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.
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
#MyOntario
Show us the places that inspire you!
Your childhood home. The rink where you scored your first goal. The hiking trail you know like the back of your hand. Tell us about the spaces that hold a special place in your heart.
Join the conversation on social media: Explore #MyOntario stories about inspiring places across the province, and connect with us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
D’Arcy Jenish (author of The St. Lawrence Seaway: Fifty Years and Counting)
Making the voyage
Our voyage aboard the MV Algomarine began at the Port of Montreal
late on a Saturday afternoon in July 2007 and ended early the following
Thursday morning when the 730-foot laker docked at the Port of Thunder
Bay. In four-plus days, the ship had travelled some 3,000 kilomet
Shruthi Dhananjaya
Being raised in Toronto, I have fond memories of the city’s harbourfront. Throughout the years, I would visit the harbourfront each summer with my family and it is a tradition which I still continue. I find it to be a calming oasis right in the heart of the city centre. I enjoy walking on the boardw
Pauline Moss
Fresh fruit, small towns, variety, farm fields, sunsets, lakes, camping, family
- Pauline Moss, Emancipation Day celebration at Uncle Tom’s Cabin Historic Site, Dresden, August 5, 2017
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Thomas H.B. Symons (former Chair of the Board of Directors, Ontario Heritage Trust, and Founding President and Vanier Professor Emeritus of Trent University)
Homer Watson: Ontario's pioneer artist
Homer Watson’s paintings and drawings captured the spirit of pioneer Ontario much as, in a later generation, the work of the Group of Seven captured the spirit of the more northerly parts of Canada.
Born in the village of Doon in the Grand River Valley, Wat
Niagara Historical Society & Museum
Niagara-on-the-Lake is one of the few towns in Ontario that has had black residents since the beginning of the province. However, it was in the years following the War of 1812 that Niagara saw an increase in black immigrants and runaway slaves. When the United States Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was p
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
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
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
The Honourable James Bartleman (27th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario)
My Muskoka – Winter 1949
Every evening when I was a kid in the 1940s, I’d manoeuvre rough logs up onto a sawhorse and use a small bucksaw to cut them into stove lengths, afterward splitting the larger pieces into smaller sizes. After carrying in armloads of wood to fill the box beside the stove, I
Konrad Sioui (former Grand Chief of the Huron-Wendat Nation)
The heart of North America
There are many stories that we can share. Well, first of all, the word “Ontario” itself. Many people don’t know what it means. People try to give an explanation to the name, but in Huron “io” is a superlative, “ontara” is a lake. So “Ontario” is a beautiful lake. In fact
David P. Silcox (author, educator, cultural administrator and arts advocate)
MY ONTARIO IS:
RosalieAbella, RobertAitken, AndréAlexis, LouApplebaum, MargaretAtwood, IainBaxter&, StanBevington, BillBissett, JeanBoggs, DaveBroadfoot, EdBurtynsky, JackBush, JackCostello, DavidCrombie, KikiDelaney, LouiseDennys, MichaeldePencier, RamsayDerry, RupertDuchesne, BuddFeheley, Ma
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
Jasmine Ouellette
A place where we welcome everybody and help them.
- Jasmine Ouellette, Bay and Algoma Buskers Festival, Thunder Bay, July 30, 2017
Luigi
From Valdagno, Italy
“You can build a life in Canada. I worked hard and built a successful grocery store business, specializing in items for Italian shoppers. I have never been out of work here.”
Luigi grew up in Mussolini led Italy. He was required to leave his family at an early age and work o
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
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
Kathleen Wynne (Premier of Ontario)
Honouring our past, embracing our future
Ontario is Canada’s largest and most diverse province – home to ingenuity, inclusiveness and optimism.
Our province’s 150th birthday is a chance to reflect on our many achievements and look to the work that lies ahead with a renewed sense of purpose.
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