1.
Ontario
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Ontario, one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada, is located in east-central Canada. It is Canadas most populous province by a margin, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all Canadians. Ontario is fourth-largest in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and it is home to the nations capital city, Ottawa, and the nations most populous city, Toronto. There is only about 1 km of land made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border. Ontario is sometimes divided into two regions, Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. The great majority of Ontarios population and arable land is located in the south, in contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and is heavily forested. The province is named after Lake Ontario, a thought to be derived from Ontarí, io, a Huron word meaning great lake, or possibly skanadario. Ontario has about 250,000 freshwater lakes, the province consists of three main geographical regions, The thinly populated Canadian Shield in the northwestern and central portions, which comprises over half the land area of Ontario. Although this area mostly does not support agriculture, it is rich in minerals and in part covered by the Central and Midwestern Canadian Shield forests, studded with lakes, Northern Ontario is subdivided into two sub-regions, Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Ontario. The virtually unpopulated Hudson Bay Lowlands in the north and northeast, mainly swampy. Southern Ontario which is further sub-divided into four regions, Central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Golden Horseshoe, the highest point is Ishpatina Ridge at 693 metres above sea level located in Temagami, Northeastern Ontario. In the south, elevations of over 500 m are surpassed near Collingwood, above the Blue Mountains in the Dundalk Highlands, the Carolinian forest zone covers most of the southwestern region of the province. A well-known geographic feature is Niagara Falls, part of the Niagara Escarpment, the Saint Lawrence Seaway allows navigation to and from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Thunder Bay in Northwestern Ontario. Northern Ontario occupies roughly 87 percent of the area of the province. Point Pelee is a peninsula of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario that is the southernmost extent of Canadas mainland, Pelee Island and Middle Island in Lake Erie extend slightly farther. All are south of 42°N – slightly farther south than the border of California. The climate of Ontario varies by season and location, the effects of these major air masses on temperature and precipitation depend mainly on latitude, proximity to major bodies of water and to a small extent, terrain relief. In general, most of Ontarios climate is classified as humid continental, Ontario has three main climatic regions
2.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
3.
Fairmont Hotels and Resorts
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Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is a Canadian operator of luxury hotels and resorts. Many of these hotels were built by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The first hotel to bear the Fairmont name is located in the city of San Francisco, the nearly completed structure survived the earthquake of 1906. Although heavily damaged by the subsequent fires, the hotel was renovated under the eye of architect Julia Morgan and it was later acquired by Benjamin Swig in 1945. Starting in the 1960s, Fairmont began developing a chain of luxury hotels in major cities across the United States. After purchasing Fairmont in 1999, Canadian Pacific Limited split into five companies in a 2001 starburst move designed to increase the valuations of its individual divisions. The former Canadian Pacific Hotels division took on the name of the much smaller Fairmont chain to reflect the new focus of the new company. In 2004, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts Inc. paid $70 million to take control of the management company that runs its properties. Fairmont completed the acquisition of the 16.5 per cent stake in the Fairmont management company from U. S. -based Maritz Wolff & Co. for about $70 million. The management company partnership stemmed from a deal that saw Fairmonts predecessor company, Canadian Pacific Hotels and that transaction led, in 2001, to the creation and IPO of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, a Toronto-based owner of luxury hotel properties. The new hotel management company created was 67 per cent owned by Fairmont, Kingdom disposed of its stake the partnership in return for Fairmont parent stock in 2002, leaving Maritz Wolff as the remaining partner. Two months later, the U. S. company triggered an option under the original deal that created the management company. In October 2005, Fairmont dipped to a low of $35. 53–37 cents lower than its closing price on its debut in August 2001. In early 2006, after a bidding war started by investor Carl Icahn. Icahn lost the bid and Fairmont agreed to be sold for $3.9 billion USD, to Colony Capital, LLC and Saudi Arabias Kingdom Hotels International. At the time of the purchase, FRHI also owned Canadas Delta Hotels & Resorts, however, Delta was sold on 2 October 2007 to bcIMC, the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation. In October 2008, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts was named one of Canadas Top 100 Employers by Mediacorp Canada Inc. and was featured in Macleans newsmagazine, later that month, it was also named one of Greater Torontos Top Employers, which was announced by the Toronto Star newspaper. In April 2010, Kingdom Hotels sold part of its stake in Raffles Holdings International in a deal worth about $847 million, to a group of investors, including an affiliate of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund
4.
Bradford Gilbert
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Bradford Lee Gilbert was a nationally-active architect based in New York City. Gilbert is best known for designing the first steel-framed curtain wall building in New York, the Tower Building, the Tower Building is considered New York Citys first skyscraper. There is some dispute as to whether the Tower Building had eleven or thirteen floors, depending on which floors were counted and it had to have the steel-frame construction because on its narrow lot, masonry-supporting walls would have allowed almost no free space on the first floor. Gilberts design used the frame as a railroad bridge. The Tower Building was initially greeted with skepticism, with members of the public predicting it would blow over. This prompted Gilbert to scale the building in the middle of an 1889 hurricane to demonstrate with a line that the building was not vibrating. The building was razed in 1914, born in Watertown, New York, Gilbert had been appointed architect of the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad by the age of 23. Among his extensive work for multiple railroads across the country, Gilbert also designed a version of New York Citys Grand Central Terminal in 1898. Gilbert was also the architect for the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition. Gilbert died at his home in Brooklyn in 1911. R. L, passenger Station, Bernardsville, New Jersey,1901 William G. Mr. Gilbert was first married in 1871 in New York to Cora, daughter of Captain John Rathbone. After his divorce, he married his wife, Maria McAuley, widow of Jerry McAuley in 1892 in Cranford, New Jersey On February 12,1896, Bradford. George E. Archer Frank J. Nies, DL&W Railroad contemporary Bradford Lee Gilbert history site
5.
Ross and Macdonald
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Ross and Macdonald was one of Canadas most notable architecture firms in the early 20th century. Based in Montreal, Quebec, the firm operated as a partnership between George Allen Ross and David MacFarlane from 1907 to 1912. MacFarlane withdrew from the firm in 1912, and Robert Henry Macdonald became a partner, the Ross and Macdonald name was used until 1944, after which it became Ross & Ross, Architects, when John Kenneth Ross joined his father as partner. Following George Allen Rosss death in 1946, the firm continued as Ross, Patterson, by 1970, the firm was known as Ross, Fish, Duschenes & Barrett. Ross was born in Montreal, and later studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ross was apprenticed to Brown, MacVicar & Heriot in Montreal, and later become a draftsman for the Grand Trunk Railway. He also did work with Parker & Thomas in Boston and Carrere & Hastings in New York before partnering with MacFarlane in Montreal and he was a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. He was also a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, becoming an Associate in 1904, Macdonald was born in Melbourne, Australia. Whitaker, M. S. A. of Melbourne, after positions as a draftsman for George B. Post starting in 1903, a draftsman with Crighton & McKay in Wellington, New Zealand in 1905. Bosworth in New York in 1906, Macdonald joined Ross and MacFarlane in Montreal as a junior partner and he ultimately became a partner of the firm in 1912. He was a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and he served as president of the Quebec Association of Architects in 1939, and was a recipient of the associations Award of Merit
6.
National Historic Sites of Canada
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Parks Canada, a federal agency, manages the National Historic Sites program. As of 2016, there are 976 National Historic Sites,171 of which are administered by Parks Canada, the sites are located across all ten provinces and three territories, with two sites located in France. There are related federal designations for National Historic Persons and National Historic Events, Sites, Events, and Persons are each typically marked by a federal plaque, but the markers do not indicate which designation a subject has been given. The Rideau Canal is a National Historic Site, while the Welland Canal is a National Historic Event, emerging Canadian nationalist sentiment in the late 19th century and early 20th century led to an increased interest in preserving Canadas historic sites. There were galvanizing precedents in other countries, in the United Kingdom, the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty was created in 1894 to protect that countrys historic and natural heritage. Domestically, Lord Dufferin, the Governor General from 1872 to 1878, initiated some of the earliest, high-profile efforts to preserve Canadas historic sites. He was instrumental in stopping the demolition of the fortifications of Quebec City, at the same time, the federal government was looking for ways to extend the National Park system to Eastern Canada. In 1914, the Parks Branch undertook a survey of sites in Canada. Fort Howe in Saint John, New Brunswick was designated a historic park in 1914. The fort was not a site of significant national historic importance, Fort Anne in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia was also designated in 1917. At the same time, the Department of Militia and Defence was anxious to transfer old forts, harkin, the first Commissioner of Dominion Parks, to develop a departmental heritage policy. On Harkins recommendation, the government created the Advisory Board for Historic Site Preservation in 1919 in order to advise the Minister on a new program of National Historic Sites. Brigadier General Ernest Alexander Cruikshank, an authority on the War of 1812 and the history of Ontario, was chosen as the Boards first chairman. Due to a lack of resources, the HSMBC limited itself to recommending sites for designation, of the 285 National Historic Sites designated by 1943,105 represented military history,52 represented the fur trade and exploration, and 43 represented famous individuals. There was also a strong bias in favour of commemorating sites in Ontario over other parts of the country, at one point, some members of the HSMBC concluded that there were no sites at all in Prince Edward Island worthy of designation. Lawrence, and in Niagara, promoting a loyalist doctrine of unity with Britain. Proposals to designate sites related to the immigration of Jews, Blacks and Ukrainians to Canada were rejected, such was the view of Canadian history by the Board in the first half of the 20th century. As time passed and the system grew, the scope of the program, by the 1930s, the focus of the heritage movement in Canada had shifted from commemoration to preservation and development
7.
Hotel
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A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Small, lower-priced hotels may offer only the most basic guest services and facilities, Hotel rooms are usually numbered to allow guests to identify their room. Some boutique, high-end hotels have custom decorated rooms, some hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement. In the United Kingdom, a hotel is required by law to serve food, in Japan, capsule hotels provide a tiny room suitable only for sleeping and shared bathroom facilities. The precursor to the hotel was the inn of medieval Europe. For a period of about 200 years from the mid-17th century, inns began to cater to richer clients in the mid-18th century. One of the first hotels in a sense was opened in Exeter in 1768. Hotels proliferated throughout Western Europe and North America in the early 19th century, Hotel operations vary in size, function, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies have set standards to classify hotel types. Full service hotels often contain upscale full-service facilities with a number of full service accommodations, an on-site full service restaurant. Boutique hotels are independent, non-branded hotels that often contain upscale facilities. Small to medium-sized hotel establishments offer a limited amount of on-site amenities, economy hotels are small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer basic accommodations with little to no services. Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer full service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel. Timeshare and destination clubs are a form of property ownership involving ownership of a unit of accommodation for seasonal usage. A motel is a small-sized low-rise lodging with direct access to rooms from the car park. Boutique hotels are typically hotels with an environment or intimate setting. A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, some hotels are built specifically as a destination in itself, for example at casinos and holiday resorts. The organizational chart and volume of job positions and hierarchy varies by size, function and class
8.
Gothic Revival architecture in Canada
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Gothic Revival architecture in Canada is an historically influential style, with many prominent examples. The Gothic Revival period lasted longer and was more thoroughly embraced in Canada than in either Britain or the United States, the late 19th and early 20th centuries was also the period when many major Canadian institutions were founded. Throughout Canada many of the most prominent religious, civic, while largely abandoned in the modernist period, several postmodern architects have embraced Canadas neo-Gothic past. Gothic Architecture is a given in retrospect to many of the major projects of the High Middle Ages. As this period covered the 13th and 14th centuries, there are no authentic Gothic buildings in Canada. The style was out of favour in the 17th century, when Europeans first began erecting structures in Canada, and the style is absent from the early settlements in New France. In the 18th century, a spirit of Romanticism and interest in the Medieval past led to a revival of Gothic styles in Britain. The style made its way to Canada in the early 19th century, one of the first appearances is in an 1811 proposal by Jeffry Wyatt for a new legislature in Quebec City. One of the first major Gothic Revival structures in Canada was Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal, the largest church in North America upon its completion, it was one of the first architectural works of international note to be built in Canada. It was also one of the first Catholic Gothic Revival structures, as the movement would not spread from Britain to France, as the most prominent church in the colony its form was much imitated by local church builders, who constructed miniature versions of the basilica across Quebec. As early as the late 18th century, certain Gothic elements had appeared in a church in Nova Scotia, though the Georgian, the first stone neo-Gothic structure in the Maritimes is St. Johns Church in Saint John, New Brunswick. It dates to 1824, the year work began on Notre-Dame. In the 1830s and 1840s four prominent neo-Gothic Churches were built in Quebec City, by the 1840s the Gothic Revival style had become virtually universal among Anglicans and used for most other Christian denominations as well. As in much of the English speaking world the lancet windows and it was soon also embraced for secular purposes as well, such as government buildings and universities. Canadian universities modeled themselves on the great British universities, Oxford and Cambridge, two of the first Gothic Revival colleges were Trinity College in Toronto and Bishops University in Quebec. In the later half of the 19th century, Gothic Revival architecture became the dominant style for major Canadian buildings, as the style became accepted and popular, architects became more willing to experiment and modify its conventions. While previous Gothic Revival architects had attempted to recapture the style of the Middle Ages, the new architects retained the Medieval motifs. One of the most important examples of this anywhere in the world were the Parliament Buildings designed by Thomas Fuller
9.
Parliament Hill
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Parliament Hill, colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario. Its Gothic revival suite of buildings is the home of the Parliament of Canada and has elements of national symbolic importance. Parliament Hill attracts approximately 3 million visitors each year, law enforcement on parliament hill and in the parliamentary precinct is the responsibility of the Parliamentary Protective Service. Since 2002, an extensive $1 billion renovation and rehabilitation project has been underway throughout all of the precincts buildings, Parliament Hill is a limestone outcrop with a gently sloping top that was originally covered in primeval forest of beech and hemlock. After Ottawa—then called Bytown—was founded, the builders of the Rideau Canal used the hill as a location for a military base, a large fortress was planned for the site, but was never built, and by the mid 19th century the hill had lost its strategic importance. On 7 May, the Department of Public Works issued a call for proposals for the new parliament buildings to be erected on Barrack Hill. After the entries were narrowed down to three, Governor General Sir Edmund Walker Head was approached to break the stalemate, and the winners were announced on 29 August 1859. The team of Thomas Stent and Augustus Laver, under the pseudonym of Stat nomen in umbra, won the prize for the second category, $300,000 was allocated for the main building, and $120,000 for each of the departmental buildings. Ground was broken on 20 December 1859, and the first stones laid on 16 April of the following year, the construction of Parliament Hill became the largest project undertaken in North America to that date. By early 1861, Public Works reported that $1,424,882, two years later, the unfinished site hosted a celebration of Queen Victorias birthday, further cementing the areas position as the central place for national outpouring. The site was still incomplete when three of the British North American colonies entered Confederation in 1867, with Ottawa remaining the capital of the new country, thus, the offices of parliament spread to buildings beyond Parliament Hill even at that early date. The British military gave a nine-pound naval cannon to the British army garrison stationed in Ottawa in 1854 and it was purchased by the Canadian government in 1869 and fired on Parliament Hill for many years as the Noonday Gun. By 1876, the structures of Parliament Hill were finished, along with the surrounding fence, fire destroyed the Centre Block on 3 February 1916. Eleven years later, the new tower was completed and dedicated as the Peace Tower, the Queen was back on Parliament Hill on 17 April 1982, to issue a royal proclamation of the enactment of the Constitution Act that year. In April 1989, a Greyhound Lines bus with 11 passengers on board travelling to New York City from Montreal was hijacked by an armed man, a standoff with police ensued and lasted eight hours, though three shots were fired, there were no injuries. The following year, Queen Elizabeth IIs Golden Jubilee was marked on 13 October, on 22 October 2014, several shooting incidents occurred around Parliament Hill. A gunman, after shooting a Canadian Army soldier mounting the ceremonial guard at the National War Memorial. There, he was killed in a shootout with RCMP officers, the gunman also injured one House of Commons constable, who was shot in the foot
10.
Grand Trunk Railway
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The railway was operated from headquarters in Montreal, Quebec, with corporate headquarters in London, England. The Grand Trunk, its subsidiaries, and the Canadian Government Railways were precursors of todays Canadian National Railways, gTRs main line ran from Portland, Maine to Montreal, and then from Montreal to Sarnia, Ontario, where it joined its western subsidiary. The GTR had three important subsidiaries during its lifetime, Central Vermont Railway which operated in Quebec, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Grand Trunk Pacific Railway which operated in Northwestern Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. Grand Trunk Western Railroad which operated in Michigan, Indiana, a new line to Providence would have allowed for more extensive port facilities than were possible for the Central Vermont at New London, Connecticut. Construction began in 1910 and continued in fits and starts for more than 20 years until finally abandoned in the early 1930s because of the Great Depression. Another important factor was the opposition of the New Haven Railroad. The company was incorporated on November 10,1852, as the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada to build a line between Montreal and Toronto. The charter was extended east to Portland, Maine and west to Sarnia. A line was built to Lévis, via Richmond from Montreal in 1855. In the same year it purchased the Toronto and Guelph Railroad, but the Grand Trunk Railway Company changed the original route of the T&G and extended the line to Sarnia, a hub for Chicago-bound traffic. By July,1856, the section from Sarnia to Toronto opened, by 1859 a ferry service was established across the St. Clair River to Fort Gratiot. The Grand Trunk was one of the factors that pushed British North America towards Confederation. The original colonial economy structured along the route from the Maritimes up the St. Lawrence River. The explosive growth in trade during the 1850s within the United Province of Canada, during this time the GTR extended its line to Lévis further east to Rivière-du-Loup. By 1860, the Grand Trunk was on the verge of bankruptcy, on the eve of the American Civil War, it stretched from Sarnia in the west to Rivière-du-Loup in the east and Portland in the southeast. Thus the British North America Act,1867 included the provision for an Intercolonial Railway to link with the Grand Trunk at Rivière-du-Loup, by 1880, the Grand Trunk Railway system stretched all the way from Portland in the east to Chicago, Illinois, in the west. Several impressive construction feats were associated with the GTR, the first successful bridging of the St. Clair River, connecting Sarnia, Ontario, the latter work opened in August 1890 and replaced the railcar ferry at the same location. S. To overcome the difference, the GTR experimented with a form of Variable gauge axles called adjustable gauge trucks
11.
Government Conference Centre
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The Government Conference Centre is a government building in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, located at 2 Rideau Street. Before the turn of the century, several railway companies had run lines into the city and had begun to build railway stations. The last one closed in 1920, broad Street was near the Prince of Wales Bridge, the link to Montreal via the north shore of the Ottawa River. Broad Street itself no longer exists, erased as part of the National Capital Commissions efforts at improving the capital area. C and it used the existing Prince of Wales Bridge to cross the Ottawa River near the site of the present-day O-Train Bayview Station, west of Parliament Hill. This rail bridge had been built in 1880 by the Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, however, there was no centrally located station until 1895, through efforts of John Rudolphus Booth. Booth was a Canadian lumber baron known for creating Canadas largest sawmill right in Ottawa and his mills capacity exceeded the distribution infrastructure, and he looked to rail as a solution. Booth had built a depot in 1895 just south of Rideau Street, on the east side of the canal. The station seemed to not be serving the needs of the railway companies. CPRs Royal Alexandra Interprovincial Bridge built in 1901 became the railway bridge to cross the Ottawa River between Ottawa and Hull. It led to Booths central depot, in 1905, Booth sold the Canadian Atlantic Railway to the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1910, the Grand Trunk was apportioned part of the Rideau Canal in order to build a new station, the hotel would become the famous Chateau Laurier, and the station would become Ottawas Union Station. The building was opened by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1912 as Ottawas central railway station, over the course of the following years, passenger services of other railways moved to this station, thereby clarifying and unifying passenger travel in the city. The Doric Roman Revival multi pillar Union station was designed by New York-based architect Bradford Lee Gilbert who was eventually dismissed due to concerns of mismanagement. The Montreal firm of Ross and MacFarlane took over the project, Ross and MacFarlane also took over the design of the Château Laurier and later built Torontos Union Station. Both Canadian National Railways and Canadian Pacific Railway operated regularly scheduled passenger trains through the facility until it ceased operations on July 31,1966, several tracks which originated from the main railway infrastructure in Ottawa ran immediately adjacent to the Rideau Canal and led northward into the city. They approached Union Station through several sheds, from the sheds, emerged two tracks, and continued along, proceeding under the bridge where Wellington Street crosses the canal. They then ran immediately adjacent to the west side of Chateau Laurier, in a structure which was used for a time in a converted form, the track continued, where there is now a paved road and ran to the Alexandra Bridge. Once in Hull, there was the possibility to continue to other parts of Quebec, or to return to Ottawa by making a turn, some of the pathways in present-day Gatineau are on locations where rails had once made this possible
National Historic Sites of Canada by location