A bit of History...and a bit of B.S.

Kingston: First Capital of Canada, Birthplace of hockey greats, Don Cherry, Doug Gilmour and Kirk Muller, and Home of First Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald - We even named a boulevard after him.

These are the claim's of fame for Kingston. It's also my hometown. And I love it, but sometimes Kingstonians are a bit, shall we say, full of ourselves. Regardless, there is one place which is sometimes left off the bragging list. I'm talking about Fort Henry. I've only been there 3 times and I admit that I know fairly little about the history of the time period, but that I'm pretty sure that a war never actually happened, they were just really prepared.

Anyway, the interesting part about this Fort is the build up - mind you, I've never been to any other Fort's, so maybe they'll all like that. So...ya...the build up. You can see it as you drive on the bridge across the water, heck you can see it at the top of Queen Street - for those of you not familiar with K-town streets, that's a long way away. Once you get to the main gates, there is an enormous sign with a guard painted on it. Then you drive up a long winding hill, you have walk alongside the hill down over a wooden bridge that may have once been a moat or something - I find myself wondering why you would need a moat if you are on a hill, surrounded by the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario. Finally you get to the ticket gate, you pay your fare and walk inside. Yet inside, is still outside. Weird. It's open air surrounded by walls of stone. Don't get me wrong here, it's an interesting place, and you definitely feel some respect and pride in the history it represents - even those of us who don't know what it is.

To prove my point, this is a short re-creation of a conversation had with a colleague when my work hosted their Annual General Meeting at the fort just to re-enforce my lack of historical intelligence.

Me: This place it kinna neat. What kind of room do you think this used to be? (Referring to the deeply concave ceiling and the dimensions of about 40 feet long and 15 feet wide - with no windows.)

C: Not sure, maybe some barracks, or small mess hall?

Me: Look at those little slits in the wall. That's really cool. I bet that's where they used to shoot arrows from.

C: Arrows? I doubt it.

Me: (thinking maybe that doesn't sound right, but I'll try to cover it up) Oh ya, the arrows...at the..um....indians.

C: You know I'm a history major right?


Moral of the story: Always know who you're trying to B.S. before you sound like an idiot.