Ontario is the most populous and most prosperous province in Canada. Its population, in 2021, was 14,223,942. That represents just under 40% of the total population of the country. It is larger than 39 of the 51 countries that make up Europe. It has the country’s capital (Ottawa) and its largest city (Toronto). Its Gross Domestic Product (value of everything produced in the province) is $763.276 billion. That would tie it roughly with Belgium as the 25th largest economy in the world (depending upon exchange rate fluctuation). That is at the beginning of the 21st century.
At the end of the 18th century, it didn’t even exist. 250 years ago, what would become the province of Ontario was a backwater of the colony of Quebec, recently won by arms of the British crown from the French crown. The population of that part of the colony was likely around 13,000, mostly aboriginal people. Its GDP was negligible.
What was the spark that set off this remarkable change?
Refugees.
A new political entity was created to deal with a mass of refugees from the American Revolutionary War. These “loyalists” or “Tories” as they were called by different sides, could no longer stay in the homes they had in the thirteen colonies that had become the United States. The British crown helped to relocate them. It had to be to a place which was not already developed and where ownership of the land could be secured legally from the aboriginal communities that moved through it.
The decision was made to separate the western portion of Quebec along the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes and settle the refugees there. Later, this would become a magnet for immigration from the British of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. It attracted people from other European realms including Germans (there was no Germany at this time), Swedes, Dutch and even Icelanders. It attracted immigrants from Quebec and even the United States. Later, immigration expanded to all of Europe in the 19th century. By the 20th century, people were coming from all over the world to live in Ontario. Many of these were also refugees fleeing war, oppression or economic hardship. It is this flow of people, building on the success of those who arrived previously, that has made Ontario the attractive province it is today.
More on this is available in the Background section of the website.
It is the story of these initial refugees, and those who followed them later, that we will meet as we travel along Ontario Highways 2 and 33 that follow the path they blazed. We will meet the United Empire Loyalists (American refugees), their descendants and newcomers who followed and some of their descendants. Individually we will encounter many compelling stories, and not a few questions. Collectively, we will see how Ontario developed into the land we see today.
A Word About Names
Over time the name of this polity changed. As we are moving through space to visit the many places on our tour, we will encounter things that happen at different times. Depending upon the time, the name of the land we are visiting will change. Here’s a quick guide to what it was called when.
Before 1600
There was no one name for this place as a whole. Aboriginal communities had names for the places they lived but not for the larger land we now call Ontario.
1610-1763 La Nouvelle France
New France was the land claimed by the French Crown in North America centred on the town of Quebec but stretching from what is now Nova Scotia, west to the Great Lakes and then south down the Mississippi to New Orleans. The part we now call Ontario would have been described then as pays d’en haut (Upper Country).
1763-1791 Quebec
The name used by the British for the country they had conquered from the French in the Seven Years War. This covered all of the southern parts of the present provinces of Quebec and Ontario.
1791-1841 Upper Canada
This was the southern part of the current province of Ontario now split from the well-settled eastern portion of what was the colony of Quebec. That was now called Lower Canada. Upper and Lower referred to their relative position on the Great Lakes St. Lawrence waterway - upstream and downstream.
1841-1867 Canada West
After the Durham Report, Upper and Lower Canada were reunited into one colony with additional powers of self rule (responsible government) but still under the British crown and the parliament at Westminster.
1867-today Ontario
A province of the independent dominion of Canada.