Not that long ago, on June 8, 1800, our Niagara library opened as the first circulating library in Upper Canada, established to diffuse knowledge among subscribers. It is still up to us to be curious and to occasionally venture out of our cozy comfort zones.

Knowledge cannot be diffused if we don’t consciously try to learn, and our Niagara-on-the-Lake is a veritable treasure trove of Canadian history. So much has happened right here in our region, mainly because lakes and rivers were once the highways of continents. Our Indigenous people used to travel by water.

This Ramblings has not been written to encourage or scold, rather simply to relate how a chance encounter can lead to shocking and interesting knowledge.

In our world today, only rarely are we surprised. But it happened on an otherwise uneventful day, as I rode my bicycle to the Avondale at Mississagua and Mary.

I was passing the very wee graveyard that features a historical plaque mentioning the Niagara Baptist Church Burial Ground. Reading the plaque and taking photos were four cyclists, all wearing the flashiest of fairly skin-tight, effulgent spandex gear with logos for this and that. All four of them fit the classic cycling tourist demographic: middle-aged, and fitter than most of their peers. With nice calves.

Out of habit, I stopped to ask them if they needed directions or if they wanted suggestions of any sort. They were grateful, and told me they had just fluked upon this quiet gem. They had no idea about Niagara’s Black history, and had just been doing a bit of research on their smartphones.

We chatted briefly about our town’s Coloured Village, the Solomon Moseby affair in 1837, and how the Niagara Baptist Church had relatively recently closed in 1878. Chloe Cooley’s dramatic escape in 1793 really got their attention.

“Not that long ago,” we agreed — which is, coincidentally, the theme of my daily free walking tour. We know so little of our history, and so much of it is instructive. As a people, we have an amazing tendency to forget what we don’t want to remember.

And not to learn about things we don’t want to know about. Or that might make us uncomfortable.

How many of us know much about why our town became known as America’s attic after the American Civil War? During the war in the 1860s, local leader William Kirby had encouraged some of his Confederate Army buddies to come to this area on the west side of the Niagara River to dodge the danger of being charged with treason.

He had been writing them letters — not phoning them, texting them or sending emails. “Come up to Canada and lay low for a few years,” he quilled.

Several of his pals rented nice houses in our town for three or four years. Naturally, some of their friends and habits followed them.

The next day, I googled “Black history in Niagara.” At the top of the search engine ranking was an article by Jacqueline L. Scott from the University of Toronto, “Searching for Black History in Niagara.”

So enlightening. So shocking. And so educational. Please check out this story and delve into this important part of our history. His story, and her story. It’s not that long ago, and most of us know so little.

Now, please permit the Rambler to challenge you to do a shallow dive into an area where most of us have never been. Let us forget about our seemingly impossible-to-understand present world and the tragic human conflicts that rage on in so many areas.

May I respectfully ramble and suggest it is usually a refreshing exercise to let our minds wander to the past. So much to learn from those who were here before us. To put our confusing and shocking current world situation on the back burner for a while and to think back to our mean and cruel history.

Very close to the historical plaque at the Niagara Baptist Church Burial Ground is a plaque explaining the Upper Canadian Act Against Slavery of 1793. Local resident John Graves Simcoe, who had such an appropriate name for someone connected to history, was visionary and fearless in his efforts to rid the world of this horrible social structure.

He endured the wrath of his peers and physical abuse from his opponents.

To ramble repetitively, this is not old stuff. Not that long ago, things were happening that were changing the world as we knew it.

Be daring and be curious. Delve into the amazing Black history in the Niagara region.