About Us

Willowbank is a place where a national historic site of great significance and beauty and an innovative school of restoration arts exist together in a living, learning and working endeavour. The purpose is to establish and share best practices for restoring and sustaining the historical, architectural and cultural landscape in Canada and beyond. 

Willowbank is one of a handful of places around the world where the teaching of traditional craft and restoration skills is carried out within a nationally-significant historic site.  The use of a rich and layered setting to support a variety of related educational programs is unique within Canada. The site attracts visitors from around the world because of its tangible and intangible values as a place with 8,000 years of cultural history.  Students come to explore the site more deeply and to study both the conservation of existing natural and cultural resources, and the introduction of compatible contemporary layers.  Willowbank is about continuity between past and present, about sensitive adaptive reuse and revitalization, not only for individual places but for entire communities.

Willowbank has been a place of habitation for generations of people who have understood the potential of the beautiful setting, overlooking the Niagara River, and who have nurtured the resources of the site and the region.  Today, the place continues to be a place of cultural significance within the Niagara area.  It hosts public archaeology programs, lecture series, and workshops, publishes a seasonal newsletter, and is the setting for a variety of concerts, dinners, dances, and other special events.  Willowbank is not a museum in the usual sense – it keeps the past alive by reinterpreting it in both traditional and contemporary ways.