Swastika, Ontario

Canada / Ontario / Kirkland Lake /
Swastika is a small community founded in 1908 around a mining site in northern Ontario, Canada, and today within the municipal boundaries of Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Swastika is a junction on the Ontario Northland Railway, where a branch to Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec leaves the ONR's main line from North Bay, Ontario to Moosonee. The Northlander passenger railway service between Toronto and Cochrane serves a station at Swastika, with connecting bus service along Highway 66 into downtown Kirkland Lake.

The town's other claim to fame is its association with the Mitford family, who owned the Swastika Mine for which the town was named. During World War II, the provincial government sought to change the town's name to Winston, in honour of Winston Churchill, but the town refused, insisting that the town had held the name long before the Nazis co-opted the symbol. An important figure was Christopher Macaulay, direct descendant of Thomas Babbington Macaulay, who fought to keep the name as Swastika.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika,_Ontario
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   48°6'27"N   80°6'13"W

Comments

  • I really don't see how there is so much controversy over the town's name. The town was created before Nazism was even a thought in anyone's head. On top of that, the swastika was around for thousands of years before there were any Nazis. The swastika is a sacred symbol in Hinduism and, until WW2, was sacred to Navajo Indians as well. Amongst white people until the advent af Nazism, the swastika was simply viewed as a good luck symbol. Case in point, if you look at the greeting cards from the 1800s & early 20th Century, a lot of them have swastikas on them. I think it's time we take the swastika away from the Nazis and restore it to its proper place. 卐
This article was last modified 12 years ago