MyOntario – A vision over time

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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.

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

Janet Walters

To be without access to a post office in the 19th century would be akin to being deprived of internet or cell-phone access today. Communities revolved around them. Before Toronto was incorporated as a city in 1834 the Town of York had a succession of post offices. York’s Fourth and Toronto’s First s

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

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 experiences, identities, values and aspirations.

Visit the links below to view MyOntario photos on Flickr.

MyOntario photo galleries:

September 30: Doors Open Timmins (Timmins)September 23: Doors Open Grimsby (Grimsby)September 10: Leslieville Flea (Toronto)August 26-27: Afro-Carib Festival (Scar

Eleanor McMahon (Ontario’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport)

A Place to Stand

As Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport, I’ve had the privilege to meet many proud, talented and hardworking Ontarians through my participation in a number of special events and occasions. One highlight came a few months ago.

It was a perfect late-summer day in our nation’s ca

Laura Wickett

Industrial heritage in Jordan Harbour

To find your way to one of Niagara’s hidden gems, you first need to know which dead-end street in Jordan Station to park on, and then take an overgrown pathway through the bushes to a steel train trestle bridge. Follow it out over the mouth of Jordan Harbour,

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

Ellen Scheinberg (author and President, Heritage Professionals/Archives)

Celebrating the history of Toronto’s Jewish cemeteries

Over the past decade, I have developed a passion for cemeteries. It started during my tenure as Director of the Ontario Jewish Archives, when I devised a tour of the Pape Avenue Cemetery with local artist Susan Brown.

Pape Cemetery was estab

Excerpt taken from an interview with Louis Lesage, PhD (biologist and Director of the Bureau Nionwentsïo, at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette Church at Wendake, Quebec)

Why is it important to preserve the Wendat language?

Culture has many aspects. One aspect is the language. When you lose your language, you lose a part of your culture. The language helps you to describe your environment, to clearly express what you think, to make some colour in your way of life

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

Beth Hanna (Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Heritage Trust)

Ontario has amazingly creative souls. The writings of Thomas King, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje and Al Purdy. The music of Glenn Gould, Gordon Lightfoot, the Nathaniel Dett Chorale and Sarah Harmer. The paintings of Norval Morrisseau, Doris McCarthy, A.Y. Jackson, Daphne Odjig and the carvings of B

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

Alisha Mohamed-Marchant

As a child, I imagined myself as an archaeologist exploring tombs and temples. As an adult, I find myself as an archaeologist exploring libraries and archives. Sure, it may not be the glamorous archaeology seen on television but for me it's a continuous narrative slowly revealing how the landscape a

R. Dennis Moore (Archivist, Multicultural History Society of Ontario)

This badge belonged to Bohdan Panchuk, one of the most influential Canadians involved in the effort to resettle thousands of Ukrainians who were displaced by the Second World War.

By the end of the conflict, countless refugees had been forcibly displaced from their homes and faced uncertain future

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

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

Marshall Pynkoski (Co-Artistic Director of Opera Atelier)

Art in the face of adversity

Opera Atelier’s 30th anniversary in 2016 was a watershed season for the company. It marked our return to the Royal Opera House at Versailles and our arrival in France on November 13 – the day of the terrorist attacks. Opera Atelier’s production of Lully’s Armide reopen

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

Christine McMullan (née Orlowski)

During the 1920s and 1930s, my father, his six siblings and his parents would travel from Toronto to do seasonal work on farms in the Vineland area. One farm in particular was the Culps farm on John Street, with all living in a small cabin on the farm. When they stayed on into the fall, he and his s

Alysha Brilla

Alysha Brilla is a Juno-nominated musician and performer.

Andy Thomson

I spent my summers in an area in Northern Ontario that was a microcosm of the development of the Ontario wilderness. My connection to the area and the lake where my family had a camp was once a logging operation belonging to my grandfather, W. B. Plaunt of Sudbury. However, it wasn't until I retired

Ministry of Francophone Affairs

MyOntario workshop

Nathan Tidridge

The Covenant Chain Wampum exchanged at the Treaty of Niagara (1764). #MyOntario

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

Nathan Tidridge

Railway bridge in #Waterdown. #MyOntario

James Raffan (author, speaker and consultant)

On Cranberry Lake

Afloat at dawn and inhaling the misty rays of rising late-summer sun. Other days, it might be a sunset paddle with a Thermos of coffee in Listening Bay, watching Venus chase the sun to China. Or maybe idling in star-speckled moonlight, howling with the coyotes, or startling with

Beth

“It was in Bobcaygeon, I saw the constellations, Reveal themselves, one star at time.” I heard these song lyrics recently and was transported back to a summer vacation with my father and my siblings when I was a young child. Bobcaygeon‎ was my first experience of cottage life. My childhood self reme

Jean Lumb, C.M., 1919-2002

Jean Lumb was born Jean (Toy Jin) Wong in British Columbia, and came to Toronto in 1935. She was soon operating a profitable fruit store and, by 1959, she co-owned the well-reputed Kwong Chow restaurant with her husband, Doyle Lumb. Energetic and outgoing, she established strong links with prominent

#MyOntario

Join the #MyOntario conversation!

From throwbacks to museum selfies to Instagram-worthy sights – share your stories and photos of the province by using the hashtag #MyOntario on social media.

Need inspiration? Explore posts tagged #MyOntario on Twitter and Instagram!

Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site

Black walnut rocking chairs with elaborate folk carving found in the Dresden area, 3rd quarter 19th century. Several similar chairs are known from the same area including three in the collection of Uncle Tom’s Cabin Historic Site. Most, this example included, have provenance linking them to the Dawn