Yonge Street / Rue Yonge

Planned by Upper Canada’s first governor, John Graves Simcoe, as a military and commercial route between Lakes Ontario and Huron, this highway was begun in 1795 by the Queen’s Rangers, cut through to Lake Simcoe in 1796, reached Georgian Bay in the first quarter of the next century, and was later extended into Muskoka. Before the railway, it was a main transport line that opened lands for settlement and carried trade to Toronto, and with the development of automotive transport in the twentieth century, it became the highway to northern recreational areas and vast new resources.

Ontario · Canada