I was born and raised in Toronto, but I've also spent parts of my life living in small Ontario towns, which has given me a pretty interesting perspective on the province and the people who call it home.
Because the truth is, there really isn't one singular "Ontario experience." It's a gigantic province, and the areas differ immensely. Like, growing up in downtown Toronto is wildly different from growing up in Thunder Bay or Stratford.
Still, after living on both sides of the city-versus-small-town divide, I've noticed there are some Ontario stereotypes that, in my opinion, are actually kind of true.
We are a bit self-centred
I say this lovingly, as an Ontarian myself, but we do have a slight tendency to act like Ontario is the pinnacle of Canada. This is probably especially true if you grew up in Toronto, where Canadian news can actually just feel like a list of things currently happening in Toronto.
We know logically that there's a huge country stretching from Newfoundland to B.C., but for whatever reason, Ontario ends up taking the cake. We'll complain about Toronto being too Toronto-centric while simultaneously assuming everyone knows what the 401 is or where Muskoka is.
There is absolutely some Ontarian city vs. countryside animosity
There are two Ontarios that are perpetually suss of one another: Toronto and everywhere that is not Toronto.
People from the city can have a hilariously warped idea of what happens beyond the GTA, as if driving two hours north will immediately deposit you on an unpaved road without cell service.
Meanwhile, people from small-town Ontario can turn hating Toronto into their entire personality. Toronto is too busy, too expensive, too unfriendly, too full of Toronto people.
Having lived in both, I can confirm that each side thinks the other has absolutely no idea how the real world works (and both sides are sometimes right about that).
Our idea of distance is totally distorted
Ontario is enormous, and I think growing up here permanently damages your ability to determine what constitutes a reasonable drive.
An hour away? Basically next door. Two hours? Easy day trip. Three hours? Still doable. Four or five hours? Might as well make a weekend of it.
It wasn't until spending more time in Europe that I realized how ridiculous this can sound. Tell a European you drove five hours for the weekend and they'll point out that they could have crossed a border or two in that time.
We have a superiority complex about freshwater
Growing up around the Great Lakes gives you some unusual expectations about what a lake should be (ie: absolutely enormous).
People will talk about going to the beach on the ocean, and an Ontarian will inevitably point out that we also have beaches, except ours don't leave you covered in salt. Lake Huron even has turquoise water and enormous stretches of sand, thank you very much. Sure, the ocean is objectively more impressive… but it's pretty satisfying to bask before a body of water so huge you can't see the other side, knowing there are no sharks or jellyfish.
We're obsessed with real estate
There is a very Ontario version of growing up where owning a home feels like the final level you need to unlock before becoming a proper adult.
When I was younger, the standard life trajectory seemed pretty clear. Get a job, buy a house, and maybe buy a cottage if things went particularly well. Then Ontario real estate prices went completely off the rails, and that only made us more obsessed with it — even if it's now pretty much impossible to buy a house without generational wealth or a super well-paid job.
But despite that, so many conversations I've entered seem to revolve around interest rates, down payments, and which towns are still affordable, usually followed by someone casually mentioning that the bungalow down their street just sold for $1.2 million. Sigh.
We love comparing ourselves to the States
Growing up in Canada in general means America is always lurking nearby, but Ontario feels particularly close. We watch American television, follow American politics, cross the border to shop, fly out of Buffalo to save money and can reach several U.S. states faster than we can reach another Canadian province.
And yet, despite all this cultural overlap, we are extremely committed to explaining how different we are. Mention healthcare, guns, spelling, or Thanksgiving, and we're giving an unsolicited seminar on Canadian identity.
We do in fact judge people based on how well they handle winter
We spend approximately five months of the year complaining about Ontario's winter, but don't let that fool you! We're also wildly proud of our ability to survive it.
If you don't know how to scrape ice off a windshield using whatever random object happens to be in your car, do you even live here? Of course, all of this confidence disappears during the first snowfall of every year, when half the province forgets how to drive and the 401 descends into chaos.
We have a complicated relationship with Toronto (even when we're from Toronto)
Nobody dislikes Toronto quite as passionately as Ontarians, including the people who live there. Outside the city, Toronto is blamed for traffic, housing prices, provincial politics and generally believing itself to be the centre of the universe. In Toronto, residents will defend the city until their blue in the face, all whilst complaining about it constantly.
The rent is absurd, the TTC is broken, traffic is unbearable, and your favourite neighbourhood restaurant just became a condo building… But suggest moving somewhere else and all of a sudden, Toronto is one of the greatest cities on Earth. Like I said, complicated.
We underestimate how lucky we are geographically
If you grew up in Ontario, having a jaw-dropping number of lakes, forests, beaches, provincial parks and cottage country within driving distance can feel totally normal.
A childhood summer might involve swimming in a lake, jumping off a dock, canoeing through the Canadian Shield, or camping beneath enormous white pines — and none of it seems particularly interesting because that's just what summer looks like. Sometimes it takes leaving Ontario to realize that having that much freshwater and wilderness practically in your backyard is actually pretty extraordinary.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Narcity Media.
