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On summer weekends, this large picnic and recreation area perched on the edge of the Niagara Escarpment is packed with families enjoying the manicured lawns and majestic shade trees, band concerts at the band shell,
a children's wading pool (built in the 1812 earthwork redoubt of Fort Drummond), tennis courts, and a fine restaurant. You won't need a map to find this popular site – just head for the towering 50O metre (190 foot) Brock's monument.
The memorial commemorates Major General Sir Isaac Brock who died here in one of the fiercest battles of the War of 1812. The original monument was built in 1824, at which time Brock's remains were reinterred in the vault below the monument. Queenston Heights became a popular tourist destination, and for almost 100 years lake boats brought thousands of visitors from Toronto to this site. In 1840, the monument was blown up by one of the Mackenzie rebels. A new monument was completed in
1857, which has endured, with some repairs, until today.
A climb up the narrow spiralling stairs to the top of the monument will leave you breathless, both from the effort and the wonderful view across the southern Niagara farm land. It is this same escarpment edge where, about 12,000 years ago, the mighty cascades started to grind and wear away seemingly impenetrable rocks to form the 11-kilometre (6. 8-mile) long Niagara Gorge.
A monument to Laura Secord, a cairn marking the southern end of the Bruce Trail, and various other historical markers are also found in the park.
A highly recommended walk is a self-guiding tour of the War of 1812 battlefield, which wends its way over the side of the escarpment down to the Village of Queenston. The
stroll evokes images of cannons crashing and muskets volleying as soldiers charged the entrenched high spots on Queenston Heights. It seems almost like fiction now as we gaze across the Niagara River at the pastoral landscape and the neighbouring United States of America, with whom Canada has so much in common, not the least of which is the world's longest undefended border.
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