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.
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
Adrienne Shadd (historian, curator and author)
Reflections on my hometown
In the year of the 150th birthday of Canada, I would like to pay tribute to my hometown. North Buxton started out in 1849 as a colony established by escaped slaves and free Blacks from the United States. One of the final stops on the Underground Railroad, Buxton occupies
Patricia
An air of mystery surrounds Simone Rusu’s photo of 401 Richmond Street West - a heritage-designated, industrial building turned arts-and-culture hub - in Toronto, Ontario. The photo was taken during Luminato’s second Youth Photography Program workshop at the Doors Open Ontario Toronto 2017 event, wh
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
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
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
Joseph Desloges (Professor, Departments of Earth Sciences and Geography, Woodsworth College, University of Toronto)
Celebrating the Chinguacousy Badlands
The Chinguacousy (“land of the young pines”) Badlands have been visited by hundreds of thousands of Ontarians. This rapidly eroding clay-shale bedrock at the foot of the Niagara Escarpment is a unique natural heritage feature in the province. As a designated A
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
Dr. Patrick Julig (Professor of Anthropology, School of Community and Northern Studies, Laurentian University, Sudbury)
Reflections on ancient quarry sites of northern Ontario
In the 1980s-90s, I excavated at Cummins and Sheguiandah National Historic Site quarry/workshops in northern Ontario – in addition to many neat places elsewhere around the world.
We archaeologists are inspired in our quests, seeking rare an
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
J.M. Rowe, Esquesing Historical Society
The Great War 1914-1918
The home front – Georgetown
This quilt was created through the efforts of the Georgetown Women’s Institute in 1915. The citizens were asked to pay 10 cents per name to have it embroidered onto a square for the quilt. It was completed in time for the 1915 Esquesing (George
#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
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
Olivia Wallace
Emancipation Day. FREE AT LAST!
- Olivia Wallace, Emancipation Day celebration at Uncle Tom’s Cabin Historic Site, Dresden, August 5, 2017
Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, 1872-1918
The distinguished soldier, physician and poet was born and raised in Guelph, Ontario. John McCrae graduated from the University of Toronto in medicine, practised as a pathologist and taught medicine at McGill University in Montreal. In 1899, he served in the South African War as an officer with the
Afua Cooper, PhD (James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies, Dalhousie University)
The Black history of Ontario inspires me and defines who I am
Peggy Pompadour haunts me. I walk through the streets of Ye Olde Towne Toronto and I feel her presence – this Black enslaved woman who was owned, jailed and sold by colonial administrator Peter Russell. Peggy often ran away from slavery
Lynn Thompson
Thank you Turtle Island. Homeland of the Mississauga New Credit for your strength, resilience, knowledge!!
- Lynn Thompson - National Aboriginal Day at Fort York National Historic Site - June 21, 2017
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
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
Olivia Wallace
Since digital cameras became popularized, one of my major hobbies has been taking photos of my family, friends, and natural and built environment around me. Now that I have a great camera on my phone, I snap and share photos on a daily basis. My greatest focus as of late has been capturing the art a
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
Jasmine Ouellette
A place where we welcome everybody and help them.
- Jasmine Ouellette, Bay and Algoma Buskers Festival, Thunder Bay, July 30, 2017
Cameron Ylimaki
Pride & Happiness.
- Cameron Ylimaki, Bay and Algoma Buskers Festival, Thunder Bay, July 29, 2017
Holly Martelle (principal at Timmins Martelle Heritage Consultants Inc.)
Hopes for the future
My life as an archaeologist often consists of hour upon hour of painstaking analysis of small bits and pieces of everyday life. But last year, during an archaeological investigation in Toronto’s downtown, we made a remarkable discovery that not only got my archaeological heart
Aleksander Sielicki
PAINTINGS ON CANVASTONE
We are sailing on the ferry to Pelee Island. The mist from the water sets on my face. I look to the horizon, which soon disappears. I look deeper and deeper. The mysterious beauty of eternity. The afterimage of the sun when I closed my eyes. The sun is still in a shapeless cl
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
Susan Bryan (volunteer Chair of the Nature Reserves Committee of the Thunder Bay Field Naturalists)
Someone has passed this way before
I’m standing on the deck of a small boat, riding the swells of the Nipigon River where it widens into Lake Superior. In front of me, a rock cliff rises straight out of the water. On this cliff are a series of pictographs – lines, circles and other symbols – as we
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
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,