Your Neighborhood
1 1. The city I live in is Pickering; it is located immediately east of
Toronto Durham Region. My neighbourhood is Rosebank. Pickering’s first recorded
history came in 1669 when a French Jesuit Missionary M. Fenelon recorded
reaching what is now know as Frenchman’s bay. Following defeat of the French in
the Seven Year War, known in the North American front as the French and Indian War, the British took over
Canada. They likely completed survey of the township about 1776; ethnic British
settlers were steadily migrating into the area from eastern areas of Canada. In
the 1813 census, Pickering had 180 residents, 40 more than neighbouring Scarborough. Around Pickering there are a lot
of forests even though the ones around me are getting torn down. And the lake
is very nice as well.
2 2. Pickering isn’t the most exciting place to live and it only has a
few local attractions, one being the Pickering Town Centre, this is our local
mall, you can find anything from clothes stores like American Eagle, Roots,
Bluenotes etc. to food stores like: Subway, Tim Horton’s, A&W etc. People
come here to find what they need or what they want, it has what they’re looking
for, even though it isn’t the greatest mall in the world, its close so people
can get there by bus, car, walking or biking. Another place that is nice to
visit is Frenchman’s Bay, this is a place where you can go and walk down by
Lake Ontario and its very peaceful and relaxing, there are also nice
restaurants down there like The Waterfront, PORT which are very good (I know,
I’ve been there)
3 3. Some problems with Pickering are that its too boring, like no
offence, I live here and all, but the reason I just stay home on weekend or
just have friends over is because there is pretty much nothing to do, I talked
about the Pickering Town Centre before and in my opinion if that mall wasn’t
there this town would be the single most boring place on earth. Another problem
is that no one really knows about Pickering, like even for this assignment I
had to really research things, after living here for 17 years you think I would
know a little bit about Pickering, well I don’t and when I go out of the
country for vacation and people ask where I come from and I say Pickering the
looks on their face is like I come from some distant planet, so just to
simplify things I tell them I’m from Toronto.
4 4. This was one of the hardest things about this whole
assignment, there aren’t a lot of news stories based around Pickering or that
have to do with Pickering. I did know there was one story that has been going
on for quite some time. There is this argument that has been going on for forty
years. The story begins in 1972 when 18,600 acres of land was acquired by the
government. People are arguing whether there is a real need for the airport and
a lot of people don’t want the notice. Groups
such as the Green Durham Association argue that its better to have farmland
because it is more of a necessity than an airport. Charles Godfrey who is the
leader of the original protest said, “We will in fact need a new airport
someday, so as to fly in the fresh food we can no longer produce on our own
land.”
5 5. For this section of the assignment I chose to
interview my mother who has been living here as long as I have, but since she
is older she would remember more about Pickering 17 years ago than I would. She
says “We moved here because of your fathers job, but it seemed like a safe
environment to raise kids” she went on to say that even though she realizes
there isn’t much to do around here she likes it because its close to a grocery
store and she met a lot of people here and everyone seemed very nice. She said
“for the first few months I had no idea what streets were which and where
anything was, I didn’t even go out in the car because I was afraid to get lost”
this just goes to show you that it just takes time to figure things out,
because now that she’s lived here for so long she knows places that I don’t
even know.
6 6. Websites: http://www.pickering.ca/en/
Pictures: The “beach”,
Frechman’s bay, The Library/City Hall
