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.
Rozyur Rahman
I like Ontario because we can go hiking in many forests. I can play in parks and playgrounds.
- Rozyur Rahman, Ontario Science Centre, July 21, 2017
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
Tracy Lawson
My name is Tracy Lawson and I am a direct descendant of Enerals Griffin. I learned all about my amazing lineage through my father, Dave Lawson, who is pictured here in front of Griffin House.
He learned of his heritage and family history late in life; it was featured in the attached video when the
Dawson Bridger
The photo of my great great grandfather, Frederick Allen Weir, on the cover of the 1913 Rod and Gun magazine connects me to a family member I never met. This image was captured near Rondeau Provincial Park, where my family lived at the time. Frederick Weir, his son, and my grandfather, hunted the Ca
Carl Benn (Department of History, Ryerson University)
Edwardian home photos
I possess 16 photographs from c.1905 of my great-grandparents’ home in St. Catharines. At a personal level, I like these pictures because they record details about the life of my ancestors. The images also show some furnishings I knew growing up in the 1950s and 1960s because
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
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
Chloe Cooley and the 1793 Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada
On March 14, 1793 Chloe Cooley, an enslaved Black woman in Queenston, was bound, thrown in a boat and sold across the river to a new owner in the United States. Her screams and violent resistance were brought to the attention of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe by Peter Martin, a free Black an
Colton Konecny
Friends.
- Colton Konecny, Emancipation Day celebration at Uncle Tom’s Cabin Historic Site, Dresden, August 5, 2017
#MyOntario
Choose your own adventure
From historic sites to roadside attractions, festivals to hiking trails – there are many things to see and do in your own backyard. Tell us about your favourite ways to discover the province!
Join the conversation on social media: See #MyOntario posts about exploring O
Niagara Historical Society & Museum
Niagara-on-the-Lake became one of the several places that received poor children from the streets and workhouses of Britain. In 1868, Maria Rye purchased the former Niagara Courthouse and Gaol located just outside Old Town. She converted the building into an orphanage known as “Our Western Home” (OW
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
Diane Denyes-Wenn, Curator
Mariners Park Museum
2065 County Road #13Picton, Ontario
This museum features artifacts from marine history around Prince Edward County. Display on lighthouses, ship wrecks, fishing, rum running, boat racing, and water craft of all kinds. Open Victoria Day to Thanksgiving Wednesday to Sunday. Lots f
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
Sylvia
I was born with the wanderlust genes (Ajala the traveler as I am still called). We moved to Canada in 2015, prior to that we have lived in 4 different countries and had travelled to about 20 countries and still counting. We didn’t know much about Canada before we decided to move, all we knew at that
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
Lynne D. DiStefano
Tracking Ontario’s Thames
In the mid-1990s, George Kapelos and I began work on an exhibition about Ontario’s Thames River that was to be held at Museum London.
I don’t remember exactly when I became fascinated with the river. I think it had to do with how the river was depicted in 19th century t
The Honourable David Onley (28th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario)
Thoughts about Ontario at 150
The photo became an heirloom in our family: a picture of Her Majesty the Queen at Kew Gardens in The Beach, escorted by Toronto Maple Leafs owner Conn Smythe on a blistering hot June 1959 day, viewing dozens of kids in wheelchairs. The large banner framing the area pr
Amanda J. Ferry
All the different cultures that are welcome here.
- Amanda J. Ferry, Emancipation Day, Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site, August 5, 2017
Niagara Historical Society & Museum
Niagara-on-the-Lake is one of the few towns in Ontario that has had black residents since the beginning of the province. However, it was in the years following the War of 1812 that Niagara saw an increase in black immigrants and runaway slaves. When the United States Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was p
D’Arcy Jenish (author of The St. Lawrence Seaway: Fifty Years and Counting)
Making the voyage
Our voyage aboard the MV Algomarine began at the Port of Montreal
late on a Saturday afternoon in July 2007 and ended early the following
Thursday morning when the 730-foot laker docked at the Port of Thunder
Bay. In four-plus days, the ship had travelled some 3,000 kilomet
Steven Beckly (artist and former Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence program resident)
Steven Beckly is a visual artist specializing in photography.
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
Diane Denyes-Wenn, Curator
Rose House Museum
... a small Loyalist home that has survived since 1790's having housed 7 generations of the Rose Family, Quakers who fled from the United States after the American Revolution. The house features many artifacts that would have been used throughout the history of the house, for examp