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One of the first sights you see if you visit the picturesque Mackinac Island is white stone walls sitting high above the ferry docks. Fort Mackinac has a long history that covers much of the early days of French, British, and American history in the region. The island, set in the major trade route of the Straights of Mackinac that divide “The Mitt” from the “Upper Penisula” of Michigan traces it’s importance back well before the colonial history of the early 18th-Century. And while the military history of the island ended five years before the turn of the 20th-Century, today the fort remains one ofRead More →

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I seem to have found yet another home away from home. Emmet county is up in the northern part of Michigan. I was first introduced to this beautiful part of the United States in 2012 at Photostock. Photostock, the brainchild of world-renowned photographer Bill Schwab is a gathering of photographers in his backyard. And in its early years, it was literally in his backyard, but by the time I started going, it had moved to the Birchwood Inn; this throw-back backwoods hotel would make you think you had stepped back into the 1960s. I have written about Photostock before, but this time it’s different. PhotostockRead More →

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So why go back and revisit photos that are getting close to four years old now, I have plenty of new good content to share. However there is something to be said for taking a look back at your photographic journey, and to see where, everything changed. For me, that change really took place here, in Montreal Quebec during my vacation there in 2010. I think my muse finally woke up in Montreal, especially in old Montreal. And film started to come back to me in a big way. But not just medium, but stylistically I finally got what I was looking for in myRead More →

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This year marked the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Stoney Creek during the War of 1812, although I have previously written about this particular battle, this year I again traded in my musket for my camera to capture this event from the sidelines (Although I was offered marching spots with the 10th RVB and 49th and I may just take them up on the offer next year). Most of the photos here are of the reenactors, the men and women who volunteer to do this for the public’s enjoyment. Probably one of the highlights was the performance put on by an actual British ArmyRead More →

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When it rains, the last place you’ll want to be is Fort Meigs, trust me on this one. The fort isn’t the nicest fort that got involved in the war, there is not a long drawn out or particularly memorable history about the depot fortification. It really is more of an afterthought, a post designed to be a stopping point for troops and supplies, and while it saw only two sieges over the course of the war it did stand out in one way. It was the largest wooden palisade wall fort in all of North America, at least when it was first built. UnlikeRead More →

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The American plan for the invasion of Upper Canada would be a simple one. A coordinated three-pronged attack that would strike at Fort Amherstburg in the West, Montreal in the East, and the Niagara Penisula in the center. But in the 19th-Century coordinating three attacks with such vast distances between them was impossible. The Americans also believed that the local population would welcome them as liberators, not invaders. The quick turnabout at Detroit proved this second part wrong. And while General Isaac Brock proved himself the Saviour of Upper Canada at Detroit he would soon face both his next challenge and his mortality. A PlaqueRead More →

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One Hundred years earlier, a US Ship on the Canadian Shoreline was not a good thing, but in 1913, the crew of the US Coast Guard Light Vessel 82 (LV-82) was the only thing keeping sailors on Lake Erie and their demise. In November of 1913, nature unleashed her fury. A storm known as the White Hurricane swept through the great lakes region, causing a level of destruction on the lakes not seen in recent memory, yet the crew of LV-82 stayed. Their station, Point Abino, was known for its shallow shoals and dangerous waters. Standing at their station facing 80 miles per hour windsRead More →

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She is the stuff of legends, a hero in her own right, a hull of iron, and undefeated in battle. A mighty sailing ship that spans three centuries and is still able to move under her power, she’s called Old Ironsides, but her real name is the US Frigate Constitution (44). And while the history of the Constution extends both before and long after the Anglo-American War of 1812. And while the ship is not a fort, person, battle, or location, it played a major role in the war and added to the overall mythos surrounding the war in these past 200 years. By 1793Read More →

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By the end of summer 1814, the jig was up for the American invasion. While they had managed to strike at the British and nearly pushed them off the Niagara peninsula again, the new commander-in-chief of the British forces in Upper Canada was going to have none of that. Following the quick movements, it all turned around at the Battle of Lundy’s Lane and General Drummond managed to push the Americans back to their beachhead at the now heavily fortified Fort Erie where the Americans had started not a month earlier. And Drummond would begin his siege that would lead up to one of theRead More →

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When the Americans retreated across the river in December of 1813 they left nothing but a charred ruin of the town of Newark (Today’s Niagara-On-The-Lake) and Fort George. Left with no fortifications in the area, General Drummond immediately ordered the capture of Fort Niagara (which was a huge success) and the construction of new fortifications to defend the Canadian Side of the mouth of the Niagara River. Drummond, quick to realize that Fort George was too distant to command the river mouth ordered the new fort be constructed closer to Lake Ontario. Construction of the new Fort Mississauga commenced in spring of 1814. It consistedRead More →