We started our morning with a long drive out to Manor-Papineau NHS. Louis-Joseph Papineau was a 19th century Canadian politician. HIs house was amazing and restored to near likeness of then his family lived there. The house had some impractical designs like the family living quarters were on the ground floor and the visitors rooms were all upstairs facing the river.
The house even had a dumbwaiter! This was amazing for the time period. During this time the bottle would prepare the plates for Mr. and Mrs. Papineau and then Mr Papineau would serve all of his guests. He entertained regularly.
We explore the gardens and fields of the estate. In the storage house we did a puzzle and built towers out of paper.
Our hike around the property was about 3km. We were amazed by all the 200+ year old trees and the cool mushrooms we found growing all over.
Next, we visited Coteau du Lac NHS. This NHS boasts the FIRST lock in North America. It was a rather short lock to avoid a section of rapids and was only used for a brief amount of time. During the war in 1812 Canada fortified the rivers in preparation for Americans  trying to take the land.
The blockhouse still stands and is currently being renovated. We were able to tour inside but no photos were allowed.
In the visitors center we got to play archeologist and also try our hands at steel and fire-stone. I enjoyed putting the plate together but had no luck with the fire starting!
We built a model of the blockhouse with the help of a little girl.
We explored the old canal from above and below.
Our next and last site of the day was Battle of the Chateauguay NHS. This site was historical because of a battle that took place in 1813 when the Americans, with 3700 troops, tried to attack the Canadian’s, with 300 troops. The Americans gave up and were defeated. This was the last time that the American’s attempted to take Canadian land in the area. We learned how they made musket cartridges. We made ours from paper, string, a gumball and sour powder.
We had fun doing our Xplorer books and learning about the site.
