Navy Island (Niagara River)

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Navy Island
Location in the Niagara River
Location in the Niagara River
Waters Niagara River
Geographical location 43 ° 3 ′  N , 79 ° 1 ′  W Coordinates: 43 ° 3 ′  N , 79 ° 1 ′  W
Navy Island (Niagara River) (Ontario)
Navy Island (Niagara River)
surface 1.28 km²dep1
Residents uninhabited

Navy Island , French Île-Navy , is an uninhabited river island in the Niagara River in the Canadian province of Ontario . It has had the status of a National Historic Site of Canada since 1921 and is administered by Parks Canada . The name refers to an earlier use for purposes of the Navy , English navy .

geography

Navy Island is about halfway along the course of the Niagara River between its origin in Lake Erie and its mouth in Lake Ontario , a good three kilometers above Niagara Falls . At the island level, west of the river is the Canadian mainland, east the Grand Island . This belongs to the United States , so the state border runs immediately east of Navy Island. The island is part of the urban area of Niagara Falls , its area is 316 acres , the equivalent of almost 128 hectares .

history

The presence of members of the Lamoka is archaeologically proven for the pre-Columbian times - in the late Archean around 3000 years ago and the Meadowood culture , which belongs to the early Woodland period , around 2000 years ago.

After the onset of European colonization of America , it was initially French who used the island to build boats for use on the Great Lakes and as a naval depot. In the course of the Seven Years' War , the area and the island fell to the British Kingdom after the surrender of the French occupation of Fort Niagara on July 15, 1759 , and it was finally ceded with the conclusion of the Peace of Paris in 1763. Navy Island was part of the British colonial empire successively to the provinces of Quebec , Upper Canada , Canada and Ontario .

The British initially continued the tradition of shipbuilding on the island and built a shipyard in 1761 . In the course of the Pontiac uprising , five ships were built here within a short time to supply Fort Detroit, which was besieged by Indians between the beginning of May and mid-July 1763, with troops and relief supplies. As early as the mid-1760s, the shipyard was relocated to the more conveniently located Detroit . During the war of 1812, the British defenders built a blockhouse secured by palisades .

Navy Island played a significant role in the final stages of the 1837 rebellions . After William Lyon Mackenzie 's attempt at insurrection with the skirmish at Montgomery's Tavern on December 7, 1837 failed, he and some of his supporters initially withdrew to the territory of the US state of New York . On December 13, the insurgents occupied the island and installed the provisional government of the Republic of Canada they had proclaimed . The aim was to collect allies, weapons and ammunition and then transfer them to mainland Canada in order to successfully continue the rebellion there. On the night of December 29th to 30th, the ship Caroline supplying the island , lying opposite Fort Schlosser on the US river bank, was seized by British troops and set on fire, after which it sank. This diplomatic incident led to a crisis between the two states as the Caroline / McLeod affair . After it became apparent that the rebels would not be able to achieve their goal, they vacated Navy Island by January 15, 1838. The short-lived republic came to an end.

In the mid-1850s, Navy Island was largely cleared and could therefore be used for agriculture, in 1865 four families lived on the island. Part of Navy Island was leased to private investors for tourist purposes in 1876, and the recreational facilities they built were in operation until the beginning of the 20th century. Built from them and as a summer resort operated Queen's Hotel burned down in 1910 and was not rebuilt.

In 1945, Navy Island was briefly discussed as the location for the new United Nations headquarters to be built , but the decision ultimately fell on New York City . In the following years, the island, which is now largely forested again, could still be used for camping in the summer, and access to the public has been closed for several years.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of properties in the Niagara region under the management of Parcs Canada, Parcs Canada website, accessed March 28, 2017. (English, French)
  2. ↑ Map of Niagara Falls on Statistics Canada website , accessed March 28, 2017.
  3. ↑ Woodland-Culture entry in the Canadian National Encyclopedia , accessed on March 28, 2017. (English)
  4. ↑ Claus Kreß , Björn Schiffbauer: First sunk, then raised to international law. Legal worksheets 2009, p. 611, digitized version on the website of the Law Faculty of the University of Cologne, PDF file, 178kB, accessed on March 25, 2017.
  5. ↑ Information on access to the island , as of November 2014, on the Parcs Canada website, accessed on March 25, 2017. (English, French)