St Catharines Ontario
Tourist Attractions

St Catharines Ontario is home to the Niagara Wine Festival, the biggest annual party in the region. However,that's not all there is to Niagara's largest city. "St Kitts" as it's sometimes called, boasts other tourist attractions as well..

Photo above: St Catharines Tourism Services

If you’re in town for the Niagara Wine Festival and staying overnight, you might want to check out some other St Catharines Ontario attractions as well. Here are my suggestions.

Brock University manages this local public art gallery. Housed in a beautiful old limestone mansion once owned by the Merritt family (local gentry), the building itself is worth a visit. The 1850s era home features original marble fireplaces, stained glass windows and oak floors. You may recognize this picture from the top banner of my web page… yes, this is one of my Ontario travel "secrets”.

The gallery is fairly small so you shouldn’t need more than an hour here to see the temporary exhibits. They tend to be modern and a little avant garde, geared to the university art crowd. There’s a permanent collection as well, mostly historical, scattered throughout the house.

Don’t forget to wander around outside, front and back, and admire the architecture, as well as this hilarious sculpture:

St. Catharines Museum/Welland Canal Centre
1932 Welland Canal Parkway, St Catharines Ontario

The Welland Canal is important part of St. Catharines’ history, so a large part of the museum traces the history of its creation. If you’re lucky while you’re there you’ll see a foreign freighter or maybe a ”laker” (one of the ships that ply the Great Lakes) squeezing through the locks, looking as if it’s holding its breath. These ships resemble floating apartment buildings. A sister of mine used to work as a cook on one of these monsters. You can also learn about other aspects of local history including sports like lacrosse, and the St. Catharines connection to the Freedom Trail, a system that brought American slaves to freedom in Canada in the 19th century.

Lakeside Park and Port Dalhousie Marina
Port Dalhousie Ontario (a small St. Catharines community)

Heritage buffs love this neighbourhood (and have been in a battle to preserve it for years). It’s one of my favourite Sunday afternoon trips. When I was a kid we used to go swimming here in Lake Ontario and high-jump over the waves rushing into shore. The wilder the waves, the better! I once got disoriented and started swimming toward the Toronto shore, which is visible most days from the water. Out on the water, distances are hard to judge. My dad swam out and pulled me back to the right shore. (I’ve never had a very good sense of direction... a bit of a handicap for a travel writer.)

Even if you don’t swim, Port Dalhousie is a fun place to visit. You can walk along the pier at the marina and admire the 19th century lighthouses:

You can also take in a play at Theatre in Port at Port Mansion or sample some food and drink at one of several restaurants along the lake, many of them housed in 19th century buildings.

A Literary Link

Fans of mystery writer Howard Engel’s Benny Cooperman series may feel a little déjà vu in St. Catharines. That’s because “Grantham”, the fictional setting for the series, is based on St. Catharines where Howard grew up. (My mom says she went to school with him.) I recognize some of the places in his novels, including that lunch counter where Benny always eats his chopped egg on white. It was still around when I was growing up.

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Niagara-on-the-Lake Ontario

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