About Dundas

Dundas, Ontario, is a town an hour southwest of Toronto and 1 hr 45 mins northwest from Buffalo, NY.

is a formerly independent town and now constituent community in the city of Hamilton in Ontario, Canada. It is nicknamed the Valley Town because of its topographical location at the bottom of the Niagara Escarpment on the Western edge of Lake Ontario. The population has been stable for decades at about twenty thousand, largely because it has not annexed rural land from the protected Dundas Valley Conservation Area.Notable events are the Buskerfest in early June, and the Dundas Cactus Festival in August.

About 20,000 people live in the town that is technically part of the greater Hamilton area. Dundas, however, has retained quite a separate identity despite being amalgamated by Hamilton, in part because of its geographical position in a valley and surrounded by much green space.

Downtown Dundas is still thriving, with many restaurants, boutiques and businesses many of which are housed in well-preserved 19th century architecture.

On April 3rd, 2010, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman named Dundas the winner of the 2010 Kraft Hockeyville competition. The community will receive CDN$100,000 in arena upgrades and host an NHL pre-season game between the Ottawa Senators and Buffalo Sabres prior to the 2010-11 season.

Dundas has many waterfalls within its region. The two most common visited waterfalls are Webster's Falls (named after Joseph Webster) and Tew's Falls. Both waterfalls are accessible by the Bruce trail leading to the Dundas Peninsula.

In 1819, Joseph Webster purchased property on the escarpment above Dundas, including the waterfall which still bears his family's name. In 1856, his son built a huge stone flour mill just above the falls but it was destroyed by fire in 1898. After the fire one of the first hydro-electric generators in Ontario was built at the base of the falls. In 1931, a former Dundas mayor, Colonel W.E.S. Knowles, generously bequeathed monies so that the area surrounding Webster's Falls could be made into a public park.