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.
Lazzelle Gelias
My home on NATIVE LAND!!
Megweetch!
- Lazzelle Gelias - National Aboriginal Day at Fort York National Historic Site - June 21, 2017
Scarlett Janusas (President, Scarlett Janusas Archaeology Inc. )
Underwater archaeology
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain, American author
I’ve always had a passion ab
Nathan Tidridge
#Waterdown's #Souharissen Canoe Garden - planted with medicine gifted by Elder Carolyn King of @MNCFN. #MyOntario
Diane
“I am proud to be Canadian. The small villages and towns are very friendly but I also loved Toronto. I loved the streetcar and the subway – it is easy to get anywhere.”
Diane was born in Orangeville, Ontario and lived there for much of her life.
She had a twin sister and is one of six children.
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
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
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
Museums of Mississauga
This photograph shows volunteer Margaret Archer dressed in her great grandmothers dress in front of the newly opened Lewis Bradley Museum in 1967.
The Bradley Museum opened to the public in 1967 as part of the Canada’s Centennial Celebrations. The home was built by the Bradley family who settled i
Larry Wayne Richards (former Trust Board member, Professor Emeritus and former Dean, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto)
Ontario trains
My first views of Ontario were from a passenger train 45 years ago. In 1972, I crossed the border at Detroit and took a train from Windsor to Toronto. From my window, I experienced the southwestern Ontario landscape – rolling green farmland and orderly towns – unfolding like frames
William "Liam" Wadsworth
Uncovering Our Forgotten Souls
For me, archaeology is not just a pathway to historical discovery. It may also be an instrument in the search for truth and, if necessary, justice for past and present peoples. This interest in uncovering unspoken stories brought me to the University of Toronto where
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
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 experiences, identities, values and aspirations.
Visit the links below to view MyOntario photos on Flickr.
MyOntario photo galleries:
September 30: Doors Open Timmins (Timmins)September 23: Doors Open Grimsby (Grimsby)September 10: Leslieville Flea (Toronto)August 26-27: Afro-Carib Festival (Scar
Janet Haughton
Naturally beautiful!
- Janet Haughton, Canuck It Up Festival Amherstburg, downtown Amherstburg, August 6, 2017
Cades McKenna
Rainbow Falls, lakes, forests, swimming, roller blading, hiking.
- Cades McKenna, Bay and Algoma Buskers Festival, Thunder Bay, July 30, 2017
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
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
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
#MyOntario
Share your Doors Open Ontario discoveries
From natural landscapes to century-old cabins to modern marvels of engineering, every space tells a story. Doors Open Ontario is a chance to explore some of the province's most fascinating places and experience our unique history from a new perspective.
Sam
Gordon Lightfoot Records
Whenever I’m at a flea-market or garage sale, after sizing up the tattered sports equipment, I go directly to the milk crates full of musty old records. Flipping through the inevitable Perry Cuomo, Bee Gees and big band era compilations, I look for missing pieces of my Gor
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
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
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
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
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
Keirsten & Kasha
Fulford Place was the estate of a millionaire by the name of George Fulford I at the end of the 19th century. This estate was passed on to his son George Fulford II, who at the time of his passing, bequeathed it to the Ontario Heritage Trust. The three reasons why they decided to take the property u