This isn’t tourism related, but it is an interesting historical tidbit nonetheless…
From the Niagara Falls Review:
Shooting for a place in history Canada’s game started in Niagara Falls, if you believe what a pair of Swedish researchers have uncovered.
Ask hockey historians where the birthplace of hockey is and the most common answers you’ll hear are Kingston, Montreal and Windsor, N. S. Niagara Falls wasn’t even on the radar.
But a recent discovery in a 162-year-old book written by a British soldier has suddenly put Niagara into the field as one of the first locations to host an ice hockey match.
The passage, written by Capt. Richard Levinge, describes a jovial scene on Chippawa Creek where 80 or more soldiers split into two teams to play “hockey on ice.” The creek, known now as the Welland River, is a tributary of the Niagara River located in the Niagara Falls neighbourhood of Chippawa.
Though the book in question, “The Echoes From the Backwood; or Sketches Of Transatlantic Life,” was published in London in 1846, the historical significance of a single paragraph on page 250 wasn’t discovered until July 10 this year.