Cornell, Ontario
Cornell is a new community village being developed in northeast Markham and bounded by Highway 407, 16th Avenue, Ninth Line, the Donald Cousens Parkway. The 2011 population of this area was 9,880. Adding Cornell North's 2,178 it had 12,058 residents. In 2017, MoneySense ranked Cornell as one of the GTA's top 25 neighbourhoods in terms of affordability. Cornell was conceived in the 1990s planning process by the town of Markham. Unlike other Markham communities, Cornell is a planned community. One of the original settlers was Christian Reesor, he and his family settled in Cornell. Their original homestead was on Reesor Road; the name'Cornell' derives from the maiden name of the wife of Christian Reesor's youngest son, who continued to live at the family homestead. Cornell's name was selected in 1999 from a suggestion by local lawyer Paul Mingay. Mingay's family roots can be traced back to Susan Emily Cornell, a descendant of William Cornell, settler from Rhode Island who came to Canada in 1799 and settled in Scarborough, Ontario in 1800.
Cornells settled in Markham and married into the Reesor family. William Cornell immigrated to Canada from Rhode Island and is a distant relative of Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University. Most of the houses are semi-detached, or detached houses with garages at the rear; the communities are built with central amenities. Cornell was seen by the Markham Town Council as a way to deter the ongoing sprawl by encouraging residential density; the community Cornell Village, is designed as a walkable neighborhood with a variety of housing types and retail. Cornell Village, between Highway 7 and 16th Avenue, is populated with medium density residential; the southern section of Cornell, however, is not populated, remains as a wild field and a farm. In 2012, the City of Markham completed Fire Station 99 to serve the area. Cornell is a diverse community. Cornell can be further separated by development phases: Grand Cornell - located near Highway 7 and 9th Line and built by builders H&R, GreenPark and CountryWide Upper Cornell - located near 16th Avenue and 9th Line and built by builders Aspen Ridge or Beaverbrook Cornell Village - located between 16th Avenue and Highway 7 along 9th Line to Cornell Centre Blvd.
In 2004 there was a plan to create a residential and retail development called "Cornell Town Centre" along the southern end of Cornell. This plan never materialized and most of the area has since been re-developed as residential homes; the man-made recreational Cornell Lake is now a series of ponds that carries the waters of Little Rouge Creek in Grand Cornell development. This area is served by Toronto Pearson International Airport for civilian air travel; the development is not far from the proposed Pickering Airport and once one of the sites for landfills in the Greater Toronto Area. While runway 10R/28L will still be within Pickering, the southwest end of the property will be located north of 16th Avenue and 9th Line. Toronto/Markham Airport is located north in Dickson Hill, Ontario is a owned general aviation airfield. Transportation links to the community include GO Transit, York Region Transit; the Markham-Stouffville Hospital YRT Terminal temporarily serves Cornell with several YRT routes: Route 1 Highway 7 Route 25 Major Mackenzie Route 9 Ninth Line Route 16 16th Avenue Route 303 Bur Oak Express Route 522 Markham CommunityThe Markham Stouffville Hospital Terminal is a temporary terminal serving Cornell and the nearby areas.
The York Region Transit authority is building a permanent bus terminal, Cornell Terminal, located at Donald Cousens Parkway and Highway 7. The temporary terminal at Markham Stouffville Hospital will shut down upon completion of the new terminal; the plans for the new terminal may include connections with Durham Region Transit. The completion date is not yet to be known. There is one VIVA line serving the area, Viva Purple. Viva Purple terminates at the Markham Stouffville Hospital as well, with plans in the future stretching to Cornell Terminal. Major roads and highways in the community include: 16th Avenue runs east-west on the northside of Cornell. 9th Line runs north-south on the west side of Cornell. Donald Cousens Parkway runs north-south on the east side of Cornell. Highway 7 is an east-west road that cuts through the centre of Cornell from Donald Cousens Parkway to Ninth Line, it is east of Donald Cousens Parkway. Cornell marks the start of the eastern segment of Highway 7, it starts at Donald Cousens Parkway and it runs 380 km long and ends at the Highway 417 in Ottawa.
Cornell Centre Boulevard is a secondary road in the east side of Cornell that runs north-south from Highway 7 to 16th Avenue. Known as Markham Bypass; the section south of Shady Oaks Avenue to Highway 7 will be closed to be re-routed and connected as part of the existing William Forster Road. The northern section from Shady Oaks will remain and become part of Church Street. Bur Oak Avenue is a secondary road in the north side of Cornell north-south and curves around north of 16th Avenue to Ninth Line. Ontario Highway 407 is an east-west highway on the southern boundary of Cornell with two exits The above roads are travelled by commuters during the weekdays to get around Markham, Yo
Ithaca, New York
Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York. It is the seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca–Tompkins County metropolitan area; this area contains the municipalities of the Town of Ithaca, the village of Cayuga Heights, other towns and villages in Tompkins County. The city of Ithaca is located on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, in Central New York, about 45 miles south-west-west of Syracuse, it is named for the Greek island of Ithaca. Ithaca is home to Cornell University, an Ivy League school of over 20,000 students, most of whom study at its local campus. In addition, Ithaca College is a private, liberal arts college of over 7,000 students, located just south of the city in the Town of Ithaca, adding to the area's "college town" atmosphere. Nearby is Tompkins Cortland Community College; these three colleges bring tens of thousands of students, who increase Ithaca's seasonal population during the school year. The city's voters are notably more liberal than those in the remainder of Tompkins County or in upstate New York voting for Democratic Party candidates.
As of 2010, the city's population was 30,014. A 2017 census estimate stated the population was 31,006. Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca is the North American seat of the 14th Dalai Lama. Indigenous people occupied this area for thousands of years. At the time of European contact, this area was controlled by the Cayuga Nation, one of the powerful Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois League. Jesuit missionaries from New France are said to have had a mission to the Cayuga as early as 1657. Saponi and Tutelo peoples, Siouan-speaking tribes occupied lands at the south end of Cayuga Lake. Dependent tributaries of the Cayuga, they had been permitted to settle on the tribe's hunting lands at the south end of Cayuga Lake, as well as in Pony Hollow of what is known as present-day Newfield, New York. Remnants of these tribes had been forced from Virginia and North Carolina by tribal conflicts and European colonial encroachment; the Tuscarora people, an Iroquoian-speaking tribe from the Carolinas, migrated after defeat in the Yamasee War.
During the Revolutionary War, four of the six Iroquois nations were allied with the British, although bands made decisions on fighting in a decentralized way. Conflict with the rebel colonists was fierce throughout western New York. In retaliation for conflicts to the east, the 1779 Sullivan Expedition was conducted against the Iroquois peoples in the west of the state, destroying more than 40 villages and stored winter crops, it destroyed the Tutelo village of Coregonal, located near what is now the junction of state routes 13 and 13A just south of the Ithaca city limits. Most Iroquois were forced from the state after the Revolutionary War; the state sold off the former Iroquois lands to stimulate development and settlement by European Americans. Within the current boundaries of the City of Ithaca, Native Americans maintained only a temporary hunting camp at the base of Cascadilla Gorge. In 1788, eleven men from Kingston, New York came to the area with two Delaware people guides, to explore what they considered wilderness.
The following year Jacob Yaple, Isaac Dumond, Peter Hinepaw returned with their families and constructed log cabins. That same year Abraham Bloodgood of Albany obtained a patent from the state for 1,400 acres, which included all of the present downtown west of Tioga Street. In 1790, the federal government and state began an official program to grant land in the area, known as the Central New York Military Tract, as payment for service to the American soldiers of the Revolutionary War, as the government was cash poor. Most local land titles trace back to these Revolutionary war grants; as part of this process, the Central New York Military Tract, which included northern Tompkins County, was surveyed by Simeon De Witt, Bloodgood's son-in-law. De Witt was the nephew of Governor George Clinton; the Commissioners of Lands of New York State met in 1790. The Military Tract township in which proto-Ithaca was located was named the Town of Ulysses. A few years De Witt moved to Ithaca called variously "The Flats," "The City," or "Sodom".
Around 1791 De Witt sold them at modest prices. That same year John Yaple built a grist mill on Cascadilla Creek; the first frame house was erected in 1800 by Abram Markle. In 1804 the village had a postmaster, in 1805 a tavern. Ithaca became a transshipping point for salt from curing beds near Salina, New York to buyers south and east; this prompted construction in 1810 of the Owego Turnpike. When the War of 1812 cut off access to Nova Scotia gypsum, used for fertilizer, Ithaca became the center of trade in Cayuga gypsum; the Cayuga Steamboat Company was organized in 1819 and in 1820 launched the first steamboat on Cayuga Lake, the Enterprise. In 1821, the village was incorporated at the same time the Town of Ithaca was organized and separated from the parent Town of Ulysses. In 1834, the Ithaca and Owego Railroad's first horse-drawn train began service, connecting traffic on the east-west Erie Canal with the Susquehanna River to the south to expand the trade network
Andrew Dickson White
Andrew Dickson White was an American historian and educator, the cofounder of Cornell University and served as its first president for nearly two decades. He was known for expanding the scope of college curricula. A politician, he had served as state senator in New York, he was appointed as a US diplomat to Germany and Russia, among other responsibilities. He was born on November 7, 1832, in Homer, New York, to Clara and Horace White. Clara was the daughter of Andrew Dickson, a New York State Assemblyman in 1832 and his wife, their once-successful farm was ruined by a fire when Horace was 13. Despite little formal education and struggles with poverty after his family lost its farm, Horace White became a businessman and wealthy merchant. In 1839 he opened what became a successful bank in Syracuse. Horace and Clara White had two children: Andrew Dickson and his brother. Andrew was baptized in 1835 at the Calvary Episcopal Church on the town green in Homer, he married twice. His first marriage, on September 27, 1857, was to Mary Amanda Outwater, daughter of Peter Outwater and Lucia M. Phillips of Syracuse.
Mary's maternal grandmother Amanda Danforth, daughter of Asa Danforth, Jr. and wife of Elijah Phillips, Jr. was the first white child born in what would become Onondaga County, New York. Her great-grandfathers included General Asa Danforth, an early pioneer of upstate New York and leader of the State Militia, as well as Elijah Philips, Sr. who had responded to the alarm to Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1775 and served as the High Sheriff of Onondaga County. Andrew and Mary had three children together: Frederick Davies White, who committed suicide in his forties in 1901 after a prolonged series of illnesses. After his wife died in 1887, White went on a lecture tour and traveled in Europe with his close friend, Daniel Willard Fiske, librarian at Cornell. After three years as a widower, in 1890, White married Helen Magill, the daughter of Edward Magill, Swarthmore College's second president, she was the first woman in the United States to earn a Ph. D. Like her husband, Helen was a social scientist and educator.
Together and Andrew had one daughter, Karin White. One of Andrew's cousins was Edwin White, who became an artist of the Luminism/Hudson River schools, his nephew was Horace White, governor of New York. Beginning in the fall of 1849, White enrolled as an undergraduate at Geneva College at the insistence of his father, he was inducted as a member of Sigma Phi. In his autobiography, he recalled that he had felt that his time at Geneva was "wasted" by being at the small Episcopalian school, instead of at "one of the larger New England universities". Rather than continue "wasting" his time, White dropped out in 1850. After a period of estrangement, White persuaded his father to let him transfer to Yale College. At Yale, White was a classmate of Daniel Coit Gilman, who would serve as the first president of Johns Hopkins University; the two were members of the Skull and Bones secret society and would remain close friends. They traveled together in Europe after graduation and served together on the Venezuela Boundary Commission.
His roommate was Thomas Frederick Davies, Sr. who became the third bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, 1889–1905. Other members of White's graduating year included Edmund Clarence Stedman, the poet and essayist. S. Ambassador to Italy. According to White, he was influenced in his academic career and life by Professor Noah Porter, who instructed him in rhetoric and remained a close personal friend until Porter's death. Alpha Sigma Phi inducted White as a member in 1850 and he served as editor of the fraternity's publication, The Tomahawk. White remained active in the fraternity for the rest of his life, founding the Cornell chapter and serving as the national president from 1913 to 1915, he served as an editor of The Lit. known today as the Yale Literary Magazine. He belonged to Linonia, a literary and debating society; as a junior, White won the Yale literary prize for the best essay, writing on the topic "The Greater Distinctions in Statesmanship. As a junior, White joined the junior society Psi Upsilon.
In his senior year, White won the Clark Prize for English disputation and the De Forest prize for public oratory, speaking on the topic "The Diplomatic History of Modern Times". Valued at $100, the De Forest prize was the largest prize of its kind at any educational institution, American or otherwise. In addition to academic pursuits, White was on the Yale crew team, competed in the first Harvard–Yale Regatta in 1852. After graduation, White traveled and studied in Europe with his classmate Daniel Coit Gilman. Between 1853 and 1854, he studied at the Sorbonne, the Collège de France, the University of Berlin, he served as the translator for Thomas H. Seymour, the U. S. Ambassador to Russia, following Gilman's term as translator, although he had not studied French prior to his studies in Europe. After he returned the United States, White enrolled at Yale to earn an M. A. in History and be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 1856. In October 1858, White accepted a position as a Professor of History and
Land-grant university
A land-grant university is an institution of higher education in the United States designated by a state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890. The Morrill Acts funded educational institutions by granting federally controlled land to the states for them to sell, to raise funds, to establish and endow "land-grant" colleges; the mission of these institutions as set forth in the 1862 Act is to focus on the teaching of practical agriculture, military science, engineering, as a response to the industrial revolution and changing social class. This mission was in contrast to the historic practice of higher education to focus on a liberal arts curriculum. A 1994 expansion gave land grant status to universities. Most land-grant colleges became large public universities that today offer a full spectrum of educational opportunities. However, some land-grant colleges are private schools, including Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tuskegee University; the concept of publicly funded agricultural and technical educational institutions first rose to national attention through the efforts of Jonathan Baldwin Turner in the late 1840s.
The first land-grant bill was introduced in Congress by Representative Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont in 1857. The bill was vetoed by President James Buchanan. Morrill resubmitted his bill in 1861, it was enacted into law in 1862. Upon passage of the federal land-grant law in 1862, Iowa was the first state legislature to accept the provisions of the Morrill Act, on September 11, 1862. Iowa subsequently designated the State Agricultural College as the land grant college on March 29, 1864; the first land-grant institution created under the Act was Kansas State University, established on February 16, 1863, opened on September 2, 1863. The oldest school that holds land-grant status is Rutgers University, founded in 1766 and designated the land-grant college of New Jersey in 1864; the oldest school to hold land-grant status was Yale University, named Connecticut's land-grant recipient in 1863. This designation was stripped by the Connecticut legislature in 1893 under populist pressure and transferred to what would become the University of Connecticut.
A second Morrill Act was passed in 1890, aimed at the former Confederate states. This act required each state to show that race was not an admissions criterion, or else to designate a separate land-grant institution for persons of color. Among the seventy colleges and universities which evolved from the Morrill Acts are several of today's black colleges and universities. Though the 1890 Act granted cash instead of land, it granted colleges under that act the same legal standing as the 1862 Act colleges. On, other colleges such as the University of the District of Columbia and the "1994 land-grant colleges" for Native Americans were awarded cash by Congress in lieu of land to achieve "land-grant" status. In imitation of the land-grant colleges' focus on agricultural and mechanical research, Congress established programs of sea grant colleges, space grant colleges, sun grant colleges. West Virginia State University, a black university, is the only current land-grant university to have lost land-grant status and subsequently regained it, which happened in 2001.
The land-grant college system has been seen as a major contributor in the faster growth rate of the US economy that led to its overtaking the United Kingdom as economic superpower, according to research by faculty from the State University of New York. The three-part mission of the land-grant university continues to evolve in the twenty-first century. What was described as teaching and service was renamed learning and engagement by the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities, again recast as talent and place by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. Prior to enactment of the Morrill Act in 1862, Michigan State University was chartered under Michigan state law as a state agricultural land-grant institution on February 12, 1855, as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, receiving an appropriation of 14,000 acres of state-owned land; the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania to become The Pennsylvania State University, followed as a state agricultural land-grant school on February 22 of that year.
Michigan State and Penn State were subsequently designated as the federal land-grant colleges for their states in 1863. Older state universities – such as the University of Georgia, established with a grant of land in 1784 – were funded through the use of state land grants. Indeed, land grants to educational institutions are a practice inherited from Europe, are traceable all the way back to the societies of classical antiquity; these earlier examples, offered a different "mission" than the practical education offered by land-grant institutions established under the Morrill Act. The mission of the land-grant universities was expanded by the Hatch Act of 1887, which provided federal funds to states to establish a series of agricultural experiment stations under the direction of each state's land-grant college, as well as pass along new information in the areas
Baltimore–Washington telegraph line
The Baltimore–Washington telegraph line was the first long-distance telegraph system set up to run overland in the United States. In March 1843, the US Congress appropriated $30,000 to Samuel Morse to lay a telegraph line between Washington, D. C. and Baltimore, along the right-of-way of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Morse decided to lay the wire underground, asking Ezra Cornell to lay the line using a special cable-laying plow that Cornell had developed. Wire began to be laid in Baltimore on October 21, 1843. Cornell's plow was pulled by eight mules, cut a ditch 2 inches wide and 20 inches deep, laid a pipe with the wires, reburied the pipe, in an integrated operation. However, the project was stopped after about 15 kilometres of wire was laid because the line was failing. Morse learned that Cooke and Wheatstone were using poles for their lines in England and decided to follow their lead. Installation of the lines and poles from Washington to Baltimore began on April 1, 1844, using chestnut poles 7 metres high spaced 60 metres apart, for a total of about 500 poles.
Two 16-gauge copper wires were installed. A test of the still incomplete line occurred on May 1, 1844, when news of the Whig Party's nomination of Henry Clay for U. S. President was sent from the party's convention in Baltimore to the Capitol Building in Washington. Morse's line was demonstrated on May 24, 1844, from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol in Washington to the Mount Clare station of the railroad in Baltimore, commenced with the transmission of Morse's first message to Alfred Vail, "What hath God wrought", a phrase from the Bible's Book of Numbers; the phrase was suggested by Annie Ellsworth, whose husband was a supporter of Morse's, knew Morse was religious. As U. S. Postmaster General, Cave Johnson was in charge of the line. Morse was made superintendent of the line, Alfred Vail and Henry Rogers the operators; the next year, Johnson reported that "the importance of to the public does not consist of any probable income that can be derived from it," which led to the invention being returned for private development.
First transcontinental telegraph Timeline of North American telegraphy Electronic Technology in the House of Representatives History of the Telegraph Contemporary account of the construction of the transcontinental telegraph
Hyde Park, Chicago
Hyde Park is a neighborhood and community area on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A, it is located on the shore of Lake Michigan seven miles south of the Chicago Loop. Hyde Park's official boundaries are 51st Street/Hyde Park Boulevard on the north, the Midway Plaisance on the south, Washington Park on the west, Lake Michigan on the east. According to another definition, a section to the north between 47th Street and 51st Street/Hyde Park Boulevard is included as part of Hyde Park, although this area is the southern part of the Kenwood community area; the area encompassing Hyde Park and the southern part of Kenwood is sometimes referred to as Hyde Park-Kenwood. Hyde Park is home to the University of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry, two of Chicago's four historic sites listed in the original 1966 National Register of Historic Places. In the early 21st century, Hyde Park received national attention for its association with U. S. President Barack Obama, before running for president, was a law lecturer at the University of Chicago.
In 1853, Paul Cornell, a real estate speculator and cousin of Cornell University founder Ezra Cornell, purchased 300 acres of land between 51st and 55th streets along the shore of Lake Michigan, with the idea of attracting other Chicago businessmen and their families to the area. The land was located seven miles south of Downtown Chicago in a rural area that enjoyed weather tempered by the lake – cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, it was conveniently located near the Illinois Central Railroad, constructed two years earlier. Cornell negotiated land in exchange for a railroad station at 53rd Street. Hyde Park became a suburban retreat for affluent Chicagoans who wanted to escape the noise and congestion of the growing city. In 1857, the Hyde Park House, an upscale hotel, was built on the shore of Lake Michigan near the 53rd Street railroad station. For two decades, the Hyde Park House served as a focal point of Hyde Park social life. During this period, it was visited or lived in by many prominent guests, including Mary Todd Lincoln, who lived there with her children for two and a half months in the summer of 1865.
The Hyde Park House burned down in an 1879 fire. The Sisson Hotel was built on the site in 1918 and was converted into a condominium building. In 1861, Hyde Park was incorporated as an independent township, its boundaries were Pershing Road on the north, 138th Street on the south, State Street on the west, Lake Michigan and the Indiana state line on the east. The territory of the township encompassed most of. Hyde Park Township remained independent of Chicago until it was annexed to the city in 1889. After annexation, the definition of Hyde Park as a Chicago neighborhood was restricted to the historic core of the former township, centered on Cornell's initial development between 51st and 55th streets near the lakefront; the Hyde Park Herald, the neighborhood's community newspaper, was established in 1882 and continues to be published weekly. In 1891, the University of Chicago was established in Hyde Park through the philanthropy of John D. Rockefeller and the leadership of William Rainey Harper.
The University of Chicago grew into one of the world's most prestigious universities, is now associated with eighty-nine Nobel Prize laureates. In 1893, Hyde Park hosted the World's Columbian Exposition; the World's Columbian Exposition brought fame to the neighborhood, which gave rise to an inflow of new residents and spurred new development that started transforming Hyde Park into a more urban area. However, since most of the structures built for the fair were temporary, it left few direct traces in the neighborhood; the only major structure from the fair, still standing today is Charles Atwood's Palace of Fine Arts, which has since been converted into the Museum of Science and Industry. In the early decades of the twentieth century, many upscale hotels were built in Hyde Park. Hyde Park became a resort area in Chicago. Most of these hotels closed during the Great Depression, were converted into apartment and condominium buildings. Historical images of Hyde Park can be found in Explore Chicago Collections, a digital repository made available by Chicago Collections archives and other cultural institutions in the city.
Until the middle of the twentieth century, Hyde Park remained an exclusively white neighborhood. Hyde Parkers relied on racially restrictive covenants to keep African Americans out of the neighborhood. At the time, the use of such covenants was supported by the University of Chicago. After the Supreme Court banned racially restrictive covenants in 1948, African Americans began moving into Hyde Park, the neighborhood became multiracial. In 1955, civil rights activist Leon Despres was elected alderman of Hyde Park and held the position for twenty years. Despres argued passionately for racial integration and fair housing on the floor of the Chicago City Council, became known as the "liberal conscience of Chicago" for casting the sole dissenting vote against the policies of Chicago's then-mayor Richard J. Daley. During the 1950s, Hyde Park experienced economic decline as a result of the white flight that follo
Ontario
Ontario is one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada and is located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province accounting for 38.3 percent of the country's population, is the second-largest province in total area. Ontario is fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included, it is home to the nation's capital city and the nation's most populous city, Ontario's provincial capital. Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, Quebec to the east and northeast, to the south by the U. S. states of Minnesota, Ohio and New York. All of Ontario's 2,700 km border with the United States follows inland waterways: from the west at Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River drainage system; these are the Rainy River, the Pigeon River, Lake Superior, the St. Marys River, Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River from Kingston, Ontario, to the Quebec boundary just east of Cornwall, Ontario.
There is only about 1 km of land border made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border. Ontario is sometimes conceptually divided into Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario; the great majority of Ontario's population and arable land is in the south. In contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and heavy forestation; the province is named after Lake Ontario, a term thought to be derived from Ontarí:io, a Huron word meaning "great lake", or skanadario, which means "beautiful water" in the Iroquoian languages. 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 does not support agriculture, it is rich in minerals and in part covered by the Central and Midwestern Canadian Shield forests, studded with lakes and rivers. Northern Ontario is subdivided into two sub-regions: Northeastern Ontario.
The unpopulated Hudson Bay Lowlands in the extreme north and northeast swampy and sparsely forested. Southern Ontario, further sub-divided into four regions. Despite the absence of any mountainous terrain in the province, there are large areas of uplands within the Canadian Shield which traverses the province from northwest to southeast and above the Niagara Escarpment which crosses the south; the highest point is Ishpatina Ridge at 693 metres above sea level in Temagami, Northeastern Ontario. In the south, elevations of over 500 m are surpassed near Collingwood, above the Blue Mountains in the Dundalk Highlands and in hilltops near the Madawaska River in Renfrew County; the Carolinian forest zone covers most of the southwestern region of the province. The temperate and fertile Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence Valley in the south is part of the Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests ecoregion where the forest has now been replaced by agriculture and urban development. A well-known geographic feature is 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 87 percent of the surface area of the province. Point Pelee is a peninsula of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario, the southernmost extent of Canada's mainland. Pelee Island and Middle Island in Lake Erie extend farther. All are south of 42°N – farther south than the northern border of California; the climate of Ontario varies by location. It is affected by three air sources: cold, arctic air from the north; the effects of these major air masses on temperature and precipitation depend on latitude, proximity to major bodies of water and to a small extent, terrain relief. In general, most of Ontario's climate is classified as humid continental. Ontario has three main climatic regions; the surrounding Great Lakes influence the climatic region of southern Ontario. During the fall and winter months, heat stored from the lakes is released, moderating the climate near the shores of the lakes.
This gives some parts of southern Ontario milder winters than mid-continental areas at lower latitudes. Parts of Southwestern Ontario have a moderate humid continental climate, similar to that of the inland Mid-Atlantic states and the Great Lakes portion of the Midwestern United States; the region has warm to cold winters. Annual precipitation is well distributed throughout the year. Most of this region lies in the lee of the Great Lakes. In December 2010, the snowbelt set a new record when it was h
