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• Douglas Point Nuclear Power Plant
  The Douglas Point Nuclear Power Plant began generating electricity in 1967 and continued until 1984. This joint project between Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and Ontario Hydro was the first commercial-scale Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor. The Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD) reactor in Rolphton, Ontario had proven the CANDU concept in 1962 and the 200-megawatt Douglas Point plant, ten times larger than NPD, demonstrated that a CANDU nuclear power plant could be scaled up for...

• Maud Leonora Menten 1879-1960
  An outstanding medical scientist, Maud Menten was born in Port Lambton. She graduated in medicine from the University of Toronto in 1907 and four years later became one of the first Canadian women to receive a medical doctorate. In 1913, in Germany, collaboration with Leonor Michaelis on the behaviour of enzymes resulted in the Michaelis-Menten equation, a basic biochemical concept which brought them international recognition. Menten continued her brilliant career as a pathologist at the...

• Rogers Batteryless Radio, The
  In the early 1920s, radio receivers were powered by direct current from batteries that were awkward to use and needed frequent recharging. Edward S. "Ted" Rogers Sr., a Toronto radio engineer, recognized the commercial potential of a radio that could use alternating current (AC) from a household electrical system. Working in a factory across the street from here, he invented an effective AC tube, then designed around it the world's first batteryless radio receiver. Following...

• Toronto General Hospital
  This institution, the first general infirmary in Upper Canada, began operation in 1829. It was periodically hampered by administrative and financial difficulties, but through the initiative of the influential businessman, Joseph Flavelle, Chairman of the Board of Trustees (1904-21), services were reorganized and steps taken for the construction here of a new hospital. Designed by the firm of Darling & Pearson, it was begun in 1911 and officially opened two years later. Toronto General Hospital...

• Mack Centre of Nursing Education, The
  Dr. Theophilus Mack (1820-1881) emigrated from Dublin to Upper Canada with his family in 1832. He received his medical education at the Military Hospital at Amherstburg and at Geneva College, New York. Settling in St. Catharines in 1844, he was instrumental in founding the General and Marine Hospital in this city. In 1874, Dr. Mack, understanding the need for trained and disciplined nurses, established the St. Catharines Training School for Nurses. This school, using the...

• First Cotton Factory, The
  The first cotton goods produced in this province were being manufactured in Thorold in 1847. The mill, a joint stock company founded by local citizens, included Jacob Keefer as president and James Munro as secretary, and was located near here. About twenty looms, driven by water power, produced unbleached sheetings, scrim and cotton batting. The factory operated till about 1849. A few years later, after a period of renewed activity under different ownership, it was destroyed by fire. This cotton mill was the forerunner of what later developed into an important provincial industry.

• Ontario Yellowbirds, The
  In 1924, the government of Ontario set up a provincial air service to replace forest fire detection by canoe and foot patrols. Based at Sault Ste. Marie, the service's aircraft became known as the "Yellowbirds" because of their yellow and black colours. The Yellowbirds detected fires, transported fire fighters and supplies and, from the 1950s on, pioneered the use of water bombers in battling wilderness blazes. Over the years the service also provided aerial support...

• Founding of the Red Lake Mining District, The
  In 1924, two years after a discovery of gold by Gus McManus, the Ontario Department of Mines published a geological report on this district. Prospecting was thus encouraged, and in 1925 claims were staked by Lorne Howey and George McNeely. Financed through the efforts of Jack Hammell, Howey Gold Mines was incorporated in 1926, and production began in 1930. Although it ceased operations in 1941, successful mines were developed elsewhere within this region by other...

• James Paris Lee 1831-1904
  One of the foremost 19th century arms inventors, Lee was born in Scotland. In 1836 his family came to Canada and settled at Galt. Lee was trained in his father's profession of watchmaker and jeweler, before moving to Wisconsin about 1858, where he began his career as an inventor. His greatest contribution to firearms design was made in 1878 when he completed the development of the "box magazine." Tradition holds that this occurred at Wallaceburg...

• Thomas Curtis Clarke 1827-1901
  The world of today differs from that of Napoleon Bonaparte more than his world differed from that of Julius Caesar; and this change has chiefly been made by engineering." These were the words of civil engineer Thomas Clarke, a New Englander who came to Port Hope in 1853 to work for the local railway. He married and raised a family here and, in the 1860s, was a partner in a Port Hope firm that constructed...

• Founding of Huntsville, The
  During the late 1860s, a small agricultural settlement, founded largely through the efforts of Captain George Hunt, developed here. In 1870, a post office called Huntsville was established and the following year the Muskoka Colonization road was extended to this point. Improvements in transportation including the opening of a navigable water route north from Port Sydney to Huntsville in 1877, and the arrival of the Northern and Pacific Junction Railway eight years later spurred the...

• Kingston Observatory, The
  The first optical astronomical observatory in the province, the Kingston Observatory was established in 1855 after a solar eclipse aroused public interest in astronomical studies. Under the auspices of a committee of British military officers and "gentlemen amateurs" a frame observatory was built here. It was transferred to the control of Queen's College in 1861 and within a year a new brick structure had been erected on the site. Staffed by Nathan Fellowes Dupuis, an...

• Lieutenant-Colonel John By, R.E.
  Born in London, England, about 1779, By graduated from the Royal Military academy, Woolwich, in 1799. He was attached to the Royal Engineers in Canada (1802-1811) and later served in the Peninsular War. By was sent to Canada in 1826 to superintend the construction of an Ottawa River - Lake Ontario waterway from "Bytown" (Ottawa) to Kingston. The 123-mile-long Rideau Canal, built as a military route and incorporating 47 locks, 16 lakes, two rivers, and...

• Frederic W. Cumberland 1820-1881
  An outstanding Canadian architect, civil engineer and railway manager, Cumberland was born in England and practiced there before immigrating to Toronto in 1847. He quickly gained recognition, designing such notable buildings as St. James Cathedral (1850-53) and University College (1856-59), Toronto. In 1860 he completed this house, Pendarvis, in which he lived for 21 years. As an engineer, Cumberland became increasingly involved in railway construction and management, and after 1858 achieved wide prominence as managing...

• John McCrae 1872-1918
  Born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, McCrae was educated at the University of Toronto's medical school, graduating as a gold medallist in 1898. He served (1899-1900) in the Boer War with the artillery and during the First World War attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Canadian Medical Corps. In the intervening years he taught medicine at McGill University, wrote poetry and earned recognition for his contributions to medical journals and his textbook on pathology. He...

• Dale Estate, The
  The Dale Estate nurseries played an instrumental role in the development of Brampton, establishing its reputation as "The Flower Town of Canada." The business began in 1863 with its founder Edward Dale selling vegetables from his garden and it soon expanded to include the cultivation of greenhouse roses. By the early 20th century, the Dale Estate employed a quarter of Brampton's population and was among the largest greenhouse flower producers in the world. International success...

• Ontario Paper Company Ltd., The
  In 1912, the Ontario Paper Company was incorporated as a subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune newspaper under the direction of publisher Robert McCormick. A paper mill was constructed south of here on the banks of the Welland Canal. On September 5, 1913, its No.1 Paper Machine began producing newsprint for the Tribune. Without sufficient timber in southern Ontario, pulp wood was shipped here by water from Lake Superior and Quebec's North Shore. The mill, designed...

• James Bertram Collip 1892-1965
  A co-discoverer of insulin, J.B. (Bert) Collip was one of Canada's most prolific medical researchers in the first half of the 20th century. Born and raised in Belleville, Collip received a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Toronto in 1916. There, on leave from the University of Alberta in 1921, Professor J.J.R. Macleod invited him to work with Frederick Banting and Charles Best on a substance they hoped could treat diabetes. In 1922, Collip...

• Nuclear Power Demonstration Reactor
  On June 4, 1962 the Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD) Reactor 3 km east of Rolphton supplied the Ontario power grid with the first nuclear-generated electricity in Canada. A joint project of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Ontario Hydro and Canadian General Electric, NPD was the prototype and proving ground for research and development that led to commercial application of the CANDU system for generating electric power from a nuclear plant using natural uranium fuel, heavy...

• Austin Airways 1934-1987
  Austin Airways, a pioneering aviation firm, played a leading role in the economic development of the Ontario north in the mid-twentieth century. At first its main business was flying Toronto mining executives to remote northern sites. Based in Sudbury after 1938, the airline hauled freight, flew medical evacuations, fought forest fires, trained pilots, and transported tourists. In the 1940s, Austin diversified into aerial photography, timber surveying, aerial prospecting, and ice reconnaissance flights over Hudson Bay...

• Canadian National Exhibition, The
  The second half of the 19th century was an era in which technological innovation brought rapid economic progress and social change. The spirit of the age was reflected in an annual fair that first opened on this site on September 5, 1879. Staged by the Industrial Exhibition Association of Toronto, it offered medals and prize money to encourage innovation and improvement in agriculture, manufacturing and the arts. The fair quickly became a popular attraction and a boon to the local economy. A national event since 1912, the CNE continues to showcase Canadian creativity and achievement.

• Edith Kathleen Russell 1886-1964
  A distinguished Canadian educator, Kathleen Russell was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia. She graduated in 1918 from the Toronto General Hospital School of Nursing and, in 1920, became first director of the University of Toronto's Department of Public Health Nursing, established to prepare personnel for the expanding field of public health service. An outspoken advocate of progressive reform in nursing education, she soon became dissatisfied with the inadequate training provided at many Canadian hospitals. As...

• Eldorado Refinery, The
  A pioneering operation in the development of nuclear energy, the Eldorado refinery was established in 1933 by Gilbert LaBine, a veteran prospector, and his brother Charles. It extracted radium, used in the early treatment of cancer, from ore mined in the Northwest Territories. In 1942, soon after the uranium atom was split for the first time, the Canadian government acquired Eldorado to refine uranium oxide, a waste product in the radium extraction process. The only...

• Emily Howard Jennings Stowe, M.D. 1831-1903
  The first female physician to practice medicine in Canada, Emily Jennings was born in Norwich Township to Quaker parents. For some years she taught school, then, in the early l860's she decided to pursue a career in medicine. Refused admission to an exclusively male institution in Toronto, Stowe enrolled in the New York Medical College for women. She received her degree in1867 and, returning to Canada, established a successful practice in Toronto. A passionate advocate...

• Blockhouse Island
  On this island, formerly known as Hospital Island, stood the sheds erected to house emigrants who were victims of cholera in the great epidemic of 1832. Many persons died here, including Doctor Robert Gilmour a native of Scotland and president of the first Board of Health in Upper Canada, who was stricken while attending the sick. During the Rebellion of 1837-38, a blockhouse was erected here for the defence of Brockville. It was destroyed by fire in 1860.

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