Discussions underway to rename Ryerson Park

The town is moving toward a name change for Ryerson Park.

Last summer, town councillors had a brief discussion about  renaming the green stretch along the shore of Lake Ontario in the Chautauqua neighbourhood, but with no timeline.

Town staff have recently discussed the issue with the Niagara Regional Native Centre and the Niagara-
on-the-Lake Museum, the Chautauqua Residents Association was told, and members had a conversation about their preferences during their recent annual general meeting.

They hope to be included in the town’s ongoing discussions and eventual decision, says CRA president Brian Crow, who was also a member of The Friends of Ryerson Park, formed to deal with other issues related to the park.

“We got an email from Marnie (Cluckie, the town CAO) late last week about the park name,” says Crow.

She mentions a meeting in the next week or two with the three organizers of The Friends of Ryerson Park, Crow, John Scott and Sean Devlin, to discuss the name change.

Members of the CRA first talked about it at a meeting a year ago, and decided to wait until the town was closer to a decision of changing it.

When the issue was raised again recently, and some research done about the area, Crow says, the CRA chose the name Chautauqua Park.

There is already a Chautauqua Park in the neighbourhood, likely about the same size as Ryerson Park on Niagara Boulevard, which includes a small strip of beach on Lake Ontario. The site of Ryerson Park has more historic significance, he says.

Chautauqua is a First Nations word, and would recognize their significance to the history of the area, as well as the history of the Chautauqua movement.

Before erosion destroyed most of the beach by the park, it offered recreational activities, including tennis courts, croquet, small boat rentals, and a wharf for larger boats bringing people from Toronto.

If the name Chautauqua is chosen — althought the process is far from final, with more discussion planned amongst a larger group of people — the existing Chautauqua Park would then be given a new name, Crow says.

The town discussion to rename the park first surfaced following the discovery of potential graves of Indigenous children on the properties of two residential schools, one in Kamloops, B.C., and another in Saskatchewan.

When councillors first mentioned the possibility of renaming of the park, Sarah Kaufman, NOTL Museum curator, said it was difficult to conclude the level of Egerton Ryerson’s involvement in residential schools, or to be certain that the park is named after him.

At a June, 2021 meeting of the town’s inclusivity committee, members supported a town initiative to investigate the origins of Ryerson Park’s name.

Since then, says Lord Mayor Betty Disero, the town has moved very slowly, not wanting to be reactive, waiting for information from other organizations and wanting to involve others in the discussion, including the museum, the Niagara Regional Native Centre, the CRA, and all residents of NOTL.

And they want to give people lots of time to think about the matter and for various organizations to discuss it amongst themselves.

“We’re just starting the process,” she says. “We talked to the museum, we added the Niagara Regional Native Centre, now we’ve added Chautauqua Residents Association, and we’ll keep going. We want everyone involved to take their time, and not be rushed. We don’t want to rush anybody or any discussion of any kind.”