Cities

The British Sovereign is from the house of Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha, so there should be no surprise to the etymology of this town. Located on the north shore of Lake Ontario, Cobourg was an important location for trade in the 19th century. The Peterborough and Cobourg Railway connected the city of Peterborough Read more…

“The City of North Bay is a vibrant community in Northern Ontario,” says the city’s website. It could be a vibrant community in summer, but a cold autumn day makes the city’s street population consist almost entirely of homeless people. It’s also the first major city on the way to Read more…

I’m travelling Ontario based on the Reader’s Digest Canadian Book of the Road. I should also make it clear that I got the 1991 edition for free from a garage giveaway so some of the information isn’t current. I arrived in Pembroke looking for Ontario’s largest totem pole at its Read more…

I had a quick run through Renfrew. There, I said the pun. The downtown area of Renfrew is actually very pretty. The traffic is calm, people are kind, and local businesses stay local. There aren’t too many chain stores apart from fast food restaurants that populate the streets. The blocks Read more…

Gatineau sounds like gâteaux, which is the word for cake in French. My relationship with Gatineau is also very gastronomical. It is right across the river from Ottawa, in Québec, where alcohol is sold inside supermarket and discounts are abundant for quality European foodstuffs. Once a week, I would cross Read more…

Waterloo and Kitchener are the twin cities of Ontario. Even though they have grown to connect into one urban agglomeration, they are still separate cities. The logo of the city is actually the tower of the old town hall that now stands in Waterloo Park. The new City Hall, like Read more…

Kitchener and Waterloo form the twin cities of Ontario less than two hours away from Toronto. Kitchener used to be called Berlin because of the German immigrants that settled in the area. A Pioneers Tower was built to commemorate the Mennonite families that settle in 60,000 acres of land in Read more…

The Mississipi River on Canada runs through Ontario and nourishes Almonte, Carleton Place, and Innisville in Lanark County. This northern Mississippi shares the same name as the one in America but is not half as mighty. Almonte’s town hall, like the one in Carleton Place, is a heritage building as Read more…

Carleton Place’s town hall is one if six heritage buildings in the town. It’s named after a place in Scotland, just like the names of the counties surrounding the area. A university in Ottawa shares the same name with the town – Carleton University, though it’s unclear whether the etymology Read more…