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.
William R. Fitzgerald (archaeologist)
A divine intersection of history and archaeology
Suspicion, fear, and intimidation met Jesuit priests Jean de Brébeuf and Pierre-Joseph-Marie Chaumonot during their Mission of the Angels to “la Nation Neutre” between November 2, 1640 and March 19, 1641. This tribal confederacy – so named by Champl
Trini Mitra
One of the happiest moments of my life ... when Mum was visiting me in 2015 and was thrilled when I took her to the Niagara Falls in the middle of November. It was quite an experience for someone who is not used to our frigid temperatures to be experiencing the Falls in the middle of Winter. She was
Jeanette Elliott, Collections Co-ordinator, Fanshawe Pioneer Village
This Farm Service Corps uniform is part of the permanent collection at Fanshawe Pioneer Village, and serves to remind us that men were not the only participants in World War One. While women were restricted from participating in direct combatant roles, they organized and outfitted themselves for hom
Nathan Tidridge
Her Majesty's beautiful @MohawkChapel - the oldest Protestant church in #MyOntario. #ChapelRoyal
Michael Bliss, 1941-2017 (historian, award-winning author and Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto)
You can go home again
I first saw the Camp Ahmek waterfront on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park in 1951. I saw it again last summer – 65 years later – and it was almost completely unchanged.
On the walls of Ahmek's great dining hall still hang plaques commemorating the highlights of each summer's ca
CFCL Radio
The first French-language radio station in Ontario, CFCL-Timmins, began broadcasting in December 1951. The event was greeted with enthusiasm by Franco-Ontarians who until then had heard limited programming in French over the airwaves. The station reached listeners from Kirkland Lake to Hearst, showc
Kathy Stinson (author of books for young people)
When I first started going to the cottage that has been in my husband’s family for more than 100 years, I loved the sense of continuity I felt there, as five generations enjoyed the traditions that Grandfather Gordon established in the early 1900s. And the place. The gorgeous combinations of water,
Delany Leitch, Backus-Page House Museum
The Tyrconnell Cheese Factory was established in 1865 by John Pearce on his own farm, and was the first cheese factory in the district. At that time, cheese boxes were not even available in all of Elgin County, so Mr. Pearce and his men had to make the long and slow journey to Ingersoll and back in
David Rayside (Professor Emeritus of Political Science and founding Director of the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto)
Making history
At 6 p.m. on December 2, 1986, Ontario’s legislative assembly was scheduled to vote on adding “sexual orientation” to the province’s Human Rights Code. Ten minutes away, at University College, I ended a late-afternoon class and ran over to the public gallery.
The vote was the only
Paul Yee (historan and author)
Telling the stories of Chinese Canadians
I am inspired by something intangible: the past, especially the history of Chinese Canadians. I grew up in Vancouver, knowing little about it. But once I found traces of it, I never stopped telling its stories.
Yes, there are museum artifacts and archival
Julie Dorsey
Diverse.
- Julie Dorsey, Emancipation Day celebration at Uncle Tom’s Cabin Historic Site, Dresden, August 5, 2017
Steven Beckly (artist and former Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence program resident)
Steven Beckly is a visual artist specializing in photography.
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
Sam Steiner (Managing Editor of the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online and retired archivist from the Mennonite Archives of Ontario)
The cloud of witnesses
As a historian of Mennonites in Ontario, I have always enjoyed wandering through Mennonite and Amish cemeteries. Whether plain Old Order Amish or Old Order Mennonite cemeteries with only simple markers, or assimilated Mennonite cemeteries with a greater variety of monuments,
Michael Runtz (educator, naturalist, author and nature photographer)
Drawn back to Algonquin
Being a lifelong naturalist whose goal has been to explore Ontario’s natural history, I’ve come to appreciate just how rich this province’s biodiversity is. The north boasts the southernmost tundra in the world, home to polar bears and Arctic fox. The south harbours vestige
Henie Frances
I met my husband at the end of March 1964. I was 17, a Grade 13 student, and doing a three-day public relations job at a convention in a downtown Toronto hotel, where he was in sales for the event. He invited me out and took me to the Dunlap Observatory where the planet Venus was being observed. It
#MyOntario
Where's the best place to see Ontario's fall colours?
Every year, nature puts on a dazzling display of fall colours in Ontario. From parks to trails to your own backyard – tell us where you take in these picturesque views.
Join the conversation on social media: Explore #MyOntario posts about Ont
Jasmine Ouellette
A place where we welcome everybody and help them.
- Jasmine Ouellette, Bay and Algoma Buskers Festival, Thunder Bay, July 30, 2017
Safaa Zbib
My life is full of stories, and My Ontario is their latest...My heart travelled to Canada way before I physically did; back in the eighties, my brother immigrated to Montreal. I loved every photo he used to send. I fell in love with the greenery, I sensed peace and serenity. Life took me away from m
Sexual Diversity Activism at the University of Toronto
Having first met off campus, the University of Toronto Homophile Association (UTHA) convened again on November 4, 1969, at University College to advocate equality and freedom for gay men and lesbians. This was the first group of its kind at a Canadian university. Early on, UTHA attracted supporters
Cameron Ylimaki
Pride & Happiness.
- Cameron Ylimaki, Bay and Algoma Buskers Festival, Thunder Bay, July 29, 2017
Ken Butland
Bon Echo
You see the sign—oh you’ve arrived;Bon Echo’s a sight for sore eyes.
Generations of families camp‘Round tended fire and propane lamp.They laugh and play, canoe and cook,Or lazily lounge with face in book.Parents nurture their children to feelNature’s gifts, her wonders real.
Animals r
The Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell (29th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario)
The conscience of our province
Ontario’s Legislative Building, completed in 1893, is a magnificent structure filled with stories from the most significant moments in our province’s modern history. The place is replete with traditions. One of the more recent ones is the hosting of the Lieutenant Go
Laura Wickett
Industrial heritage in Jordan Harbour
To find your way to one of Niagara’s hidden gems, you first need to know which dead-end street in Jordan Station to park on, and then take an overgrown pathway through the bushes to a steel train trestle bridge. Follow it out over the mouth of Jordan Harbour,
Shruthi Dhananjaya
Being raised in Toronto, I have fond memories of the city’s harbourfront. Throughout the years, I would visit the harbourfront each summer with my family and it is a tradition which I still continue. I find it to be a calming oasis right in the heart of the city centre. I enjoy walking on the boardw
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