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Mississauga, Ontario

Mississauga is a city in the Greater Toronto Area[?] of Ontario, Canada. Its mayor since 1978 has been Hazel McCallion, regarded as a force in provincial politics and often referred to as Hurricane Hazel[?]. Hazel McCallion is one of the nation's longest serving mayors.

In 2002 Mississauga was Canada's 6th largerst city in terms of population, with about 624,000 inhabitants. Mississauga is today primarily a vast suburb of Toronto. It is located on the north shore of Lake Ontario and is home to Canada's largest airport Lester B. Pearson International Airport, referred to by some (perhaps tounge-in-cheek) as Mississauga International, but more usually as Toronto International.

Mississauga is often considered a bland area for growing up, especially by teenagers. This has earned it the deraugatory nickname 'Miserysauga'.

At the time of the arrival of the Europeans in the 1600s, both Iroquoian and Algonquian speaking peoples already lived in the Credit River[?] Valley area. One of the First Nations groups the traders found around the Credit River area was called the Mississaugas[?], a tribe originally from Lake Huron. By 1700 this Ojibway tribe had driven away the Iroquois.

In 1805, government officials from York, as Toronto was then called, bought 33,995 hectares (84,000 acres) of the Mississauga Tract and in 1806 the area was opened for settlement. The various communities settled include: Clarkson, Cooksville, Dixie, Erindale, Port Credit, Sheridan, and Summerville.

1820 a second purchase was made and additional settlements established including: Barbertown, Britannia, Burnhamthorpe, Derry West, Elmbank, Malton, Meadowvale Village, Mount Charles, and Streetsville. With the exception of Port Credit and Streetsville, all of these settlements joined together in 1968 to form the Town of Mississauga. In 1974, Mississauga incorporated as a City, this time including Port Credit and Streetsville.

In 1847, the original inhabitants (the Mississaugas) relocated to a reserve in the Grand River Valley[?] near present-day Hagersville[?].