GARY WILL: Waterloo City Tour -- Universities & High-Tech

An Optional Sprint -- UW, High-Tech, WLU

MKS

If this was a real walking tour, we'd have come a long way through these 14 stops, and we might be looking to take it easy now. But this couldn't be much of a tour of Waterloo without at least mentioning our two universities and the high tech businesses that have evolved here in recent times, so...

We'll take advantage of the virtual nature of this tour and finish up with a double-time sprint from the Rec Complex, up the path through Waterloo Park (which looks very impressive during December nights when lit for the "Wonders of Winter" display) to the University of Waterloo.

Since it was established in 1957, UW may have helped to define this city and the image it would like to project more than any other institution. (For a historical sketch of the university, see the Waterloo Historical Outline on this site).

It is because of UW's rapid emergence as a major computing and technology research centre that Waterloo can claim to be the core of what is called "Canada's Technology Triangle (CTT)."

Cut through the university to Columbia Street, and walk east to Phillip and you come to RIM land. Most of the buildings in this area are now owned by Research in Motion, a company that was started by a UW student in 1984.

If you walked up Phillip, you'd pass Raytheon, Sybase (Watcom), Mitra, Checkfree i-Soultions, Sirific Wireless, and several more tech firms -- as well as a couple other buildings bought by RIM in 2001.

If you turn right on Phillip, go down to University Avenue, and then turn left and walk to the next traffic light, you'll come to the campus of Wilfrid Laurier University (originally Waterloo Lutheran University), at the corner of University and Albert. WLU is noted for research and education in business and humanities. Its history is discussed in the Waterloo Historical Outline.

Much more to see in Waterloo

There are many more historic or impressive buildings in town. Some, like the Huether Hotel (59 King Street North) and Brubacher House (Columbia Street West, on the UW campus) we just narrowly missed. Others are too far away, even for a virtual tour:

Conestoga Mall, the city's largest
Manulife Financial's huge Canadian headquarters

I hope you've enjoyed your walk through town. Please let me know what you think and help correct any errors or omissions that you've spotted.

Thank you for coming to see Waterloo.

Written by Gary Will
gary@garywill.com