Recreation and Places of Interest

Ontario’s most important scenic and recreational attraction is its water. The province is home to some 250,000 lakes and is threaded by thousands of rivers and streams. Four of the Great Lakes—Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario—and their extensive shorelines provide a natural playground. Lake Simcoe, the Muskoka lakes, and other easily accessible lakes north of Toronto have also long been popular vacation centers. Facilities for camping and recreation have been developed along the routes of major highways. Ontario shares with New York one of the greatest scenic attractions in North America, Niagara Falls, where the water of the Niagara River plunges some 57 m (187 ft) at Horseshoe Falls, on the Canadian side of the river.

National and Provincial Parks

Ontario has six national parks. Point Pelee National Park has 20 km (12 mi) of sandy beaches on Lake Erie, and is a prominent bird migration area. St. Lawrence Islands National Park, Canada’s smallest national park, consists of all or parts of 21 of the scenic Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River, about 90 islets, and a narrow strip on the mainland. Georgian Bay Islands National Park, located on Georgian Bay, an inlet of Lake Huron, is complemented by the offshore Fathom Five National Marine Park, Canada’s first national marine park. The marine park includes Flowerpot Island, with its unusual rock formations, and a stretch of lake bottom noted for marine life and shipwrecks. Pukaskwa National Park, on Lake Superior near Marathon, is in the rocky wilderness of the Canadian Shield. Bruce Peninsula National Park is on Lake Huron.

Ontario has 272 provincial parks, which are divided into six types: recreation, historic, wilderness, natural environment, waterway, and nature reserves. In total they cover more than 70,000 sq km (27,000 sq mi) and many are open year-round. Activities and facilities exist for varied activities such as birding, dog sledding, mountain biking, fishing, hunting, canoeing, and camping. The largest, oldest, and best-known provincial park is Algonquin Park. Set in a vast scenic wilderness tract about 280 km (170 mi) north of Toronto, the park was established in 1893 and covers 7,725 sq km (2,983 sq mi).

Libraries and Museums

Public libraries in Ontario grew from the establishment of school-district libraries and so-called mechanic’s institutes. Mechanic’s institutes were libraries sponsored by industries and trade groups that offered collections designed to improve the skills of factory workers, clerks, and apprentices. Ontario was the site of the first state-supported library in Canada, the Toronto Public Library, which was established in 1884. The province also greatly benefited from the generosity of American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. From 1881 to his death in 1919, Carnegie donated millions of dollars to English-speaking countries worldwide for the construction of library buildings. In many Ontario towns and cities the Carnegie Library forms an important architectural ornament and a focus of social life. Canada’s largest public reference library is the Toronto Reference Library, part of the Toronto Public Library system. The University of Toronto has the country’s largest academic library. The National Library and the National Archives, a depository for public records, are in Ottawa. A copy of every publication released in Canada must be deposited in the National Library.

Many of Canada’s largest museums and galleries are located in Ontario. The two largest art collections are at the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa, and the Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto. The National Gallery is one of a number of important museums in Ottawa, which is also home to the National Museum of Science and Technology, the Canadian War Museum, and the National Aviation Museum. The massive Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto is a center for scholarship and public education, and has extensive collections of Asian and Egyptian art and artifacts. An associated museum, the Sigmund Samuel Gallery, focuses on the collection of Canadiana. Toronto is also home to the George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, the Bata Shoe Museum, and the Museum for Textiles, all of which reflect specialized interests within the city. Other prominent galleries in Ontario can be found on many university campuses throughout the province, such as the McIntosh Gallery at the University of Western Ontario, in London, or the Agnes Etherington Art Center at Queen’s University, in Kingston. Important collections also exist in public galleries in Hamilton and Windsor. The Ontario Science Center in Toronto and Science North in Sudbury are innovative hands-on museums where visitors are encouraged to participate in displays.

Other Places to Visit

Ontario is home to many historic sites and places of interest. Among the province’s attractions are the Alexander Graham Bell Homestead in Brantford, which is the home of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone; Black Creek Pioneer Village in Toronto, which depicts the development of a 19th-century Canadian farming community; Southwold Earthworks National Historic Site, which commemorates a 16th-century aboriginal village, near Saint Thomas; and Moose Factory, which was the first post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, near Moosonee. Other important sites are the Martyr’s Shrine near Midland, a church erected in honor of martyred 17th-century missionaries; the recreated village of Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, originally a French Jesuit mission, adjacent to the Martyr’s Shrine; and Casa Loma, a European-style castle that houses a museum, in Toronto.

Source: MSN Encarta: Online Encyclopedia