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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
Jeremy Collins
A santuary for all seasons
When I think of My Ontario, my thoughts sometimes turn to those cold Canadian winter days in late January and early February when snow and ice prevail and the hope of spring is just a distant dream and yet I know that a sanctuary for the senses is not too far away. This
#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
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
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.
Jasmine Ouellette
A place where we welcome everybody and help them.
- Jasmine Ouellette, 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
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
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
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
Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site
Manilla originally collected from the sunken ship S.S. Duoro, located in the Western Isles, Sicily. Manillas such as this were considered to be 'slave trade money', as they were used as currency during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade during the early 15th century. They were often constructed from cop
#MyOntario
Share your trillium sightings
Trilliums, Ontario's official flower since 1937, bloom in mid-May. In addition to the white (grandiflorum) variety, trillium varieties also include red (erectum) and yellow (lutem). This photo of a red trillium was taken at the Fleetwood Creek Natural Area.
Did yo
From an interview with Josephine Mandamin (“Water Walker,” grandmother and a 2015 recipient of a Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award for Excellence in Conservation)
Walking with the water
When we walk with the water, we pray for the water. The water that we carry, we pray for it, and we pray to it; we speak to it. Our minds and our hearts are with the water that we carry. The water is very precious. We have adopted it. We picked it up from where we walk from,
The Ontario Human Rights Code
The Ontario Human Rights Code came into effect on June 15, 1962 and established equal rights and freedom from discrimination as primary elements of provincial law. The first legislation of its kind in Canada, the Code was designed to affirm and uphold the “inherent dignity and the equal and inaliena
Jen Brennan
Many people are not aware that the Unitarian Universalism faith has been around in Canada since the late 1800s. The congregation in Ottawa began on Elgin Street in 1898.
To better serve the community, an award-winning building was erected on Cleary Avenue (Algonquin Avenue at the time) on five acr
Joëlle Roy (auteure, compositrice-interprète et animatrice communautaire)
Descendants de la Vallée du Saint-Laurent
This French poem pays homage to the residents of the St. Lawrence velley who moved to Ontario in search of a better life working in the mines.
Il est parti au chantierY avait à peine 15 ansY a moyen de s’en sortirPour ça, faut faire d’l’argentY en a en
R. Donald Maracle (Chief of the Mohawks of Bay of Quinte)
Christ Church, Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal of the Mohawk – Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory
During the American Revolution, the Mohawks were forced to flee their homeland in upper New York State. In 1784, after spending several years in Lachine, Quebec, a group of Mohawks arrived on the shores of the Ba
Waubageshig
Retrieving the Sleigh
It is mid-April. My three brothers, Michael, Tom and George, and I are outside playing catch in the warm afternoon spring sun. I’m 11 years old, Michael is 8, Tom 7 and George 6. The spring sun has been warm all week so the snow around our house has disappeared. We’re very ha
Nathan Tidridge
#Waterdown's #Souharissen Canoe Garden - planted with medicine gifted by Elder Carolyn King of @MNCFN. #MyOntario
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