• 01 Oct 2019
• Economics of heritage
  Buildings and architecture
  Arts and creativity
  Community
  Adaptive reuse
• Author: Christina Jennings,

Shaftesbury is the company behind the hit television series Murdoch Mysteries and Frankie Drake Mysteries, both of which air on CBC in Canada and are...

• 20 Mar 2018
• Women's heritage
  Arts and creativity
• Author: Anne Kingston,

Living to 100 is only the latest feat in the life of the singular painter Doris McCarthy, who once cut off her finger for her...

• 08 Sep 2017
• Intangible heritage
  Arts and creativity
  Food
• Author: Grayden Laing,

My parents (Ken and Martha Laing) decided to forgo fossil fuels to protest the first Gulf War – driven by anticonsumerism, pacifism but also by...

• 08 Sep 2017
• Intangible heritage
  Arts and creativity
• Author: Amanda McCavour,

My interest in textiles and embroidery started with an interest in drawing and, even more specifically, an interest in line. While I was studying drawing...

• 08 Sep 2017
• Intangible heritage
  Indigenous heritage
  Arts and creativity
• Author: Rick Hill,

A couple of decades ago, I witnessed a friendly debate between a white historian and an Indigenous ethnologist. The well known historian, who just happened...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Buildings and architecture
  MyOntario
• Author: Kevin Mannara,

The term symbolkirchen can roughly be translated as a “symbol bearing church.” Such churches point to living realities beyond ourselves and hold the potential to...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Jim Szilva,

In 1963, a firefighter named Ted Szilva entered a contest organized by the Canadian Centennial Committee in Sudbury. The committee asked residents of the city...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: James Raffan,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Melanie Pledger,

I’m proud to be a Canadian. I’m also proud to be an Ontarian. Going one step further, I’m proud to be a Falcon. In 2014...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: David Onley,

The photo became an heirloom in our family: a picture of Her Majesty the Queen at Kew Gardens in The Beach, escorted by Toronto Maple...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Black heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Holly Martelle,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Indigenous heritage
  Archaeology
  MyOntario
• Author: Jean-Luc Pilon,

In the summer of 1982, I was carrying out archaeological research near the shores of Hudson Bay on the Severn River. One of the sites...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Buildings and architecture
  MyOntario
• Author: Georges Quirion,

Northern Ontario has unique structures, not familiar to many, spread out through small northern communities, reflecting its rich history and its vast wealth of precious...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Indigenous heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Konrad Sioui,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Expanding the narrative
  MyOntario
• Author: David Rayside,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Archaeology
  MyOntario
• Author: William R. Fitzgerald,

Suspicion, fear, and intimidation met Jesuit priests Jean de Brébeuf and Pierre-Joseph-Marie Chaumonot during their Mission of the Angels to “la Nation Neutre” between November...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Eleanor McMahon,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Natural heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Steve Paikin,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Scarlett Janusas,

I’ve always had a passion about archaeology and also about water. I love being on the water and under it. So, what better way to...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Natural heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Yannick Bisson,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Deepa Mehta,

When I think of Ontario, I think of inclusion, diversity and the resulting richness it brings to our province. In a world that is becoming...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Indigenous heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Josephine Mandamin,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Francophone heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Joëlle Roy,

Il est parti au chantierY avait à peine 15 ansY a moyen de s’en sortirPour ça, faut faire d’l’argentY en a en Ontario sous la...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Ellen Scheinberg,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Archaeology
  MyOntario
• Author: Dr. Patrick Julig,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: The Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell,

Ontario’s Legislative Building, completed in 1893, is a magnificent structure filled with stories from the most significant moments in our province’s modern history. The place...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Indigenous heritage
  Buildings and architecture
  MyOntario
• Author: R. Donald Maracle,

During the American Revolution, the Mohawks were forced to flee their homeland in upper New York State. In 1784, after spending several years in Lachine...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Larry Richards,

My first views of Ontario were from a passenger train 45 years ago. In 1972, I crossed the border at Detroit and took a train...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Natural heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Joseph Desloges,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Charlie Fairbank,

Each morning, I open the door of our farmhouse and step into an enduring landscape of beauty, shaped by horse and man. Sheep dot the...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: David P. Silcox,

MY ONTARIO IS: RosalieAbella, RobertAitken, AndréAlexis, LouApplebaum, MargaretAtwood, IainBaxter&, StanBevington, BillBissett, JeanBoggs, DaveBroadfoot, EdBurtynsky, JackBush, JackCostello, DavidCrombie, KikiDelaney, LouiseDennys, MichaeldePencier, RamsayDerry, RupertDuchesne, BuddFeheley, MaureenForester, DavidFrench...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Black heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Adrienne Shadd,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Atom Egoyan,

Whenever I have visitors to Toronto, I take them to the Harris Filtration Plant. This beautiful complex is one of the few remaining examples of...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Indigenous heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: M. Margaret Froh,

Métis youth leader Katelyn LaCroix was recently asked what being Métis meant to her. She replied that “like the sash, we are two cultures coming...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Indigenous heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Mélanie-Rose Frappier,

Education is key. It will lead to healing as well as social awareness about the Indigenous culture. My ancestors spent hundreds of years fighting for...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Carl Benn,

I possess 16 photographs from c.1905 of my great-grandparents’ home in St. Catharines. At a personal level, I like these pictures because they record details...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Manuel Stevens,

My Ontario is the Rideau Canal region between Smiths Falls and Kingston. Having spent many years as the planner for the Rideau Canal – and...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Expanding the narrative
  MyOntario
• Author: Beth Hanna,

Stories are powerful. They reveal our values, pleasures and memories, the rituals and rhythms of our lives, our spiritual natures, our creative selves, our triumphs...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Arts and creativity
• Author: Marshall Pynkoski,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: D'Arcy Jenish,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Indigenous heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Susan Bryan,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Arts and creativity
  MyOntario
• Author: Thomas H.B. Symons,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Arlene Chan,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Michael Bliss,

I first saw the Camp Ahmek waterfront on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park in 1951. I saw it again last summer – 65 years later...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Kathleen Wynne,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Black heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Karolyn Smardz Frost,

In 1985, the Toronto school board and Ontario’s culture ministry created the Archaeological Resource Centre. There, schoolchildren and volunteers could dig into their own city’s...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: The Honourable James K. Bartleman,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Sport heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Philip Pritchard,

Hockey is Canada’s national sport, and there is nothing more synonymous with hockey than the Stanley Cup. The tradition, the aura and the respect it...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Black heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Dr. Afua Cooper,

Peggy Pompadour haunts me. I walk through the streets of Ye Olde Towne Toronto and I feel her presence – this Black enslaved woman who...

• 17 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Paul Yee,

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...

• 17 Feb 2017
• Natural heritage
  MyOntario
• Author: Michael Runtz,

Being a lifelong naturalist whose goal has been to explore Ontario’s natural history, I’ve come to appreciate just how rich this province’s biodiversity is. The...

• 01 Feb 2017
• MyOntario
• Author: Sam Steiner,

As a historian of Mennonites in Ontario, I have always enjoyed wandering through Mennonite and Amish cemeteries. Whether plain Old Order Amish or Old Order...

• 14 Feb 2014
• Buildings and architecture
  Arts and creativity
  Adaptive reuse
• Author: Janet Gates,

Birthdays are about celebration and, in the case of Toronto’s Elgin and Winter Garden theatres, a toast to 100 years of entertainment history. In 2013...

• 06 Sep 2013
• Buildings and architecture
  Arts and creativity
• Author: Erin Semande,

The Ontario Heritage Trust has a number of conservation tools available to protect and preserve heritage throughout the province. Conservation easements are voluntary legal agreements...

• 06 Sep 2013
• Buildings and architecture
  Arts and creativity
  Adaptive reuse
• Author: Thomas Wicks,

Performance venues command an important presence in Ontario communities. They tell us about the aspirations of the people who built them, and they reflect the...

• 06 Sep 2013
• Arts and creativity
• Author: Ontario Heritage Trust,

... the shelf The Opening Act: Canadian Theatre History 1945-1953, by Susan McNicoll. Ronsdale Press, 2012. The conventional opinion is that professional Canadian theatre began...

• 06 Sep 2013
• Arts and creativity
• Author: Jim Leonard,

The vaudeville era is one of the more remarkable chapters in the history of theatre and performance. Vaudeville was a dazzling and colourful genre of...

• 06 Sep 2013
• Buildings and architecture
  Arts and creativity
  Adaptive reuse
• Author: Pamela Cain,

Since the early 1970s, Magnus Theatre in Thunder Bay has made a commitment to urban renewal and the reuse and repurposing of community buildings. The...

• 06 Sep 2013
• Arts and creativity
• Author: Ellen Flowers and Gordon Pim,

It’s hard to imagine either Stratford or Niagara-on-the-Lake being where they are today without their world-renowned theatre festivals. But, before these festivals opened their doors...

• 06 Sep 2013
• Buildings and architecture
  Arts and creativity
• Author: Wayne Kelly, Romas Bubelis, Brett Randall and Beth Hanna,

Looking back by Wayne Kelly When theatre entrepreneur Marcus Loew brought Loew’s Theatrical Enterprises to Toronto in 1912, he envisioned an “intricate, moneymaking machine,” a...

• 06 Sep 2013
• Arts and creativity
• Author: Ellen Flowers and Gordon Pim,

It is always entertaining to watch a troupe of actors sing, dance and throw their audiences into hysterics. This is something we witness every year...

• 15 Feb 2013
• Buildings and architecture
  Arts and creativity
• Author: Bruce Beaton,

Storytelling takes inspiration from many sources. Traditionally, museums weave a narrative from real objects: a vase, a coat, a building or a historical site. At...

• 15 Feb 2013
• Arts and creativity
• Author: Faith Hieblinger,

The local newspaper writes: “In this new world, great painters are fewer than in older countries, but it may be said of Homer Watson that...

• 15 Feb 2013
• Archaeology
  Arts and creativity
• Author: Katherine McIntyre,

Reprinted with permission (Windspeaker, Volume 28, Issue 4, 2010) North America’s largest collection of petroglyphs remained undisturbed for centuries. Then in 1954, three geologists out...

• 15 Feb 2013
• Arts and creativity
• Author: Sam Wesley,

Paintings are valuable sources of information for anyone interested in exploring our heritage. We can use them to glimpse into the past – to extract...

• 15 Feb 2013
• Arts and creativity
• Author: Ontario Heritage Trust,

What's on the shelf A Concise History of Canadian Painting, 3rd edition, by Dennis Reid. Oxford University Press, 2012. For more than 30 years, Dennis...

• 15 Feb 2013
• Arts and creativity
• Author: Lani Wilson,

Of outstanding national and provincial significance, the Government of Ontario Art Collection at the Archives of Ontario began in the mid-19th century. It is comprised...

• 15 Feb 2013
• Arts and creativity
• Author: Beth Anne Mendes,

Ontario has been home to Canadian artists of all disciplines. Since the mid-19th century, painters particularly have worked to capture Ontario’s unique sense of place...

• 18 May 2012
• Arts and creativity
  Francophone heritage
• Author: Johanne Melançon,

In the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, Ottawa was the centre of francophone cultural and literary life in Ontario. Live theatre...

• 17 Feb 2012
• Arts and creativity
• Author: Ellen Flowers,

It’s Monday, December 15, 1913 and the city of Toronto is abuzz with excitement over the opening of a new theatre. Loew’s Yonge Street Theatre...

• 28 Jan 2011
• Women's heritage
  Buildings and architecture
  Arts and creativity
  Adaptive reuse
• Author: Catrina Colme,

With the passing of Doris McCarthy on November 25, 2010, the country lost a revered and talented artist, best known for her landscape paintings. McCarthy’s...

• 11 Feb 2010
• Arts and creativity
• Author: Ontario Heritage Trust,

What's on the shelf University of Toronto: An architectural tour, by Larry Wayne Richards Princeton Architectural Press. Originally built in the 19th century in a...

• 10 Sep 2009
• Buildings and architecture
  Arts and creativity
• Author: Nicholas Holman,

Goethe said that “architecture is frozen music,” but why did he say this? Was it because Christian church interiors, with their columns and arches, seem...

• 10 Sep 2009
• Buildings and architecture
  Arts and creativity
• Author: Erin Semande,

Talented and renowned artists have long been commissioned to decorate the interiors of places of worship, where they often turn the walls and ceilings into...

• 10 Sep 2009
• Buildings and architecture
  Arts and creativity
  Cultural objects
• Author: John Wilcox,

Light is a fundamental aspect of all architecture, especially places of worship. Light has always been considered a manifestation of the spirit, providing guidance, comfort...

• 14 Feb 2008
• Buildings and architecture
  Arts and creativity
  Adaptive reuse
• Author: Gordon Pim,

In December 1913, Loew’s Yonge Street Theatre – the Canadian flagship of the mighty Loew’s empire – opened in Toronto. Two months later, the opulent...

• 07 Sep 2006
• Women's heritage
  Arts and creativity
  Natural heritage
• Author: Gordon Pim,

Catharine Parr Traill is one of Canada’s literary luminaries. Her life story spans most of the 19th century, crossing oceans, battling cholera and journeying through...