Kingston youth donned their cotton archival gloves on Saturday morning to engage with the city’s history.

Eleven Kingston students from grades 4 to 8 earned the chance to participate in a one-day “Historians in Training” event through the Kingston Regional Heritage Fair, in which they learned from local experts at the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston and Murney Tower.

The lucky students were all award winners at the recent Virtual Kingston Regional Heritage Fair, which ran from May 6 to 9 with more than 500 participants.

Students kicked off the day with a visit to the marine museum, located at the downtown dry dock.

Throughout the morning, students learned about Kingston’s history as a city along an important waterway, and how the water shaped the city’s development. They had a chance to tour the historic dry dock building, examining the pipe systems that drain the basin and learning about the mechanics of such a large operation.

Students were then given a tour of the old boats featured throughout the museum and the museum’s archives, and they were given the chance to handle old cannon balls found along the St. Lawrence River.

All of the students participating in the day were selected because of history projects that they had put together themselves, and their knowledge of history was put to the test throughout the day.

Students were given “Historian in Training” toolkits early in the day, which included cotton gloves with which to handle artifacts, and were quizzed throughout the day on their knowledge of historical practices and local history.

For Lindsay Surra, a Grade 6 student who participated in the event, the day was a chance to learn about the history of the city.

“I’m excited to be here because I just moved a few years ago and I haven’t really gotten to know about the area,” Surra said.

The day was an opportunity for many of the students to be introduced to the historical sites throughout the community.

“I didn’t even know about Fort Henry, and I didn’t know that a lot of these museums even existed, so it is just neat to see that this is in the area that I live in,” Surra said.

For Surra, the highlight of the day was learning about all of the interesting artifacts found along the St. Lawrence and Cataraqui rivers.

“Just seeing all of the stuff that they have found in the river is really neat. It’s just crazy,” she said.

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