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Orillia, pronounced ōrĭl'ēə, is a city located in Simcoe County in south-central Ontario, Canada, on Lake Couchiching. It is about 135 kilometres north of Toronto.

History and geography

The Village of Orillia was incorporated in 1867 (sharing the same birthyear as Canada), became a town in 1875, and was designated a city in 1969. The City of Orillia is located on the shores of two connected lakes: Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching. Both lakes are part of the Trent-Severn Waterway. Travel north on Lake Couchiching, then through three locks and the only marine railway in North America leads to Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. Travel south-east across Lake Simcoe, though many locks (including two of the highest hydraulic lift locks in the world) eventually leads to Lake Ontario. From either of these Great Lakes one can connect to the St. Lawrence and thence to the Atlantic Ocean.

The human history of the region extends back several thousand years: in the "Narrows", a small waterway that connects Lake Couchiching and Lake Simcoe, there is marinearchaeological evidence of ancient fishing weirs used by Huron and Iroquois people to trap fish over 4,000 years ago. Also, there are several archaeological sites in the surrounding area that provide evidence of trading, fishing, and hunting camps that were visited for hundreds of years by Amerindians.

Also of historical note, the famed French explorer Samuel de Champlain visited the area that would later become Orillia in the early 1600's. Ecole Samuel de Champlain, a local francophone elementary school, is named in his honour. A monument to Samuel de Champlain can also be found in Couchiching Park, and is a National Historic Site.

In Stephen Leacock's 1912 Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Orillia was used as the basis for the fictional town known as "Mariposa", although Leacock stated that the fictional town could really be any town. The book was based on Leacock's experiences in the town and the city has since the book's release attempted to mimic the fictional location in as many ways as possible. The Stephen Leacock Museum, located in Orillia, is a National Historic Site. As well, William E. Bell's 1989 novel "Five Days of the Ghost" was also set in Orillia, with many readers recognizing popular local spots, including the Guardian Angels Catholic Church, the Samuel de Champlain statue in Couchiching Park as well as Big Chief Island in the middle of Lake Couchiching.

Orillia was the first municipality in North America to introduce daylight saving time and had the first municipal hydro electric transmission plant in North America.

Name

The first recorded use of the name to describe the region, which until then had no officially sanctioned designation, was in 1820 when the name was given in York, Upper Canada by then Lieutenant-Governor Sir Peregrine Maitland, Maitland was a veteran of the British campaign against the French in Spain, called the Peninsular War, during the Napoleonic Wars where he served under the command of Wellington.

While there are no records clearly indicating the reason for the name Orillia, the most common explanation holds that the name originates in the Spanish, "orilla," which can mean either the shore of a lake or river. The Spanish pronunciation sounds much like, "oreeya," and since the word itself is spelled almost identically to Orillia, without the second, "i," it has come to be commonly accepted as the source word for the city's name. Further backing the theory of a Spanish origin are the names of surrounding communities and landmarks, which include Oro for gold, Mariposa for butterfly, and Mono for monkey. Historical documents contain a second spelling of the name which was never officially recognised, Aurelia, which when pronounced sounds similar to the name and is considered a clerical error.

Look and feel

Orillia is known as the "Sunshine City", taking the moniker from the Sunshine Sketches by Stephen Leacock. Many local businesses also use "Mariposa" in their names. The city council actively restricts the construction of large buildings downtown and seeks to maintain a certain "small town" look with regard to signs and decorations.

Many tourists and boaters are attracted to the city each year because of its waterfront park and its position as a gateway to Lake Country, cottage country in Muskoka, Algonquin Provincial Park, and other natural attractions. The city's waterfront has an extensive lakeshore boardwalk, a large park with two beaches, several playgrounds, an outdoor theatre, a touring ferry, and a children's' train.

The city of Orillia also is home to a large number of retirement homes (currently 9, with 4 more under construction). As such, it is often characterized as a "retirement community", although less than 18% of the city's population is actually over 65 (see below).

Orillia is home to an annual Perch Fishing Festival, where farmed perch are released into the region to be caught for prize money. This event also includes a large social gathering consisting of a "perch fry".

The port of Orillia also has an annual "christmas in june", which includes a boat decorating contest and turkey buffet, every june 24th. Also, boat and cottage shows are held in june and august.

Orillia is the original and current site of the popular Mariposa Folk Festival.

Environmental issues

In 1989, representatives of Ogden Martin Ltd., of Mississauga, approached the City of Orillia regarding the construction of a massive recycling and incineration facility which was to be used for handling the trash of nearby cities and Toronto. This was to be one of three facilities used to deal with the garbage produced by the greater Toronto region.

The plan to accept the incinerator was developed by city council with no public input, citing a potentially significant boost the local economy — not only in terms of jobs, but also in the resale of recycled materials, the energy generated by the facility and the duties charged to other cities involved. Some citizens reacted negatively to the closed-doors approach to the talks. Indeed, Orillia's then-mayor, John Palmer, noted on the day of the vote on the plan that Ogden Martin "has asked council not to reveal any details until tonight."(Orillia Packet & Times, 4-9-90).

Many residents were concerned about the environmental effect this would have on the region, leading to protests and public awareness programs by a network of concerned citizens calling themselves Stop Incineration Now. At a protest by a large number of high school students, then-mayor John Palmer famously noted that if he had been their teacher, "I'd shoot every last one of you", a quote that was shown on televised news and reported in Orillia and Toronto newspapers.

When city council made no effort to involve the public in the discussions, anti-incineration activists polled over 2,000 residents on Ogden Martin's proposal, and found that 75% were against incineration, 10% for incineration, and 15% undecided. A petition was circulated against the incinerator and was signed by approximately 9,000 residents (out of a total population of only 24,000).

A committee consisting of Orillia's 54 doctors generated a report, based on extensive research of published health data, that recommended a rejection of the incinerator proposal - 52 (and later, 53) of the doctors endorsed the report. Dr. Don Philpott, a member of the committee, noted that: "People can be bamboozled into thinking that acceptable risk means no additional risk, but that is just not true..." In retaliation for the call to reject the incinerator's installation, Ogden Martin threatened to sue the doctors of Orillia for defamation. The Ontario Medical Association (OMA) passed a resolution in support of the Orillia doctors, after which the threat of litigation was dropped.

The provincial New Democratic Party (NDP) government under Premier Bob Rae had a strong agenda of environmental protection and quickly began to fight the initiative to build these incinerators. In September of 1992, and citing a number of reasons, the Ministry of Environment under the NDP government banned the development of new municipal solid waste incinerators and enacted stricter standards for existing incinerators. The Environment Minister at the time, Ruth Grier, called incinerators "a technological quick fix which creates new environmental problems without solving old ones."

Incinerators are highly controversial generally, and are known to generate toxic emissions and to produce ash that may itself need to be quarantined as hazardous waste. The energy production value is also questionable, given the expenditure required for scrubbers and detoxification mechanisms. While it was claimed that the proposed incinerator would have produced only a small amount of carbon black, which would have been sent into extreme elevations and eventually fallen in northern Québec, environmentalists' concerns were more focused on the emission of heavy metals, dioxins and other carcinogens, and other hazardous materials. Moreover, Ogden Martin's questionable environmental record suggests that the filtration of particulate matter would have been imperfect at best. Notably, in 1992 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited Ogden Martin for 6,000 violations between 1989 and 1991 at its Indianapolis incinerator alone.

The citizens' campaign ultimately led to a rejection of the plan by the city council and Toronto now ships much of its waste to the United States, although there have also been recent efforts to improve recycling and composting programs.

Unfortunately, problems remain with the city's current approach to waste management. The city's landfill site is placed near the lakeshore on what was once a bog, with a stream running through it into Lake Simcoe. This has caused the water near the site to have an unpleasant odour. Movements to shut down the dump and create a new one in another location have been rejected due to the cost of such an effort, despite the environmental cost already being paid by the region. The Orillia landfill site also contains an on-site composting, sorting and recycling programme, although it remains the case that the composting site is even closer to the Simcoe waterfront than the other waste.

The OPP

In the early 1990s, Orillia reached an agreement with the OPP to convert all local police to the provincial level for a discounted service cost and the construction of a new headquarters location. The initial location was a section of the Tudhope building, a then run-down former appliance factory which was shut down in the 1970s, while the new building's site was selected and its development began.

During the construction of this new facility, there was more than a year long transition from Orillia to Ontario police, in which all Orillia officiers were given the opportunity to convert or seek work in other municipalities - this transition ended on June 3rd, 1996, when the OPP officially became the only police force in Orillia.

The partially renovated Tudhope building that had served as the OPP headquarters prior to completion of the new building is now used as City Hall, with the remainder of the building being rebuilt as downtown apartments and a satellite campus for Lakehead University.

The new location, which lies on the southwestern skirts of the city at 777 Memorial Avenue, now houses the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Headquarters, Training Centre and Museum.

A coffee town

As an interesting side note, Orillia boasts 10 Tim Hortons locations, 1 Donut Line, 1 Country Style Donuts, 2 Coffee Times, and 6 independent coffee and doughnut shops situated around the city. Given the preponderance of Tim Hortons franchises in most Ontario cities, this is probably not disproportionately high -- however, it does strike many that such establishments are remarkably easy to find within the small city. Notably there are two Tim Hortons locations which can be found two blocks apart on Memorial Avenue, one of the most highly-used streets in the city, minutes away from the OPP HQ. Not surprisingly, the correlation between a large number of doughnut shops and the presence of the police headquarters has been the source of many jokes both among the residents and outsiders.

Residents of note

Orillia has been home to numerous artists and politicans of note. This includes:

• A. Charles Baillie, Chancellor of Queen's University
• James K. Bartleman, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
• William E. Bell, author
• Franklin Carmichael, one of the Group of Seven
• Leslie Frost, Premier of Ontario
• Jake Gaudaur, football player
• Stephen Leacock, humourist
• Rick Ley, hockey player
• Gordon Lightfoot, singer/songwriter
• Robert W. Mackenzie, politician
• Marnie Woodrow, novelist
• Dave Beckett, painter

Communities

• Orchard Point
• Orillia

According to the 2001 Statistics Canada Census:

• % Change (1996-2001): 4.6
• Dwellings: 12,172
• Area (km²): 28.61
• Density (persons per km²): 1,018.0

Demographics

Racial profile

• Caucasian: 93.4%
• Aboriginal: 3.1%

Religious Denominations

• Protestant: 52.6%
• Catholic: 22.9%
• Other Christian: 2.1%
• No religion: 20.7%

Age Structure

• 0-14 years: 18.4%
• 15-64 years: 64.0%
• 65 years and over: 17.6%

Notes and references

1. Why Call it That? by Ross McDonald, published by the Orillia Historical Society. Page 2
2. http://www.pbase.com/orillia/tudhope_building_orillia http://www.lib.uwo.ca/business/ccc-tudhope.htm

External links

• City of Orillia
• Scenic Orillia
• Lake Country
• Orillia Opera House
• Stephen Leacock Museum
• Orillia Museum of Art & History
• Ontario Plaques - Chief William Yellowhead
• Ontario Plaques - Founding of Orillia
• Ontario Plaques - Franklin Carmichael
• Ontario Plaques - Huron Fish Weirs
• Ontario Highway 11 Homepage - Orillia

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44°36′N 79°25′W / 44.600°N 79.417°W / 44.600; -79.417

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