People, presses and principles celebrated at Niagara Museum

Niagara Parks Heritage celebrates each Simcoe Day showcasing the history of Canada’s first independent newspaper at the Mackenzie Printery on Queenston Street.

The Civic holiday is sometimes referred to as Simcoe Day, to celebrate John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada and the leading proponent of the 1793 Act against slavery.

Niagara parks invited visitors to learn about the Mackenzie Printery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, which houses Canada’s oldest printing press, and was used to print that act to end slavery.

It is easy to forget how powerful the printing press used to be, but the historic site is keeping that legacy alive.

From politics to publishing, the Mackenzie Printery does it all.

The printery at 1 Queenston St., was once the home of William Lyon Mackenzie, the man behind the failed rebellion against Upper Canada in 1837.

It is also the birthplace of Canada’s first independent newspaper, The Colonial Advocate.

The Mackenzie Printery blends education with hands-on-learning, giving visitors a chance to learn about Canada’s early history, while preserving the mediums in which helped bring about change.

“It’s very fascinating, especially in today’s political climate, to understand about where our politics came from, but also printing history,” said Kearah Holmes, a tour guide at Mackenzie Printery. “Everything is so digitized nowadays – to see how it began, like – news moves, everything happens so fast these days, but back then you were getting newspapers every two weeks.”

The museum houses some of the oldest operating presses in Canada, and anyone that visits can make a print of their own to take home.

These prints aren’t like regular office space Xeroxes – early printing was an arduous task.

It begins with picking out one letter at a time, and meticulously placing them in a heavy steel frame, known as a chase.

Letters are set into the frame, with gaps filled in to ensure nothing wiggles around, and are then covered in ink.

The chase is then pressed down onto the paper and after a lengthy process a printing is made.

“It was just a very cool experience,” Dave Holgate, a tourist at the printery. When asked about the life of Mackenzie, Holgate said, “Quite the hellraiser. His life story, very interesting, trying to overthrow the government and all.”

At the Mackenzie Printery, history came to life as a reminder of the people, the presses and the principles that helped shape Ontario.

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