Here, emancipation was celebrated even before the Confederation

“I am a descendant of those who emigrated from the United States to Canada in this region.”

The first words of Steven Harris resonate in this more than a century old place, the British methodist episcopal church, by Owen Sound, Ontario. The place has been frequented by his family for five generations.

It was this church that initiated, 163 years ago, the annual picnic that became the oldest emancipation festival in North America.

How to explain the early attachment of a small municipality on the edge of the Georgian bay towards emancipation? It is that Owen Sound was the northernmost point of the clandestine railroad, this network of secret roads and shelters that allowed blacks to escape slavery in the United States, mentions the website of the region’s emancipation festival.

The distance between Owen Sound from the American border provided a feeling of security particularly after the adoption of the law on fugitive slaves, which gave owners of plantations the possibility of recovering refugee slaves in the free states, explains Channon Oyeniran, doctoral student in history at Queen’s University.

At the heart of the story

Steven Harris and his wife Cathryn have been volunteers at the Owen Sound emancipation festival for years. Here, emancipation has been highlighted since 1862.

Cathryn Harris knows the story of the black pioneers of Owen Sound as the bottom of his pocket. It is she who directs the renovation project of the local church.

The walls of the church display photographs, engravings, posters linked to the passage of those who have freed themselves from the yoke of slavery of the United States.

Near a tail piano, she proudly shows an image of her husband’s grandmother, a photograph of several decades, hung on the wall of the establishment. She was part of the first choir of women in the churchshe explains.

The Cairnanother important monument of emancipation

In the heart of the Harrison park, where the emancipation festival takes place, there is The Cairn.

This historic monument underlines the contribution of women and men who have freed themselves from the development of the city of Owen Sound. The memorial is full of symbols, including a wrought iron replica windows from the first church erected by the black communityexplains Steven Harris.

These windows are based on stones. I believe that this stone comes from Africaexplains Mr. Harris. Some of the rocks have been brought back from places with a direct link with the trafficking of black people, including states formerly slavery in the United States.

The base of the monument is made up of ceramic squares placed on the ground, the patterns of which are an interpretation of the indices of the courtes made by abolitionist womenexplains Cathryn Harris.

The short -sighted courtes at a fence or a window sill, apparently to ventilate them, would in fact have transmitted messages to slaves on the run. This theory is not unanimous, but it is always part of the folklore of the clandestine railway and is represented on the monument.

The ladies made courtyards and these had certain reasons which indicated to the slaves who wanted to flee which path to take until the next refuge.

[Ce symbole] represents a river and an acceleration of the currentindicates Steven Harris. It was a way of announcing the dangers incurred and making sure to find the right wayhe adds.

Cathryn Harris also recalls that people who were fleeing slavery also followed other clues such as the direction of rivers, that which geese took and also the presence of the moss of the trees. The tree foam generally indicates the northshe says.

Steven Harris also tells that when the sheet covered the monument The Cairn was removed for the first time, a cloud of geese flew over the memorial.

The Owen Sound emancipation festival takes place from August 1 to 3 2025.