Those are both great questions and excellent comments about the Rouge.
I'd like to say a word about the Rouge and the agricultural community. We've met with many of the families now, and with the York Federation of Agriculture, the Durham Federation of Agriculture, and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. I think we'll have an outstanding interpretative offer in the agricultural world; we will be able to show people something of the history and current state of Canadian farming. They've been a fantastic group of people to work with. I think we're in good hands. There has long been a sustainable agriculture in that area, and we will be able to demonstrate that to Canadians. We will also have some food security in and around Toronto, which is an important element for all of our sustainability. So I'll start with that.
Right now, we are members of what are called the family of national historic sites, which often include small museums in provinces. We give a lot of help from a collections management perspective to many of those smaller national historic sites and smaller museums. We have standards for collections management that many of them use. We have standards for the protection of their places, so that they don't have to buy the same architectural and engineering services. We've essentially given them a blueprint on how to do that. So we're involved in that community all across the country.
I think the final point that you mentioned was just on the “enjoy”. That's what we are trying to promote within national historic sites. We did a piece of research on barriers to why people don't go to parks and national historic sites, and it amazed us that a lot of people didn't feel they had the skill or knowledge to come to a national historic site. We thought we would get that on the national park side, but a lot of Canadians feel that they need some pre-knowledge to come to national historic sites.
I think we have to start emphasizing the fun and enjoyment elements so that people come out. We've done a few pilots in this area. Fort Rodd Hill is an example. We moved visitation from 40,000 people there to almost 70,000 in one year by making more enjoyable things. They now have things such as an historic half-marathon, where you run around the fort and then do an interpretive program. We now do historic weddings there, along with other things that bring some of that fun element back.
You can learn and have fun at the same time. I think this has been an important lesson for us to learn, i.e., that people think the velvet rope stops you from going. Getting in there and being immersed and using things has been a highly important element for making our national historic sites more relevant to Canadians.