Peterborough, Ontario

K nown as the gateway to the Kawarthas “cottage country,” a large recreational region of the Province of Ontario, Peterborough is a city of approximately 83,000 people, located on the Otonabee River, some 78 miles northeast of Toronto and about 167 miles southwest of Ottawa. The seat of Peterborough County, and incorporated as a city in 1905, it is named in honor of Peter Robinson, an early Canadian politician who oversaw the first major immigration to the area, which was originally the home of the Iroquois and Mississaugas peoples. At one time in the past, Peterborough’s nickname was “The Electric City,” because it was the first town in Canada to use electric streetlights with power generated from the Otonabee River. That spirit of innovation and invention is what helped Peterborough attract such large, multi-national companies over the years, including Siemens, Rolls Royce, General Electric, and Pepsico’s Quaker Oats division, which established its first plant in the city in 1902, when it was known as the America Cereal Company, specifically because of Peterborough’s early utilization of hydro-electrical power. AT A GLANCE PETERBOROUGH, ONTARIO WHAT: A city of approximately 83,000 WHERE: On the Otonabee River, northeast of Toronto WEBSITE: www.peterborough.ca Innovation and invention ugh,