Niagara-on-the-Lake

Before British settlers arrived, the point at the river's mouth was home in turn to the Neutral in the 15th century, the Seneca in the late 17th century and the Mississauga in the 18th. The settlement was founded in 1781 as Butlersburg, named after Colonel John Butler of Butler's Rangers, as a British military base and a haven for Loyalists fleeing the United States after the American Revolution. In 1792 Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe renamed it Newark and made it the first capital of Upper Canada; the legislature first met at Navy Hall that September. In 1797 Simcoe moved the capital to York, today's Toronto, because Newark lay too close to the American border, and the town was renamed Niagara the following year.

Fort George was built just south of the town in 1796–99. In May 1813, during the War of 1812, American forces took it after a two-day bombardment, and when they withdrew in December 1813 they burned the town to the ground. The British built Fort Mississauga from the rubble, and residents rebuilt Niagara around Queen Street and King Street, placing the new court house out of range of the American guns. The town also became a stop and a refuge on the Underground Railroad.

Much of the rebuilt town survives. Fort George was restored in the 1930s as a Depression make-work project, the historic centre became a heritage conservation district in 1986, and its Regency and classical revival streets, judged the best of their period in the country, were designated a National Historic Site in 2003.

The town's cultural life centres on the Shaw Festival, founded in 1962 and now the second-largest repertory theatre company in North America after Stratford. It began by staging only the plays of George Bernard Shaw and has widened its range to his contemporaries and plays about his era, from 1856 to 1950. Its season opens in April and runs into late autumn, in four theatres in the old town, among them the Royal George and the Court House Theatre.

History is a living part of the place. Fort George, Navy Hall, Butler's Barracks and Fort Mississauga are managed together by Parks Canada as the Niagara National Historic Sites, and the story of Laura Secord, who walked 32 kilometres out of American-occupied territory in 1813 to warn British forces of an attack, is part of local lore. The town claims the oldest Catholic church in Ontario, the second-oldest Anglican church and the oldest golf course in North America still in use.

The municipality takes its heritage seriously, and its head of council holds the title of lord mayor, the only one of any Canadian town, in recognition of its history as Upper Canada's first capital. In Virgil the Mennonite community, which came from Russia in the early to mid-20th century, is the subject of a local oral-history project, and the Virgil Stampede opens the summer on the Victoria Day weekend.

Niagara-on-the-Lake had about 19,000 people at the 2021 census, up 9 per cent from 2016, spread over the old town and the communities of Virgil, Queenston, St. Davids and several hamlets. The Niagara Region has the second-highest proportion of seniors in Ontario.

Tourism and farming are the town's two economies. Shops, restaurants, inns, the theatres, wineries, breweries and an outlet mall on the highway serve the visitors, while the land around the town is a thriving grape- and fruit-growing area; already in the 1840s the town shipped large quantities of apples, peaches and cider each year.

Life follows the seasons. From spring to late autumn the old town fills with theatregoers, cyclists and day-trippers from Toronto and Niagara Falls, and the vineyards are busy with work and visitors; in winter the town quietens and rooms grow cheap. Virgil's sports park, with its arenas and diamonds, is the hub of local hockey, softball, lacrosse and soccer.

The land makes the food here. The town lies in the middle of a grape- and fruit-growing district, and the Niagara Peninsula is one of Ontario's three official wine regions. Canada is the world's largest producer of icewine, with Ontario making over 90 per cent of it — a very sweet dessert wine pressed from grapes that have frozen naturally on the vine. Icewine production in the province began in the early 1980s, and Inniskillin, one of the town's best-known wineries, is noted above all for it and played a pioneering role in the modern Canadian wine industry.

Wines that meet Ontario's appellation rules carry the mark of the Vintners Quality Alliance, the province's official wine authority. A growing number of breweries have joined the wineries, and orchards around the town have supplied fruit for generations.

In the old town, Queen Street and its side streets hold restaurants, cafés and food shops in historic buildings, and in summer one preserved house of 1800 serves afternoon tea with scones and desserts after its costumed tours.