Top 100 Unusual Things to See in Ontario,

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Travelling for pleasure in Ontario, whether as a visitor or a resident
out for a day trip, will be enhanced and enriched with a Ron Brown book
riding shotgun.

Brown is well known for his series of ghost town guides and three
Unusual Things books. This volume pulls the best from those earlier
works into a must-see list of “temples, towers and quirks of
nature.”

The format of the work is a large, professional-quality colour picture
of the “unusual thing” paired with a short essay that provides its
description, origin, history, and location. The photographs, usually in
a full-page format, are excellent. While they show the subject as
directly as possible without reaching for an interpretative position,
they are very attractive—clean, clear, well-framed, and focused shots
of interesting sites.

The one-of-a-kind places to visit include the longest, the tallest, the
biggest, the smallest, the oldest, the most lavish. Several lay claim to
being the only this-or-that in North America. There are rocks, ruins and
dunes, castles, canyons, canals, churches, ghost towns, memorials, a
two-storey privy, tunnels, potholes, a gas station, statues, and
tombstones. Much unusual architecture is also included. Several of the
sites are prehistoric; others are from the province’s pioneer or
Victorian periods. The collection of 100 spans the province
geographically, from Toronto in the south to the forest north of
Superior and both eastern and western areas. Most may be reached by car
and viewed without an admission charge. Each could be a single
destination, or several could be strung together as highlights to visit
along the way during a vacation. Regardless of how the collection is
used, it will definitely add to the enjoyment of exploring Ontario.