Alex W.
Niagara Falls, Ontario
District School Board of Niagara
A Soldiers Day During the War of 1812
The War of 1812 is famous in Canada because of our underdog defense of the then colony of Upper Canada. Volunteering at Fort George, I have learned many things about the War of 1812. There are some unanswered questions, one of them being how soldiers lived their lives in forts. So, I set off to answer this question as best as I could. I used many primary, secondary, and online sources (e.g. warof1812.ca, archives.gov.on.ca, etc.,) to come to my conclusions. One of those was from the RG-8 Series from the Library and Archives of Canada. That source was a letter from Sir Issac Brock talking about building a ball court at Fort George. I built a model of Fort George to show where a soldier might be spending their day during the War of 1812. I currently volunteer at Fort George where I’m learning musical instruments from the period (fife, drum, and bugle). So, I decided to record all of the songs that would signal what soldiers were supposed to do at that time and put them in the video.
What was the most interesting thing you learned about your topic?
What I found interesting was how much dead space there was in a soldier’s day. From the time they finished doing work, to the time they went back to the fort. They had lots of time to fix up their uniform, play card games with their friends, or play at a ball court.
What important lessons have you learned that you want to share with other Canadians?
I learned about how the soldiers lived their difficult lives. They worked long days in the winter and the summer in a uniform that was bad for both seasons. I read about how they had almost no sleep at night. Soldiers also wouldn’t get enough food for the labour intensive days they would’ve usually had. They fought in defense of Canada being supported by the militia and Indigenous allies to make sure the citizens of Canada were protected from the invading Americans. I will also continue to spread these things I learned at Fort George to not only the Canadians who visit, but the many international visitors we get throughout the year. Usually, I’m in the soldier’s barracks, showing people where soldiers would’ve lived.
How would you compare your life today to the lives of those studied in your project?
I feel like my life is very different from the soldiers of the British Army. I think that our lives are different because we (in modern day) have a better quality of life. For example, I (and most people nowadays) have our own bed and our own room to sleep in. Comparatively, soldiers back during the War of 1812, had to sleep in bunk beds, and were in rooms with around 50-60 other people. Soldiers also only got, at most, 6 ½ hours of sleep (which was very unlikely due to soldiers wanting to stay up longer when they went back to their barracks). Now, we can control how much light we want in our rooms, back then, it was a matter of how many candles were rationed out. Our lives are very different in many ways, but their lives were infinitely more difficult than mine.