Due to the COVID-19 emergency, the Ottawa Regional Heritage Fair Committee cancelled the 2020 Fair that was to be held on April 22, 2020, at the Canadian Museum of History. The Fair will return in 2021.

2019 Ottawa Regional Heritage Fair

Virtual Fair

HSO is immensely proud of our important role as official Patron of the annual Ottawa Regional Heritage Fair (ORHF).

Every year, enthusiastic young students from area schools submit wonderfully researched and thoughtfully written projects relating to local and/or Canadian history.

In “normal” years, a national museum atrium is jostling with students, teachers, parents, and local dignitaries while judges carefully examine each creatively rendered project, assessing the imaginative submissions, quizzing the young competitors, and determining the well-deserved award winners.

As we all know, things are done quite differently these days.

Take a look at some of the fascinating projects submitted by these young people for 2021 virtual edition of the ORHF.

The 2020 winner of The Algonquin College Award is Jonah Ellens. Jonah writes: 

It is with great personal satisfaction that I accept this award. I have enjoyed researching, studying and sharing Ottawa's history over the past years. I am thankful for the role Algonquin College and my friends in the Applied Museum Program have played in helping me develop my skills so that I can continue to improve my abilities and better share local history. I hope that in the near future we can return to an unrestricted public setting to tell our stories.

Michael Molloy & Robert Shalka, co-authors of "Running on Empty", plus Rivaux Lay, a former Cambodian refugee, spoke on June 16, 2021 about the efforts to welcome Indochinese refugees to the City of Ottawa in the 1970s.

At our May 12th 2021 meeting, James Powell, HSO director and author of the popular blog "Today in Ottawa's History", took the audience back in time to the assassination of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, one of the Fathers of Canadian Confederation.