Mural tells 200 years of NOTL history
Councillors were offered an up-close look at the images that will make up a new mural set to be erected inside the Niagara-on-the-Lake Community Centre’s cafe.
Featuring images spanning the last 200 years, the mural is set to be a pictorial timeline of Niagara-on-the-Lake and its various communities from 1812 to 2012. From the Battle of Queenston Heights to young children dressed in soldier costumes at modern-day Fort George, the Chautauqua Hotel, most of the town’s significant events and landmarks are covered through the images. Culled from museums, private collections and archives, Terry Boulton, chair of the cafe mural committee said he ended up with a large number of images that he was tasked with paring down.
“We wanted to make sure all of the important things were represented,” he said.
The end result is a beautiful mural showing the community as it evolved over 200 years. There are pictures of the wooden-planked Queenston-Lewiston Bridge and the trains that carried passengers along the gorge wall. People in old-fashioned bathing suits enjoying the public beaches in town, docks in winter broken up by ice dams and public skating on man-made ponds are all pictured. There are war-time images — both paintings from the War of 1812 as well as photographs of soldiers from the 2nd World War, the Ice Wine Festival. Modern day images include the Ice Wine Festival, offshore workers, and Shaw Festival production stills.
On Monday night, prior to the committee of the whole meeting, Boulton laid the photos out chronologically in the Mary Snider Room at the Virgil Arena to allow town councillors the opportunity to sneak a peek at what the mural might look like.
“The town is providing us with the funds, so we wanted to give them a chance to see what it’s going to look like,” he said.
While the mural will be complete by October, the committee is planning to have its official unveiling in November. The mural — which will be six-feet tall and spread 30 feet in length — will be erected inside the cafe area of the Community Centre.
Boulton said they are planning to have a lectern constructed to accompany the mural and act as a ‘legend’ for the images.
Article taken from Niagara Advance