Quote:
Originally Posted by craigbear
I cringed at the time, but I have heard a few people who seemed to think that "Northern Ontario" meant anything north of the 400/11 interchange at Barrie, and even one or two people who deemed it to be anything north of Steeles Avenue. And Neil Young's "town in North Ontario", where all his changes were, is...Omemee. Er, no, not the north.
To answer the question, though: the Muskoka and Parry Sound Districts are kind of a "transitional" zone, that may be considered either "Southern" or "Northern" by different sources in different contexts. The provincial government treats Parry Sound, but not Muskoka, as Northern Ontario for the purposes of the Ministry of Northern Development and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund; the federal government treats both Parry Sound and Muskoka as Northern Ontario under FEDNOR. And in terms of people's mental geography you may see Haliburton and even parts of Renfrew called "Northern" Ontario too, though no government agency at either level treats them as such officially.
And yeah, you'll see a lot of arguments about whether Eastern Ontario is part of Southern Ontario or not -- geographically it is, but culturally it's quite distinct from Central Ontario/GTA, so you'll get a very different answer on that question from a resident of Ottawa than you would from a resident of Sudbury.
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Well as a resident of Ottawa, I can say we are definitely a part of Southern Ontario. If Montreal is part of Southern Quebec and Ottawa is slightly south of Montreal, then...I think you catch my drift. But that’s not the only reason why of course.
Yes Eastern Ontario is somewhat culturally distinct from other parts of Southern Ontario (e.g. Ottawa has a real winter every year, 1/3 of our metropolitan region is in Quebec, we work in both provinces, illegally smuggle alcohol all the time across provincial boundaries LOL, etc.), but also similar to the GTA or other large S. ONT cities (e.g. multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, business and family ties to the GTA as evidenced by the dozens of planes/trains/buses each day, etc.). Our main similarity to Northeastern Ontario is in terms of accounting for over 1/4 of all Franco-Ontarians, but that’s about it. You have to go to at least Cobden in the mid-Ottawa Valley/Renfrew County before it starts to feel/look more like Northern Ontario.