The cultural history of what is now Ontario stretches back more than 10,000 years. Many Nations and many peoples have called this place home. MyOntario – A vision over time marks this long history by opening a conversation among Ontarians about our experiences, identities, values and aspirations.
We are asking people from across the province to share their stories – the places, memories, photos, artifacts, artworks and traditions that inspire you, that motivate you and help define who you are. Be the province's storytellers, record keepers, historians and visionaries!
Let's build a deeper understanding, showcase our diversity and create a lasting record that reflects the breadth, depth and complexity of our great province as we look to the future.
Nathan Tidridge
Her Majesty's beautiful @MohawkChapel - the oldest Protestant church in #MyOntario. #ChapelRoyal
Chief Francis Pegahmagabow, 1889-1952
Francis Pegahmagabow, an Ojibwe of the Caribou clan, was born in Shawanaga First Nation. He volunteered at the onset of the First World War and served overseas as a scout and sniper with the Canadian Expeditionary Force's 1st Battalion. He was one of 39 Canadian soldiers awarded the Military Medal a
R. Dennis Moore (Archivist, Multicultural History Society of Ontario)
This is the temporary passport of Arthur Schönberg, an Estonian naval engineer who risked the high seas to secure a new life in Canada. Although I have never met Mr. Schönberg, his story has been preserved on audiotape by the Multicultural History Society of Ontario.
Arthur Schönberg had a lot of
Sean Fraser
The Ravine
Straining against the colonial engineer’s grid, carved relentlessly through table land by an ancient creek, its buried waters find their way to the Don and on to the lake. On its banks are a kaleidoscope of wild flowers, blossoms, leaves and litter that turn with the seasons. The V-shap
Gabriela Iglecias
Chez moi, avec ma communauté!
- Gabriela Iglecias - National Aboriginal Day at Fort York National Historic Site - June 21, 2017
Janice Finkle, Adam Leslie and Ian Leslie
Amazing Provincial Parks! We have camped over the years at both canoe-in and drive-in Parks. Our family connects and explores together.
- Janice Finkle, Adam Leslie and Ian Leslie at Kingston Penitentiary Museum - Doors Open Kingston, June 17, 2017
Don Pearson
One cannot think of Ontario without the backdrop image of water – from the Great Lakes, which define its southern border, to the magnificent rivers that drain its vast geography, to the thousands of lakes throughout the Canadian Shield. The name Ontario itself is taken from the Iroquoian language, m
Eleanor McMahon (Ontario’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport)
A Place to Stand
As Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport, I’ve had the privilege to meet many proud, talented and hardworking Ontarians through my participation in a number of special events and occasions. One highlight came a few months ago.
It was a perfect late-summer day in our nation’s ca
MyOntario is ...
We are bringing MyOntario – A vision over time to communities across the province to find out what Ontario means to you!
In 2017, our MyOntario roadshow and interactive kiosks are coming to community events, museums and more. It’s a unique chance to join a provincewide conversation about our expe
Susan Bryan (volunteer Chair of the Nature Reserves Committee of the Thunder Bay Field Naturalists)
Someone has passed this way before
I’m standing on the deck of a small boat, riding the swells of the Nipigon River where it widens into Lake Superior. In front of me, a rock cliff rises straight out of the water. On this cliff are a series of pictographs – lines, circles and other symbols – as we
Lazzelle Gelias
My home on NATIVE LAND!!
Megweetch!
- Lazzelle Gelias - National Aboriginal Day at Fort York National Historic Site - June 21, 2017
Cades McKenna
Rainbow Falls, lakes, forests, swimming, roller blading, hiking.
- Cades McKenna, Bay and Algoma Buskers Festival, Thunder Bay, July 30, 2017
Andrew Riddle (Partner at ASI)
For millennia, the Grand River served as a highway for the First Nations people of Southern Ontario, connecting broad expanses of the Golden Horseshoe inland to Lake Erie. The banks of the Grand River have sometimes been characterized as one long archaeological site, and that proved to be true for a
Jean-Luc Pilon (Curator of Central Archaeology at the Canadian Museum of History)
The gift of time travel
In the summer of 1982, I was carrying out archaeological research near the shores of Hudson Bay on the Severn River. One of the sites we were investigating had been used a number of times. The earliest evidence suggested that people camped at the Ouabouche site before Europ
Miptoon (Anthony Chegahno)
Anthony Chegahno, whose Anishinaabe name is Miptoon, is an elder, a resident of Neyaashiiningmiing and a former band councillor for the Chippewas of Nawash unceded First Nation.
S. Carlyle
In 1998 I packed up and moved to Ontario to start a new life in what I thought was a foreign land. I soon discovered that both sides of my family have deep roots in Ontario – something that is often hard for a native of the West Coast to accept!
Since then I’ve travelled all over the province. Ind
Pauline McGibbon 1910-2001
The first woman to hold a vice-regal office in Canada, Pauline Emily Mills, was born in Sarnia, Ontario in 1910. After local schooling and a degree at Victoria College, University of Toronto, she married Donald Walker McGibbon in 1935. A life-long volunteer and supporter of the arts, Mrs. McGibbon b
David P. Silcox (author, educator, cultural administrator and arts advocate)
MY ONTARIO IS:
RosalieAbella, RobertAitken, AndréAlexis, LouApplebaum, MargaretAtwood, IainBaxter&, StanBevington, BillBissett, JeanBoggs, DaveBroadfoot, EdBurtynsky, JackBush, JackCostello, DavidCrombie, KikiDelaney, LouiseDennys, MichaeldePencier, RamsayDerry, RupertDuchesne, BuddFeheley, Ma
W. Kelly
This table and chair belonged to my grandmother. She got it from her father who brought her and her two brothers to Canada just after the First World War. Her mother had died in childbirth. She showed me her father’s war medals when I was a boy. He’d fought in different wars in different parts of th
Kendrick Doll
I’m so grateful to have experienced adventures across many of Ontario’s landscapes. Here are a few that stuck with me.
My Ontario is:
Feeling the splash of the waves on my face while kayaking the 1000 islands on the St-Lawrence RiverHearing the loons call as night settles in while sitting around
#MyOntario
Show us the places that inspire you!
Your childhood home. The rink where you scored your first goal. The hiking trail you know like the back of your hand. Tell us about the spaces that hold a special place in your heart.
Join the conversation on social media: Explore #MyOntario stories about inspiring places across the province, and connect with us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Georges Quirion (architect and former Ontario Heritage Trust Board member)
Ontario’s rich industrial history
Northern Ontario has unique structures, not familiar to many, spread out through small northern communities, reflecting its rich history and its vast wealth of precious resources sought after by many from around the world.
The mining industry in particular creat
Ellen Scheinberg (author and President, Heritage Professionals/Archives)
Celebrating the history of Toronto’s Jewish cemeteries
Over the past decade, I have developed a passion for cemeteries. It started during my tenure as Director of the Ontario Jewish Archives, when I devised a tour of the Pape Avenue Cemetery with local artist Susan Brown.
Pape Cemetery was estab
Cameron Ylimaki
Pride & Happiness.
- Cameron Ylimaki, Bay and Algoma Buskers Festival, Thunder Bay, July 29, 2017
Kevin Mannara (Basilian scholastic, seminarian, Our Lady of Assumption Catholic Parish)
What was and what will be
The term symbolkirchen can roughly be translated as a “symbol bearing church.” Such churches point to living realities beyond ourselves and hold the potential to serve as bridges, transcending the present vision to bring together what was and what may yet be. Assumption C
Philip Pritchard (Vice President, resource centre and Curator, Hockey Hall of Fame and Keeper of the Stanley Cup)
Ontario and the Stanley Cup
Hockey is Canada’s national sport, and there is nothing more synonymous with hockey than the Stanley Cup. The tradition, the aura and the respect it has from its fans, players, coaches and management is second to none.
Having the privilege to travel with the Stanley C