September 7, 2024: Victoria Lawn Guided Spirit Walk

The Guided Spirit Walk at Victoria Lawn Cemetery on September 7 was preceded by dinner at George’s Greek Restaurant. With 27 in attendance, the staff at George’s did an amazing job at getting every delicious meal out hot and in a timely, but not rushed, fashion.
Upon arriving at the cemetery gates, our group was greeted at the registration table by Abbey Stansfield from the St. Catharines Museum, who provided each of us with a very detailed program. The walk for that evening was titled “What Good is History?” As we soon realized, the walk was more of an interactive play with our group posing as members of the Board of Trade for St. Catharines and dated back to the late 1800s. All of the characters that took part in the performance were volunteers, who did a wonderful job portraying figures from that period. 
The walk began with the group being introduced to the character “Alice”, the history-loving secretary to Mayor J.B. McIntyre. Alice and J.B. guided the entire walk with characters popping  up everywhere in period costumes to provide the argument for adding a history section to the  Board of Trade’s Year Book, all while providing the group with a history lesson on the city of St.  Catharines.
The weather could have been a bit more cooperative; however, we all enjoyed the double rainbow that followed the brief rain shower, which made our cool evening a bit soggy as well.  Despite the cool, wet, weather, everyone seemed to enjoyed the performance while learning about the history of St. Catharines.