Looking over Hamilton

After saying another temporary goodbye to Karen, we were heading down the QEW freeway. We will be deviating off it and around the back of the city of Hamilton and up onto the Niagara Escarpment where Megan's brother Ken and his wife Vicki live. In my early posts, I mentioned that it was Vicki that picked me up from the Greyhound Bus on my arrival in Canada.


Hamilton is an old "Steel City" similar Newcastle in NSW although somewhat larger with a population of 500,500 people. Both cities have redundant steel works but still have allied industries and a working harbour.


One thing it has in common with Meaford (where we will settle), is the Niagara Escarpment that passes close by and forms a major part of the landscape of both places. The Niagara Escarpment is a geological feature that runs from Tobermory (further north of Meaford), all the way down to Fort Erie. While that statement is true, the actual escarpment continues well beyond these places in both Canada and the USA. It was formed by glacial action hundreds of millions of years ago.

The pictures taken looking over Hamilton are from on top of the escarpment.

Close to the year 1900, my Grandfather and Grandmother migrated from Glasgow in Scotland to New Zealand. Their children were born in NZ and they moved to Australia in 1921 (by my calculations). In the same period they moved to NZ, I understand that my Grandfather's brother emigrated here to Hamilton in Ontario. He brought his father, (my Great grandfather), with him. Growing up, I used to hear my grandmother talk of the Ontario Clelands and I have a vivid memory of the "par avion" stickers on the envelopes that were sent either way between Sydney and Hamilton.

While my father was in a nursing home and I was visiting one day, I mentioned to him that Megan (then fiance'), was going to visit with her brother for a couple of days in Hamilton. With that he rattled off an address from the top of his head and asked if I could get Megan to look and see what was there these days. I told her the story via email and when she replied she said that the house at that address had been demolished and was now a car park.

Unfortunately, I no longer have that address and my father died soon after. However, I had remembered that my brother-in-law Ken had passed a comment to Megan that if there were Cleland children in the household, then they would probably have attended the school across the road which is the same school that his son attended, George L. Armstrong School, Concession St. Hamilton.

George L. Armstrong School. AD 1930
Concession St. Hamilton , ON.

There are two car parks across from the school. One on each side of Concession St., but one is on the corner of the adjacent street to the school. I'm determined at some stage to track down members of that branch of the family.

After a wonderful chin wag over a couple of cups of coffee with Ken and Vicki and another farewell, Megan and I made our way down off the escarpment and back onto the QEW further south and heading to our accommodation in Niagara Falls. We were late now and Megan had phoned ahead to confirm our booking.

With so much to do this day, it was impossible to make contact with a Facebook friend who lives in St. Catharines not far before Niagara Falls. I've never met him, but he is also a Cleland and a descendant of the James Cleland of Meaford mentioned in earlier posts. (If he is related to me, we would likely be about 4th cousins at best by my calcs). I do hope to see him upon my return.

St. Catharines Skyway and the Lochs on the Welland Canal

At St. Catharines, the QEW elevates to become the St. Catharines Skyway to allow shipping to pass beneath going both to and from the Welland Canal. The Canal is a man made canal to link Lake Ontario with Lake Erie. They are naturally linked via the very large but impossible to navigate, Niagara River. The Canal takes ships up and over the Escarpment by way of Lochs. Some of these can be seen in the photo.

Not too far down the QEW we will soon come to the exit to Niagara Falls. This and other signs indicating Buffalo USA, are an unwelcome reminder that in less than 48 hours from then, I'd be on a flight out of Buffalo Airport. :(