York Region trivia
22 facts and quiz questions about Georgina, Ontario. Each one links to its source. A new fact of the day goes live every morning.
Fact of the day
Georgina People
The Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation, an Anishinaabe people, have their main reserve on Georgina, Snake and Fox islands, plus land near Virginia Beach.
Source: Wikipedia, Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation
Georgina History
John Mills Jackson settled the land, which was first used as a wharf for schooners sailing Lake Simcoe. It grew into one of Ontario's first cottage resorts.
Source: Wikipedia, Jackson's Point
Georgina Quiz
Jim Carrey lived in Jackson's Point from about 1979 into the early 1980s. Musician Neil Young also lived there briefly as a boy, in the late 1940s.
Source: Wikipedia, Jackson's Point
Georgina Quiz
Keswick was first known as Medina. It may have been renamed after Keswick in Cumbria, England. Until the late 1980s it was mainly cottage country for Toronto.
Source: Wikipedia, Keswick, Ontario
Georgina Culture
The theatre in Keswick opened in 1985 and hosts musicals, plays and orchestra concerts. It is named after the humorist, who is buried at nearby Sibbald Point.
Sources: Wikipedia, Keswick, Ontario, Wikipedia, Sibbald Point Provincial Park
Georgina Quiz
Georgina is York Region's northernmost municipality, with Lake Simcoe as its northern edge. It was formed in 1971 from the Village of Sutton and the townships of Georgina and North Gwillimbury.
Source: Wikipedia, Georgina, Ontario
Georgina History
The 10-acre village opened in 1975. Its buildings show Georgina from 1850 to 1920, including a schoolhouse, a general store, a train station, a blacksmith shop and an apothecary.
Source: Wikipedia, Keswick, Ontario
Georgina Quiz
Georgina counted 47,642 people in the 2021 Census, up 4.9 percent from 2016. Its largest communities are Keswick, Sutton and Jackson's Point.
Sources: Statistics Canada, 2021 Census Profile, Georgina, Wikipedia, Georgina, Ontario
Georgina History
From 1907 to 1930 the Metropolitan Street Railway's Lake Simcoe line ran radial passenger service between Toronto and Jackson's Point.
Source: Wikipedia, Jackson's Point
Georgina Quiz
After the War of 1812, Roches Point, now part of Keswick, was considered as an alternative capital to York, now Toronto, because it was farther from the American threat.
Source: Wikipedia, Keswick, Ontario
Georgina Places
The Salvation Army bought the campgrounds in 1917, but it had already run summer camps there for nearly a decade before that.
Source: Wikipedia, Jackson's Point
Georgina Quiz
The Sibbald family sold the land to York County in 1951. The county ran it as a park until 1956, and it opened as a provincial park in 1957.
Georgina History
Susan Sibbald's sons built the stone church as a memorial to her, replacing a small wooden church. It was finished in 1877 and still holds services.
Georgina Quiz
Stephen Leacock is buried in the churchyard of St. George's Anglican Church at Sibbald Point. Novelist Mazo de la Roche is buried there too.
Georgina History
First settler James O'Brien Bourchier arrived in 1821 and built saw and grist mills. The village was Bourchier's Mills until it was renamed Sutton West in 1885.
Source: Wikipedia, Sutton, Ontario
Georgina Culture
The four-day fair runs on the second weekend in August at the Sutton Fair Grounds. The Sutton Agricultural Society puts it on.
Source: Wikipedia, Sutton, Ontario
Georgina History
The lakeside community of Virginia, also called Virginia Beach, in eastern Georgina was originally called Frenchtown.
Source: Wikipedia, Georgina, Ontario
Georgina Places
In a subdivision about 2 km east of Sutton, built in the 1980s and early 1990s, the streets run in alphabetical order from A to L.
Source: Wikipedia, Sutton, Ontario
Georgina Culture
The gallery displays more than 500 original paintings and photographs, all donated by Canadian artists.
Source: Wikipedia, Keswick, Ontario
Georgina History
Susan Sibbald bought a small cottage here in 1835 and turned it into a country estate by the 1840s, naming it after the family home in Scotland. It is now the Sibbald Memorial Museum.
Georgina Quiz
The Georgina Ice Palace in Keswick combines a library with two ice pads that seat almost 1,500 people. There is a skate park outside.
Source: Wikipedia, Keswick, Ontario
Georgina Places
By boat. The ferry Aazhaawe, built in 1999, carries 18 cars and 50 passengers in the open-water season. In winter, fan boats cross to the islands.
Source: Wikipedia, Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation