Les meilleurs hôtels à Sarnia

When Canadians think of oil derricks and pump-jacks, they automatically think of the rolling, barren hills of southern Alberta. But southern Ontario's Sarnia area, not far across the border from Detroit, has its own long oil history. At its height, 30,000 barrels a day were being pulled from the depths around Petrolia and Oil Springs. That gush is now a relative trickle, but the evidence of fast times is still there in Victorian mansions in Petrolia and the Oil Museum of Canada in Oil Springs. The area is also rich in black history. The famed anti-slavery text Uncle Tom's Cabin is based on the life of Reverend Josiah Henson, who escaped from a Maryland master through the Underground Railroad. Henson and a group of sympathizers bought farmland near Dresden and founded a trade school for runaway slaves. The story is now retold at the Uncle Tom's Cabin historic site. Sarnia itself developed as a lumber port, operating off the the St.Clair River. These days it lives off a still-active petrochemical industry, and numerous refineries are operating. The area is full of parkland, beaches, period architecture and history, but the millions of Americans who cross into Canada from Sarnia's cross-border neighbor Port Huron (Michigan) tend to drive right through.