Business View Magazine - March 2016

26 Business View Magazine - April 2016 Business View Magazine - April 2016 27 Kingston, Ontario Where history and innovation thrive Kingston, Ontario is located on Lake Ontario, at the mouth of the Cataraqui and St. Lawrence Rivers, a beautifully scenic waterfront location with a rich his- tory and an eye on innovating for the future. Native peoples who populated the area for many cen- turies include the Huron, the Iroquois, and the Missis- saugas. French trappers roamed the region’s forests and waterways beginning in the 17th century, and France built the original Fort Cataraqui, later to be called Fort Frontenac, in order to protect the lucrative fur trade. By the late 1700s, the city had become a center of refugees loyal to the British crown who had fled north because of the Revolutionary War. It official- ly become the “King’s Town” in honor of King George III in 1787, the name was shortened to “Kingston” a year later. Kingston began to grow as an important transshipment port for commodities from the western frontier, including wheat, flour, meat, and potash. In 1832, the British opened the Rideau Canal, connect- ing Kingston to Ottawa in the northeast. While its origi- nal purpose was military, the canal became important to the city’s economy In 1841, Queens University was established and in the same year Kingston was named the first capital of Canada by Governor General Lord Sydenham. The college thrived, growing from an original 13 students to over 25,000 today and known as one of Canada’s top institutions. The city continued to prosper as an industrial center for another century and a half. It was home to the Canadian Locomotive Company, the larg- est locomotive works in the British Empire, and the Davis Tannery, also once the largest of its kind in the empire. Kingston produced railway cars, steamboats, distilled spirits, iron bars, and many other manufac- tured goods. With heavy industry largely moving off-shore over the last several decades, the city’s economy has grown in the health care and hospital sector, military insti- tutions, post-secondary education, and tourism. The population currently sits at about 125,000, with an- other 25,000 living in surrounding towns. With all of this talk about history, how is Kingston posi- tioning itself for the future? Kingston’s current Mayor, Bryan Paterson, sees his city as one that is constantly diversifying its economy and continuing to prove itself as an important geographic hub between Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa (Canada’s current capital), and the U.S. Mayor Paterson’s vision is to make Kingston a “smart and livable 21st century city,” and he discuss- es the many ways in which the city, so well-known for its historic properties, intends to forge ahead with this vision and its motto: “Where history and innovation thrive.” “The vision of a smart and livable city is about tapping AT A GLANCE WHO: Kingston, Ontario WHAT: A city of about 125,000 WHERE: On Lake Ontario, Canada WEBSITE : www.cityofkingston.ca