Durham Region trivia
22 facts and quiz questions about Whitby, Ontario. Each one links to its source. A new fact of the day goes live every morning.
Fact of the day
Whitby History
The 1792 surveyor came from northern England. He named the townships east of Toronto after towns in Yorkshire's North Riding: York, Scarborough, Pickering, Whitby and Darlington.
Source: Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby Quiz
Anne Ottenbrite, from Whitby, is an Olympic gold medallist in swimming. The pool at the Iroquois Park Sports Centre is named after her.
Source: Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby Places
Brooklin, in north Whitby, grew from a rural village to an estimated 30,000 people by 2018. Many people in the area say they live in Brooklin rather than Whitby.
Source: Wikipedia, Brooklin, Ontario
Whitby Quiz
Camp X, on the lakeshore between Whitby and Oshawa, trained Allied secret agents from December 1941 to 1944. Even Prime Minister Mackenzie King did not know its full purpose.
Source: Wikipedia, Camp X
Whitby History
The CIA calls its recruit training base The Farm, a nod to the farm that stood on the Camp X site. Agents from the FBI and the OSS trained at Camp X in 1942.
Source: Wikipedia, Camp X
Whitby Places
Cullen Gardens and Miniature Village opened in 1980 and closed in 2006. Many of its model buildings now stand at the Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens in Niagara Falls.
Whitby Culture
Dark Shadows. Exterior shots of the castle played Collinwood, and the building also appears in The Vow and Detroit Rock City.
Whitby Quiz
The Whitby Dunlops won the 1958 world championship in Oslo, Norway. The team included Harry Sinden, later president of the Boston Bruins.
Source: Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby History
After fleeing Ottawa, Igor Gouzenko and his wife were taken to the Camp X site to live in secret protective custody.
Source: Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby History
Grain from the farms to the north was first shipped from Whitby's natural harbour in 1833, and a road to Lake Simcoe followed in the 1840s. Today the harbour has a 420-berth marina.
Source: Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby Places
Highway 412, which links Highway 401 with Highway 407, opened in 2016 and became toll-free on April 22, 2022.
Source: Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby Places
It is named after the code name of Sir William Stephenson, the Winnipeg-born spymaster who set up the camp. The buildings were removed in 1969, and a monument went up in 1984.
Sources: Wikipedia, Camp X, Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby Sports
It is one of the largest minor sports centres in North America, with six ice pads, a pool, tennis courts, ball diamonds, a skatepark and the Whitby Sports Hall of Fame.
Source: Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby Sports
The Junior A Whitby Warriors have won the Minto Cup four times since 1984. The Brooklin Redmen Senior A club is one of the most successful teams in Canadian sport.
Source: Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby Quiz
The township was named after the seaport of Whitby in Yorkshire. That name comes from the Danish Whitteby, which means White Village.
Source: Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby People
Settlement began around 1800, but Whitby's founder, Peter Perry, only set up the downtown business centre in 1836.
Source: Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby Quiz
Whitby counted 138,501 people in the 2021 Census, up 7.9 percent from 2016. Most live in the urban south, while the north is more rural.
Sources: Statistics Canada, 2021 Census Profile, Whitby, Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby Quiz
Whitby became the seat of Ontario County in 1852. Today it holds the headquarters of Durham Region and the Durham District School Board.
Source: Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby Places
A Thermëa spa opened there on October 6, 2022, after many delays. The rest of the land became a public park, Cullen Central Park.
Whitby Culture
Raymond Moriyama designed it, and it opened on January 8, 1977. From 1879 to 1960 the town hall was in the former Hopkins' Music Hall.
Source: Wikipedia, Whitby, Ontario
Whitby Quiz
Sheriff Nelson Gilbert Reynolds built Trafalgar Castle in 1859 for 70,000 dollars, at a time when a house cost about 2,000. It has been a girls' school since 1874.
Whitby History
Sheriff Reynolds was named after Lord Nelson, so he named his castle after the Battle of Trafalgar. Gambling losses reportedly forced him to sell it in 1874 for 30,000 dollars.