DOUG HEROD, "SPARE A THOUGHT FOR SIMCOE ON THIS LONG, LAZY WEEKEND," ST. CATHERINES STANDARD (AUGUST 4, 2001).

Copyright The Standard (St. CathErines) 2001
 

Here we are once again in the middle of the nameless August long weekend.

Our inability to tag the holiday with a proper moniker borders on calamity.

It's certainly worthy of a column, having edged out ruminations on lawn-watering restrictions in St. Catharines, the pending arrival of Hooters in Niagara Falls and the long-term effects of fast-food hamburgers in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

The holiday name game has its followers in Niagara.

Indeed, there are those in the peninsula who have promoted the idea of calling the first Monday in August Simcoe Day in honour of the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe. It already bears the name unofficially in some circles.

Simcoe has a special place in the hearts of Niagara residents because he had the good sense of choosing, however briefly, Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) as the capital of Upper Canada.

While there's reason to promote Simcoe as the symbol for this provincially, as opposed to federally, declared holiday, the idea has its troubling connotations.

I mean, do we really want to pay homage to a British aristocrat?

I can just imagine how he greeted the news that he was being posted to Canada in the late 18th century.

"I dare say, John, I'm afraid I've got some rather bad news for you. Bit of a bugger, really."

"What the devil are you going on about, Lord Throtmorton. Delicacy be dashed. After all, I am an officer in His Majesty's Service, what?"

"Quite. Well, old man, I chanced to hear you're being dispatched to the colonies. Upper Canada, to be exact."

"C-c-c-canada??? Bloody 'ell!!!"

Funny how the Oxford accent can desert people in times of stress.

OK, so I'm playing fast and loose with history here.

In fact, Simcoe, a military man who headed a regiment for the Brits during the American Revolution, was bored to tears living the gentleman's life in London and lobbied hard to get the Upper Canada post.

But I say if you can't engage in baseless ridicule against the British ruling class of the 18th century, well, who can you ridicule?

Anyhow, despite reservations about kowtowing to our past colonial masters, there is something to be said about Simcoe serving as an appropriate symbol for a more organized and growing non-native society in fledgling Ontario.

It was a society given a population boost a few years earlier by United Empire Loyalists, many of whom put down stakes in Niagara.

Loyalists, of course, were settlers from the American colonies in the late 18th century who emigrated to the British North American provinces during or immediately after the American Revolution.

They were repelled at the thought of an American society that heralded a future of insolence towards the Crown, frontier justice and TV shows like Temptation Island.

Descendants of the original Loyalists are, understandably, a pretty proud bunch as evidenced by the formation 87 years ago of the United Empire Loyalists Association, a branch of which was established in St. Catharines in 1921.

Bev Craig, past-president of the local group -- now called the Colonel John Butler (Niagara) branch -- says it has about 95 members, the vast majority of whom have Loyalist ancestry.

Craig says the Butler branch, one of the larger and more active ones in Canada, continues to be interested in preserving artifacts and buildings from the Loyalist era in Niagara.

"We also try to make sure children and other citizens are aware of the Loyalist history of the country."

Although Simcoe arrived several years after the Loyalist influx, he remains a "very important" figure of the time, says Craig, instrumental as he was in overseeing Upper Canada's first representative assembly and encouraging settlement.

A suitable person to have a provincial holiday named in his honour.

Quite.