A Tale of Three Cities

Some Great Lakes ports of call are large, others petite. Yet when it comes to serving up a quintessential Great Lakes experience, few can hold a candle to St. Catharines, Ontario, and its adjacent suburbs, Port Dalhousie and Port Weller. The three communities are so deeply linked that they need to be taken together to fully appreciate all the region has to offer. With apologies to Charles Dickens, this “Tale of Three Cities” is truly unique on the lakes, making a visit all but essential.

The most populous urban area on Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula, greater St. Catharines boasts around 140,000 happy residents, making it the province’s eighth largest municipality. It also marks the northern terminus of the Welland Canal, linking Lake Ontario with the rest of the system — its locks raising and lowering ships nearly 330 feet over the Niagara Peninsula and allowing navigation beyond the otherwise impassable barrier of Niagara Falls. The current canal meets Lake Ontario at Port Weller, in the eastern end of St. Catharines, while on the west side of town, the original canal entrance lies at Port Dalhousie, today serving as the town’s yacht harbor.

Combined, the three communities make a unique and interesting destination for history buffs, fans of big lake freighters and anyone with a taste for rock and roll.

The Garden City

Situated on the south shore of Lake Ontario, 12 miles west of the Niagara River and 32 miles due south of Toronto, St. Catharines is well known as The Garden City due to its more than 1,000 acres of beautifully manicured parks, gardens and trails.

The creek flowing into Lake Ontario, where the city now stands (appropriately enough named 12 Mile Creek, reflecting its distance from the Niagara), provided a small natural harbor that attracted early settlers. Expansive groves of oak trees led to the development of a ship repair industry on the site, giving the new community its original name of Shipman’s Corners. The creek also supported several flour mills, a tannery and at least three separate distilleries.

The first reference to the name St. Catharines appears on a map from 1796, but exactly which Catharine inspired the moniker, especially with its unique spelling, rather than the more common Catherine, remains unclear. What is known is that by around 1845, St. Catharines had grown into a bustling village that was already becoming an important manufacturing center.

With its heraldic motto of “Industry and Liberality,” St. Catharines flourished through the early 20th Century, forming a big part of what became known as the Golden Horseshoe — reflecting the wealth of industry that encircled the western end of Lake Ontario. General Motors, which operated an extensive transmission plant on Ontario Street, soon became the city’s largest employer, along with a range of supplier companies like TRW, serving Canada’s auto sector. The city grew rapidly, its population tripling as it absorbed smaller communities like Port Dalhousie and Port Weller.

Then, as it did for so many other industrial cities on the Great Lakes, one day it all fell apart. The energy crisis of the early 1970s and increased competition from imported automobiles led GM to begin laying off workers at its St. Catharines plant, beginning a steady decline that hit rock bottom a decade later. The plant ultimately closed, bringing tough times to The Garden City.

Yet as the city’s manufacturing sector foundered, new opportunities were already beginning to blossom — specifically in the form of grapes.

Farmers had been growing grapes on the Niagara Peninsula for years, primarily as fruit to be eaten and for use in grape jelly. In view of how well the fruit grew, by the early 1960s, some farmers began replacing their existing Concord grape vines with French varietals like Chardonnay and Cabernet Franc, which were robust enough to withstand the cold winters. Fast forward 20 years, and the grapes from those first vines — now with their roots buried deep in the mineral-rich soil — began to produce some truly remarkable wines. Almost overnight, St. Catharines found itself in the thick of a rapidly developing Canadian wine industry.

Niagara wines catapulted onto the world stage in 1991 when a local ice wine took the gold medal at the prestigious Vinexpo in France. With the subsequent establishment of the Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA) to set quality standards, and further gold medal wins in additional international competitions, St. Catharines embraced the wine sector and never looked back.

Today, the city is literally surrounded by vineyards, and the wine industry dominates to the point that the annual Grape and Wine Festival Parade each September attracts more than 100,000 people in a city-wide celebration of all things liquid and tasty.

New property developments — including the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, which opened in 2015 — dovetailed with the proliferation of wineries and restaurants to revive a tired downtown. Today, the city is home to a bustling entertainment scene anchored around live theater with companies like the Carousel Players (which performs in an old courthouse), the Mirror Theatre, the Essential Collectives Theatre, Garden City Productions and the Empty Box Theatre Company presenting a diverse range of shows for an ever-growing audience. Literally, Broadway on the lake.

The rebirth of St. Catharines involves much more than wine, dinner and theater, of course. The city is also home to a wide range of gala festivals each year, which celebrate a variety of events, starting in February with the International Chicken Chucking Championships. Festival activity really picks up during the boating season with perpetual favorites like Springlicious, the Lakeside Long Weekend, Sunset Latin Fest, VegFest, Culture Days and Pumpkinville never failing to draw large crowds.

Throughout the summer, a series of free concerts held at Montebello Park and other locations throughout the city entertain residents and visitors alike. An up-to-date concert calendar is a principal element of the City of St. Catharines Facebook page, with all the details on who’s playing where.

For a more active way of enjoying all St. Catharines has to offer, dig out your bike or lace up your boots. The city’s trail system offers nearly 60 miles of accessible pathways that are suitable for walking, jogging or cycling. This includes portions of the Bruce Trail, Canada’s oldest and longest hiking trail, which follows the Niagara Escarpment all the way from the U.S. border to Tobermory, in Lake Huron.

History buffs will enjoy the 7-mile Merritt Trail, which passes many of the old sections of the second Welland Canal and the remnants of its locks, or the Laura Secord Legacy Trail, which commemorates Laura Secord’s 20-mile walk to warn of an upcoming American attack during the War of 1812. Sections of the Waterfront Trail, which follows the shore of Lake Ontario, provide an opportunity to see a wide range of wildlife and shore birds, while those craving a bit of exercise will like the Terry Fox Trail, just 1 mile long but with six exercise stations placed along its path as it wanders through the downtown on Geneva and Carleton Streets.

Ship watchers will want to check out the Welland Canals Parkway Trail, which stretches the full length of the Welland Canal as it flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, providing up close and personal views of lakers and salties alike.