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.
Steve Paikin (anchor, The Agenda with Steve Paikin on TVOntario)
Heaven on earth
A month before Ontario turns 150 years old, I’ll celebrate my 57th birthday. I’ve lived all but one of those years in the province of Ontario and all of them in big cities. But my favourite location in the province is somewhere I only spend a few weeks a year.
My first trip to Ma
Arlene Chan (historian and author)
Gateway to Ontario
Toronto’s Chinatown East has a beautiful gateway – a Chinese architectural tradition first introduced in British Columbia in the 1880s.
As a writer and Chinatown historian, I find inspiration in the many gateways that grace Chinatowns in Toronto, Ottawa and across Canada. They
Yannick Bisson (film and television actor and director)
Reconnecting with nature
My first visit to Ontario, from Québec, was at about age 8. I have a distinct memory of arriving by car down the Don Valley Parkway. Jerry Rafferty's Baker Street was playing on the radio and I was completely amazed that there was such a massive green space in the middle o
Desiree Laporte
Acceptance of EVERYONE.
- Desiree Laporte, Canuck It Up Festival Amherstburg, downtown Amherstburg, August 6, 2017
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
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
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
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
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