity resulted not only in the construction of the Discovery Centre but the Toronto-to-Hamilton relocation of "the fightingest ship in the Royal Canadian Navy," HMCS Haida. After languishing for three decades at Ontario Place, the last of the tribal-class destroyers was dredged out of its landlocked lagoon in December 2002 and towed to dry dock in St. Catharines for a refit. Last summer, amid splendid fanfare, she was officially welcomed to Hamilton Harbour to take up permanent residence as a tourist attraction outside the naval reserve base.
Never mind grandiose schemes involving waterfront stadiums, glittering casinos and floating hotels, the Discovery Centre and the still-proud Haida are here, now. They are the powerful magnets that drew thousands of locals to the head of the lake for their grand opening in July, simply because the waterfront has become the place to be.
That's not news to everybody. Sir Allan MacNab, premier of the United Canadas from 1854 to 1856, built his magnificent Italianate villa, Dundurn Castle, on a bluff overlooking the bay at the extreme west end of Lake Ontario. Restored as a Centennial project, Dundurn gives visitors an intimate look at how the gentry lived in pioneering times. Costumed guides lead tours through the entire house, from the gloomy but deliciously aromatic kitchen below stairs to MacNab's handsome upstairs bedroom with its canopied bed and unusual gout chair.
In 1894, a local cigar-store owner launched the first Around the Bay road race, a gruelling 30-kilometre challenge that is the oldest and one of the most prestigious running events in North America, older even than the Boston Marathon. As if the distance and the course weren't bad enough, the race (which attracted a record 6,100 runners this year) is always held in the cruel cold of March.
The waterfront is also home to several decades-old private boating clubs that still thrive today, including the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club and the Leander Boat Club, whose stalwart oarsmen can be seen plying the glassy waters on many chilly autumn mornings. A boat-rental livery would be a welcome addition to the scene and it's just a matter of time before some savvy entrepreneur seizes the opportunity.
In the four years since it opened on Canada Day, 2000, the Hamilton Harbour Waterfront Trail has shown no decline in popularity. From day one, the paved 3.4-kilometre trail that stretches from the nature sanctuary of Cootes Paradise along the historic Desjardins Canal to the west harbour has been a huge hit.
On a good day, it is a happily congested knot of dog-walkers, cyclists, in-line skaters, runners and meanderers who haven’t yet quite grasped the keep-to-the-right etiquette of the trail. It is with wonder still that city folk and suburbanites gravitate to one or the other end of the trail and travel its length, captivated by the night herons and mute swans in the foreground of an eclectic panorama that includes the CN railway marshalling yards and those ubiquitous smokestacks. In fact, the trail that finally allowed the residents of a waterfront city to access their waterfront has been the impetus for phenomenal growth and development in harbour-area recreational usage.
The Bayfront and Pier 4 parks have become the site for quiet family picnics and dragon-boat races, Port Days and Aquafest celebrations, travelling carnivals, outdoor ecumenical services, windsurfers, rock concerts, and lovers canoodling on park benches.
The tiny 12-passenger Hamiltonian was launched last summer to ferry people on guided tours of the harbour. A handsome white frame building once occupied by a sailing school has just been renovated to house a trendy coffee pub. News is out that ambitions are afoot to transform Pier 8 into a multimillion-dollar European-style piazza of shops, eateries, residences and recreational facilities, with perhaps even a Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
The lake end of the waterfront, east of the bridge, offers a different experience.
The 8.5-kilometre-long, eight-metre-wide Beachfront Trail opened last summer, running virtually under the bridge across the spit of land that separates the harbour from the lake. It is a paved paradise that one Toronto blading guru christened "without a doubt the best skating route anywhere near Toronto."
But it's much more than that. It's a path to the best fish and chips on the planet at Hutch's famous burger joint, and to the contemporary Mediterranean menu at Baranga's on the Beach, a fine-dining restaurant in a renovated 1904 schoolhouse. It also leads to the challenging mini-putt course of Adventure Village, with its shipwrecks and railway crossings, bridges and waterfalls.
Beach accesses are plentiful, and Confederation Park, which sits smack between the lake and the busy Queen Elizabeth Way, offers both quiet campsites and the frenzied activity of the Wild Waterworks wave pools, waterslides and splash pads.
So go ahead. Laugh, if you will, at the idea of playing along Hamilton's waterfront. But remember, he who laughs last likely lives in Hamilton.
source: Canadian Tourism Commision
This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.
Click here for more information on Ontario
BY MARY K. NOLAN
Yeah, sure. The Hamilton waterfront is where it's at, the hottest spot on Lake Ontario, a totally happenin' place.
You may have seen it from the Skyway Bridge that separates the harbour from the lake... all those slag heaps to climb and effluent to inhale… they say you can even walk on the water there. Ha ha ha ha ha.
But Steeltown is getting the last laugh as it finally reclaims the waterfront so long monopolized by belching smokestacks, rusty ore carriers and grime-layered foundries.
To deny the existence of the mills that forged this gritty city would be as realistic as ignoring the wart on a witch's nose. They're part of the scenery, if not particularly attractive, and occupy some prime real estate. Unfortunately, they taint the observer's impressions of an ambitious city that has more treasures to hide than a very efficient pirate.
If that oft-scorned view from the bridge appears to symbolize what Hamilton is not, it is also a metaphor for everything the city is – tough, hardworking, spirited and darn good-looking when seen in the right light.
It's a discovery immediately made by anyone who strays off the Queen Elizabeth Way between Niagara and Toronto – not the "Step on it, George" crowd who avert their gaze and hold their collective breath as they hurry down the highway, but the bold adventurers who've heard what's going on in Hamilton and are curious to investigate just what the buzz is all about.
These days, it's about the spectacular new Canada Marine Discovery Centre, an attraction so... well… attractive that Hamiltonians are afraid to breathe lest it vanish like a genie's ephemeral wish.
Inspired by marine themes, the centre has a shell-shaped roof, a ceiling that looks like a canoe under construction, and a view from the water that gives the impression of billowing sails. Beyond the nine-metre-high foyer are an intimate theatre and four galleries filled with great exhibits like replicas of a kelp forest, the prow of a Newfoundland fishing dory, the Saguenay lighthouse, the wheelhouse of a Great Lakes freighter, and three 455-litre aquariums of local aquatic life.
Her legendary and sometimes abrasive tenacity resulted not only in the construction of the Discovery Centre but the Toronto-to-Hamilton relocation of "the fightingest ship in the Royal Canadian Navy," HMCS Haida. After languishing for three decades at Ontario Place, the last of the tribal-class destroyers was dredged out of its landlocked lagoon in December 2002 and towed to dry dock in St. Catharines for a refit. Last summer, amid splendid fanfare, she was officially welcomed to Hamilton Harbour to take up permanent residence as a tourist attraction outside the naval reserve base.
Never mind grandiose schemes involving waterfront stadiums, glittering casinos and floating hotels, the Discovery Centre and the still-proud Haida are here, now. They are the powerful magnets that drew thousands of locals to the head of the lake for their grand opening in July, simply because the waterfront has become the place to be.
That's not news to everybody. Sir Allan MacNab, premier of the United Canadas from 1854 to 1856, built his magnificent Italianate villa, Dundurn Castle, on a bluff overlooking the bay at the extreme west end of Lake Ontario. Restored as a Centennial project, Dundurn gives visitors an intimate look at how the gentry lived in pioneering times. Costumed guides lead tours through the entire house, from the gloomy but deliciously aromatic kitchen below stairs to MacNab's handsome upstairs bedroom with its canopied bed and unusual gout chair.
In 1894, a local cigar-store owner launched the first Around the Bay road race, a gruelling 30-kilometre challenge that is the oldest and one of the most prestigious running events in North America, older even than the Boston Marathon. As if the distance and the course weren't bad enough, the race (which attracted a record 6,100 runners this year) is always held in the cruel cold of March.
The waterfront is also home to several decades-old private boating clubs that still thrive today, including the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club and the Leander Boat Club, whose stalwart oarsmen can be seen plying the glassy waters on many chilly autumn mornings. A boat-rental livery would be a welcome addition to the scene and it's just a matter of time before some savvy entrepreneur seizes the opportunity.
In the four years since it opened on Canada Day, 2000, the Hamilton Harbour Waterfront Trail has shown no decline in popularity. From day one, the paved 3.4-kilometre trail that stretches from the nature sanctuary of Cootes Paradise along the historic Desjardins Canal to the west harbour has been a huge hit.
On a good day, it is a happily congested knot of dog-walkers, cyclists, in-line skaters, runners and meanderers who haven’t yet quite grasped the keep-to-the-right etiquette of the trail. It is with wonder still that city folk and suburbanites gravitate to one or the other end of the trail and travel its length, captivated by the night herons and mute swans in the foreground of an eclectic panorama that includes the CN railway marshalling yards and those ubiquitous smokestacks. In fact, the trail that finally allowed the residents of a waterfront city to access their waterfront has been the impetus for phenomenal growth and development in harbour-area recreational usage.
The Bayfront and Pier 4 parks have become the site for quiet family picnics and dragon-boat races, Port Days and Aquafest celebrations, travelling carnivals, outdoor ecumenical services, windsurfers, rock concerts, and lovers canoodling on park benches.
The tiny 12-passenger Hamiltonian was launched last summer to ferry people on guided tours of the harbour. A handsome white frame building once occupied by a sailing school has just been renovated to house a trendy coffee pub. News is out that ambitions are afoot to transform Pier 8 into a multimillion-dollar European-style piazza of shops, eateries, residences and recreational facilities, with perhaps even a Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
The lake end of the waterfront, east of the bridge, offers a different experience.
The 8.5-kilometre-long, eight-metre-wide Beachfront Trail opened last summer, running virtually under the bridge across the spit of land that separates the harbour from the lake. It is a paved paradise that one Toronto blading guru christened "without a doubt the best skating route anywhere near Toronto."
But it's much more than that. It's a path to the best fish and chips on the planet at Hutch's famous burger joint, and to the contemporary Mediterranean menu at Baranga's on the Beach, a fine-dining restaurant in a renovated 1904 schoolhouse. It also leads to the challenging mini-putt course of Adventure Village, with its shipwrecks and railway crossings, bridges and waterfalls.
Beach accesses are plentiful, and Confederation Park, which sits smack between the lake and the busy Queen Elizabeth Way, offers both quiet campsites and the frenzied activity of the Wild Waterworks wave pools, waterslides and splash pads.
So go ahead. Laugh, if you will, at the idea of playing along Hamilton's waterfront. But remember, he who laughs last likely lives in Hamilton.
source: Canadian Tourism Commision
This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.
Click here for more information on Ontario
Comments