Ganondagan State Historic Site

The Visitors' Center

My friend Theresa is visiting from the city, and suggested we do things over the weekend that I hadn’t done before. So I went through my to-do list, and offered her the Ganondagan State Historic Site, in Victor, where a large Seneca village once stood. It currently consists of a visitors’ center, a reconstructed Long House, and various trails over 200 acres. So what were the odds that, at the start of the Labor Day weekend, we would choose the only day they were spraying herbicides to eradicate swallowwort, and the Long House and all of the trails would be closed? And could they have told us that before we bought our tickets?

The first thing we did was peek in the little gift shop, and decided we’d buy some native hulled white corn on our way out. The clerk quickly informed us that Washington had burned all of the corn in a war against the Seneca. As we were headed to the exhibits, a staff member finally informed us about the closures, and explained what there was to see in the building, oddly starting with an auditorium that could be rented for special occasions, a classroom that was currently in use, and finally the “15 exhibits.” She also threw in that Washington had burned all of the corn. As Theresa and I entered the exhibit space (one large room with, perhaps, 15 different sections), we remarked that we never knew this evil side of our first President!

Ganondagan Man
17th c. comb fragment

a model of a Long House

We seemed to be the only visitors that afternoon, so we had the gallery and the docent’s attention all to ourselves. There were some interesting artifacts, and several exhibits on lacrosse, which I learned had evolved from a game originally played by the Iroquois. There was a long explanation of how the Iroquois Nationals were denied access to a 2010 competition in Britain, which didn’t recognize their Six Nations sovereign passport. And we watched a short film of a woman telling of the 1687 war against the French, as part of the Beaver Wars, and how the French burned all of the stored and standing corn. Which led Theresa and me to wonder why, if Washington wasn’t the perpetrator (and in fact, wasn’t born till 45 years after this war), the staff were promulgating that misinformation (we should have challenged them, but didn’t bother).

I bought some corn on my way out, and we drove down the road to Fort Hill, the only trail open for the day (I guess it was high enough that the winds spreading the herbicide wouldn’t reach there). We had a nice little hike up and back down the hill, and encountered only two other people on the trail.

I'd like to return to hike the trails, and it might be fun to go on one of the days when there’s an event hosted by the Friends of Ganondagan, and ask them again who burned the corn…