Local author Dennis Rizzo tells the fascinating and diverse history of Orillia, Ontario. First populated by the Huron, Iroquois and Chippewa Nations, Orillia is now a well-loved, year-round recreation destination. Its history is deeply tied to its water. Situated in the narrows where Lake Simcoe flows into Lake Couchiching, Orillia was a gathering place for centuries before Europeans used it to bring furs to market. Sir John Simcoe, first governor of Upper Canada, fostered permanent settlement of the area. A gateway to the Muskoka region, it has been home to lumber, manufacturing, and artistic endeavours. Today, summer cottagers and winter athletes alike enjoy the Sunshine City and its more than twenty annual festivals. Local author Dennis Rizzo tells the fascinating and diverse history of Orillia, Ontario.

Nestled in southwestern Ontario along the scenic Avon River, Stratford is an industrial centre recognized for its scenic parks and world-famous Shakespearean theatre. The first settlers arrived in 1827, when the Canada Company surveyed the area. Incorporated in 1854 as the village of Stratford, the city today retains a rich heritage preserved in photographs and documents stored at the Stratford-Perth Archives. This compilation of photographs from the Stratford-Perth Archives, historical notes, and anecdotes provides a magnificent anniversary souvenir of the city of Stratford. Stratford includes previously unpublished photographs as well as frequently requested images, including stunning historical views of Queen's Park, the regatta, local
sports teams, the 1933 general strike, and the Perth Regiment. Stratford covers the period from 1864 to 1964, shortly after the Canadian National Railway shops left the area, reveals why downtown has so many buildings with towers, and tells the story of the Shakespeare connection. It will fascinate residents, past residents, and tourists.

On May 16, 1853, the first passenger train steamed out of Toronto from a wooden depot that was located near the site of today's Union Station. Over the next century, the railways had a profound impact on the geography and economic fortunes of Toronto and helped transform it from a provincial town into the commercial centre of Canada. To the dismay of many, the railways also swallowed up prime real estate on Toronto's waterfront and isolated its citizens from Lake Ontario, the city's most scenic asset. The struggle between the promoters of unfettered railway development and crusaders for public access to the waterfront culminated during the 1920s with the building of the waterfront railway viaduct and Union Station. This magnificent Beaux-Arts railway terminal is the busiest transportation hub in Canada and is undergoing a $1.5 billion revitalization. Inside this book are over 200 rare images illustrating 80 years of Toronto's railway history.

Noted beer expert and writer Jordan St. John shows readers the rich history of Toronto's heritage breweries, many of which still exist today. Explore the once-prominent breweries of nineteenth-century Toronto. Brewers including William Helliwell, John Doel, Eugene O'Keefe, Lothar Reinhardt, Enoch Turner, and Joseph Bloore influenced the history of the city and the development of a dominant twentieth-century brewing industry in Ontario. Step inside the lost landmarks that first brought intoxicating brews to the masses in Toronto. Jordan St. John delves into the lost buildings, people and history behind Toronto's early breweries, with detailed historic images, stories both personal and industrial, and even reconstructed nineteenth-century brewing recipes.

Beer historians and writers Alan McLeod and Jordan St. John have tapped the cask of Ontario brewing to bring the complete story to light, from foam to dregs. Ontario boasts a potent mix of brewing traditions. Wherever Europeans explored, battled, and settled, beer was not far behind, which brought the simple magic of brewing to Ontario in the 1670s. Early Hudson's Bay Company traders brewed in Canada's Arctic, and Loyalist refugees brought the craft north in the 1780s. Early 1900s temperance activists drove the industry largely underground but couldn't dry up the quest to quench Ontarians' thirst. The heavy regulation that replaced prohibition centralized surviving breweries. Today, independent breweries are booming and writing their own chapters in the Ontario beer story.