This year we’ve been marking the 50th anniversary of the Ontario Heritage Act, which was proclaimed in Kingston on March 5th, 1975. [1]
I think there’s little question that the enactment of the Ontario Heritage Act was the most important public policy achievement in the conservation of cultural heritage in Ontario’s history. Despite its initial weaknesses and flaws, the passage of the Act fifty years ago reflected, especially on the built heritage side, a society that had matured — proud of its past and ultimately prepared to put in place a law (and many other things too) to recognize and protect it. As the name implies it was an Act aimed at preserving and promoting Ontario heritage, tangible heritage that belongs to — in the sense of inextricably tied up with — this province and its peoples.
The Ontario Heritage Act was and remains a ringing declaration that there are many special things here that define and animate this province and its communities. These are thingsOntario cannot do without, things without which there would be no Ontario.
This is why the blog you are reading is called OHA+M (Ontario Heritage Act and more): to honour that 1975 policy tour de force.
And this is why we — and especially those of us who live, breathe and work in this field — should be celebrating the Act and the countless conservation successes it has enabled over the last half century. Yes, be conscious of its failings; how, like many venerated monuments, the OHA has been battered of late; how it will need to be fixed and made better. But remember its high points too; the community energies it spawned; the times when it was made better in ways that broadened its scope and protections. Hey, have a(nother) party, we’ve still got half a year to go!
Former heritage ministry colleagues at the OHA at 50 celebration on March 5
Speaking of celebrating…
As we come up to Canada’s 158th birthday — and, in its current form, Ontario’s — we have more cause than usual to blow our horn. Thanks to the recent shenanigans (and worse) of our neighbour to the south, Canadians have rallied to “show the flag” like perhaps never before, and to reflect on what makes this country different and special.
A huge part of this, of course, is our history and culture. Including how that is manifested in our built environment and landscapes.
Permit me to take one example — one close to my heart: the Ontario Cottage.
Wood-Simpson House, near St. Marys, c. 1856 Photo: Dan Schneider
In 1990 l became custodian of an old farmhouse a few kilometres north of St. Marys, Ontario. Like a lot of St. Marys buildings it’s a limestone structure, and was built about 1856.
I had stumbled upon it and found out it was to be demolished. Somehow I persuaded the owner, the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority, that they should rent it to me instead!
On my first day as a tenant I wrote in my journal: “The place is a dump, but I love it. It has such a quiet dignity and presence even in its forlorn state. The potential of the house and landscape are incredible.” I was smitten, and tried to find out as much about the history of the house and farm as I could. And I learned that I was living in an Ontario Cottage.
And so, some 10 years later, I was very intrigued to hear that my friend Lynne DiStefano was mounting an exhibit on the Ontario Cottage at what is now Museum London. And that the exhibit would be followed by a book. A book that, as it turned out, would be a long time coming — and needed two authors to bring it to fruition.
The cover of The Ontario Cottage: Perfect of Its Kind
Lynne’s and my book, The Ontario Cottage: Perfect of Its Kind, will be published this October. With over 80 photographs by photographer Steven Evans and copious illustrations by architect Lee Ho Yin, the book is a tribute to this distinctive Ontario houseform and its timeless appeal. [2]
From the book’s Introduction:
Dottedacross the countryside and clustered in towns and cities throughout the southern part of its namesake province, the Ontario Cottage is an almost ubiquitous presence. Like an old coat with which we have grown comfortable, the Ontario Cottage is taken for granted by Ontarians and claimed as our own. But it wasn’t until 1963 that the Ontario Cottage was actually christened as such, by the renowned and formidable pair of architectural historians Marion MacRae and Anthony Adamson. In their seminal The Ancestral Roof:Domestic Architecture of Upper Canada, they identify it as one of the distinctive types of domestic architecture in the province.
Here’s a few of the book’s photographs to whet your appetite. Happy Canada Day!
Fountain Street South, Cambridge (Preston), c. 1850 Photo: Steven Evans
DundasStreet West, Mississauga (Erindale), c. 1828 Photo: Steven Evans
James Lazier House, near Green Point, Prince Edward County, c. 1840 Photo: Steven Evans
Notes
Note 1: For the history of legislative developments leading to the passage of the Ontario Heritage Act in 1975, see Mark Osbaldeston’s “The Origins of Heritage Preservation Law in Ontario”, published in OHA+M in March of this year.
For a brief account of efforts to amend and strengthen the Ontario Heritage Act post-1975 until 2005, see “Welcome to my new blog! And the Ontario Heritage Act (OHA) at 40!”, published in OHA+M in February 2015.
Note 2: The book will be published by Vancouver-based Figure 1 Publishing and can already be pre-ordered from Indigo and Amazon. In November the authors are planning a book tour to include Toronto, London, St. Marys, Stratford, Port Hope and other places TBD.