I have the first edition (the year 2000) of the book, Old Ontario Houses - Tom Cruickshank . I think this second edition, printed this year (2026) is half the price for the book I have, bought when it was new. I remember buying it shortly after my divorce. I was focused on old houses, old places around Ontario. Photographing them, usually by myself. Sometimes with my nephew, my Mother, another explorer, or people looking for an old derelict place for filmmaking.
Tom Cruickshank also wrote, Old Toronto Houses. I'm not sure if I bought both at the time. I'd have to take a look at my book trolley. They were almost $40 each years ago. Now, I see them (the old editions) selling for over $200 on Amazon. Of course, that doesn't mean anyone will buy them at that price. I would rather pay $20 something for the new and updated edition. I could see someone selling the old edition, but I don't know why someone would buy it.
Tom Cruickshank is a history and architecture enthusiast. The former editor of Century Home magazine and the current editor of Harrowsmith Country Life magazine, he is also the author of Rogues' Hollow, The Settler's Dream and Port Hope: A Treasure of Early Homes.
This site started as a scrapbook project, collecting images of the old streets in Stratford. That itself was interesting to me.
The Streets of Stratford website was created in collaboration with the Stratford-Perth Archives and inputs from many Stratford people.
At the beginning this site was prepared by Paul Wilker who scanned old scrapbooks that contained a series of 180 articles in the Stratford Beacon Herald about the Streets of Stratford. They were written by Stanford Dingman over a period of four years in the early 1980s. There was also a supplement called Streets of Stratford in 2004 in the Stratford Beacon Herald that added more streets. Since March 2021 this project grew with the addition of stories about people and places that were on various websites and pictures and stories contributed by Stratford residents.
Barbara Raue Very prolific Canadian history writer and photographer.
Barbara is The Authority on Saving Our History One Photo at a Time. She is pursuing her interest in photography and architecture by preserving a record through photos of old buildings from the 1800s and 1900s with their unique architecture. Enjoy the beautiful architecture in the comfort of your living room. Dream about what it was like in those by-gone days. Dream about what it was like to live in a mansion like one of those in this book. The center gable Gothic cottage is the most popular house style in Ontario in the 19th century with variations in brick, stone and wood. In many towns, there is the desire to preserve some of our architectural heritage. The pictures are labeled according to their style and/or special features. Barbara has completed more than 250 books on towns throughout Ontario from Dundas, Toronto, Ottawa, and Cornwall to Sarnia and Windsor, Ontario and many, many towns in-between. There are also books on Winnipeg, Manitoba, and in the interior of British Columbia.
Quoted from her profile from Amazon.
There are many more books. These are by type of architecture. There would be too many to list by town. For myself, I don't know which town or city I would want to look at (in her books). I was born in Toronto but grew up in Port Union. There isn't a book for Port Union because it was absorbed into Scarborough, Toronto.
I would like to order all of the books above. They are mostly 100 pages, so short books, but not a small price. So, I will watch for them to appear somewhere. The secondhand book store is the best source. (For me).
Harold is a Canadian photographer. He also writes about covered bridges and lighthouses (in Canada and the US).
Ontario's Old Mills - Harold Stiver - Flickr link found, but not active.
Descriptions of mill sites with driving directions and self guided tours. Includes a short history of milling in Ontario.
Ontario Lighthouses
Ontario has over 150 Lighthouses and Stands. Nova Scotia is the only Canadian province with more.
Ontario's Waterfalls
Canada's Covered Bridges
Thomas Osborne arrived in Ontario from the US as a teenager. He lived here for 5 years then returned to the US.
If you have read it, how does it compare to Susanna Moody, Roughing it in the Bush? I read Roughing it in the Bush many years ago. I don't think I finished it.
Reluctant Pioneer: How I Survived Five Years in the Canadian Bush - by Thomas Osborne
The view 16-year-old Thomas Osborne first had of Muskoka was at night, trudging alone with his even younger brother along unmarked primitive roads to find their luckless father who, in 1875, had decided to make a new start for his beleaguered family on some "free land" in the bush east of the pioneer village of Huntsville, Ontario. The miracle is that Thomas lived to tell the tale.
For the next five years Thomas endured starvation, falling through the ice and freezing, accidents with axes and boats, and narrow escapes from wolves and bears. Many years later, after returning to the United States, Osborne wrote down all his adventures in a graphic memoir that has become, in the words of author and journalist Roy MacGregor, "an undiscovered Canadian classic."