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.
Leah and Kaitlin, Fulford Place
Working at a historic site, we work with artifacts daily and show them to the public. What isn't obvious is the story behind each object, which makes our research that much more exciting and interesting. This photo shows some of the 79 ivories in the Fulford family collection. Notably, the family ha
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
Excerpt taken from an interview with Louis Lesage, PhD (biologist and Director of the Bureau Nionwentsïo, at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette Church at Wendake, Quebec)
Why is it important to preserve the Wendat language?
Culture has many aspects. One aspect is the language. When you lose your language, you lose a part of your culture. The language helps you to describe your environment, to clearly express what you think, to make some colour in your way of life
Todd Stewart (artist and former Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence program resident)
Highway 11, near Hearst
I feel the deepest connection with a place when I’m alone in it, surrounded by silence, the rest of the world far away. The stillness stops time and clears my mind. For me, a certain place stands out among many – Highway 11, the northern route across Ontario. I’ve driven al
Pamela
The St. Lawrence River has always been an integral part of the Brockville community. For the Fulford Family, who lived in town from the mid-nineteenth century onward and saw their fortunes skyrocket after 1890 because of investment in the "Pink Pills for Pale People", having the means the entertain
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
Paul Dempsey
Last summer my daughter moved out of the province and we loaded up her car and began the journey through Northern Ontario. I have lived all my life in Ontario and it has always been my home. Growing up in Southern Ontario my family took many camping and cottage trips throughout the province visiting
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
Jasmine Ouellette
A place where we welcome everybody and help them.
- Jasmine Ouellette, Bay and Algoma Buskers Festival, Thunder Bay, July 30, 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
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
Litsa Tsouluhas
I love Toronto because it celebrates diversity. This is unique, not only to Canada but to the world.
Ontario means the Great Lakes.
Ontario is making an effort to redress a colonizing past.
- Litsa Tsouluhas - National Aboriginal Day at Fort York National Historic Site - June 22, 2017
C.A.M.
Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too - Yogi Berra
As a tow-headed boy in 1977, I had the pleasure of attending my first Toronto Blue Jays baseball game with my father. To this day I recall the sounds, smells, and sights of Exhibition Stadium. From the pro
Cades McKenna
Rainbow Falls, lakes, forests, swimming, roller blading, hiking.
- Cades McKenna, Bay and Algoma Buskers Festival, Thunder Bay, July 30, 2017
Charlie Fairbank (great-grandson of Oil Springs pioneer John Henry Fairbank)
An enduring landscape
Each morning, I open the door of our farmhouse and step into an enduring landscape of beauty, shaped by horse and man. Sheep dot the fields, deer often bound away and birds flap overhead. The swinging wooden jerker line sings a symphonic rhythm as it delivers power to the pum
Olivia Wallace
Emancipation Day. FREE AT LAST!
- Olivia Wallace, Emancipation Day celebration at Uncle Tom’s Cabin Historic Site, Dresden, August 5, 2017
Amanda Rhodenizer
Amanda Rhodenizer is an artist and former Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence program resident.
The Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence program at Fool’s Paradise is coordinated by the Ontario Heritage Trust and is supported by the RBC Foundation.
The artist gratefully acknowledges the financial s
Sara Waxman
Saxe-Coburg Soup
The charming town of Cobourg, on Lake Ontario, has visitors all year round. It’s a lovely place to spend the day. In 1819, to honour the marriage of Princess Charlotte to Price Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the town, originally called Amhurst, changed its name to Cobourg.
2 tbsp. butt
John Steckley
My Brodie History
In 1835 a nine year old Scottish lad named Alexander Brodie came to southern Ontario by ships and boats from Peterhead in northeastern Scotland. He and his family spent their first year on Lot Street (now Queen Street) in Toronto then called York. He described seeing cows being
Jim Szilva (author and son of Ted Szilva, creator of the Big Nickel)
A nickel and a prayer
In 1963, a firefighter named Ted Szilva entered a contest organized by the Canadian Centennial Committee in Sudbury. The committee asked residents of the city to come up with a unique way to celebrate and recognize Canada’s 100th birthday in Sudbury. Sudbury was a mining town
Katherine Low
The House on Drake Street
Number 3. Built in 1876, this house has both witnessed and been subject to many changes – it doesn’t look quite the same now, but I think it looks pretty good for 141.
When my parents bought the house with two very small girls in tow, my grandmother cried. It was, to pu
Sue Senecal
Two rivers that meet in downtown Paris! Wonderful sense of peace and adventure when you hear the train whistle blow ...
- Sue Senecal, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, July 23, 2017
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