Thank you.
Yes, it is unique and again there are many spots along the lake—I'm familiar with Lake Erie because I grew up there—but at the end of the 19th century, many Americans came over to the northern shore of Lake Erie and bought property. In fact, they opened up subdivisions there where cottages were being built. This is before there was a Peace Bridge and they had to come over on a ferry. That ferry left the city of Buffalo and landed in the little village of Crystal Beach, a little hamlet. There in 1888, you're correct, the Crystal Beach Amusement Park was built, one of the first ones in the area. That whole area became a summer resort.
There are hundreds and hundreds of cottages that were built there, all by Americans, from 1888 through the end of the First World War and thereafter, so they're part of the community. They live there.
I grew up in Port Colborne, as I think I said. I knew when the May 24 weekend was because our pastor would stand up in that pulpit and say one thing he said once a year, “I welcome our summer residents.” Now, he didn't say, “I welcome the foreigners”, “I welcome the non-citizens”, or “I welcome the Americans”. They were the “summer residents”. That's what my parents called them, and that's what we called them. They were the residents of our community.
If you don't live in a border town, that may be hard to imagine, that two different countries could be together, live together as one, but that's how I grew up and it's still that way to this day.