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| - You know how you live in a city, and never really go to any of its sites or museums? I don't want to be that guy, and I can literally see Fort York from my balcony, so this week I popped by to poke around.
Fact: Fort York is Canada's largest collection of original War of 1812 buildings!
This place is often busiest on holidays such as Canada Day, but on a random Monday afternoon, it was very quiet. They did have uniformed British soldiers here to lower the flag at 4:30 in a formal ceremony, so that was neat. The families attending seemed to enjoy it. They can also take cool pictures of you with an 1812 cannon and that kind of thing. They have a schedule of presentations and tours that are conducted multiple times daily.
The exhibits of the soldier's quarters and officers' quarters was very cool (if you enjoy re-created homes, complete with dishes and furniture). The archaeological information in the basement was very neat, and signs are posted in 6 other languages.
Fact: Fort York was used as a military training facility until the 1930s!
The artifacts on display in a couple of the buildings however were really shabby - not the artifacts themselves, but the actual signage and display cases. I mean, this is the ONLY museum I have ever been to where Bizarro comics are IN the artifact cases. A couple things were actually school projects, for real. Yay for involving the community, but boo for it looking a bit tacky and waaay tired.
I am going to give this place 4 *, because it is very interesting, well cared for, centrally located, and they are currently in the process of developing a new visitors centre, which will overhaul the somewhat disappointing displays.
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