Ajax

Ajax is a town in Durham Region, midway between Oshawa and Toronto. Split from Pickering Township in 1941 to house munitions factory Defence Industries Limited, it is now a growing Greater Toronto Area suburb with nearly 127,000 people (2021).

Understand
Ajax was established in 1941 as a wartime munitions production centre, where a workforce of up to 9000 people filled 40 million shells for the war effort. The University of Toronto briefly used the former munitions factory site as a technical school (1945-1949) which trained 7000 engineers. The town hosted various industries in the post-war era. The first town council was elected in 1954; the Village of Pickering and lakeside Town of Pickering Beach were annexed to the Town of Ajax when Durham Region was created on January 1, 1974.

The remainder of Pickering Township is now the City of Pickering. Since the 1980s, Ajax has become a steadily growing sprawl of single-family suburban homes. The town is named for a World War II Royal Navy cruiser, one of three warships (HMS Ajax, HMS Exeter and HMS Achilles) responsible for the first major British victory of the war; German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee was defeated at the Battle of the River Plate near Montevideo, Uruguay in December 1939.

Get in

 * By car, take Ontario Highway 401, the main freeway of the Windsor-Quebec corridor. Exit on Westney Road or Harwood Avenue.
 * Megabus (Coach Canada) stops at Whitby's GO station on their way into Toronto from Kingston and Montréal. From there, GO and Durham Region Transit (DRT) provide connections within Durham region.
 * Via Rail stops in Oshawa and Toronto, with connections to GO commuter trains.
 * Toronto Pearson International Airport is the only major airport serving the region, on the far side of Toronto in Mississauga. Small private chartered aircraft may be able to fly into Oshawa Executive Airport.
 * Long-distance cycling/hiking trails
 * the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail passes east-west along the entire Ajax waterfront with Lake Ontario, from Pickering in the west to Whitby in the east.
 * The Great Trail (also called the Trans-Canada Trail) arrives in Ajax from Pickering co-terminous with the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail in the southwest of the town along Lake Ontario, then immediately heads north through the town before exiting north again into Pickering.
 * The Great Trail (also called the Trans-Canada Trail) arrives in Ajax from Pickering co-terminous with the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail in the southwest of the town along Lake Ontario, then immediately heads north through the town before exiting north again into Pickering.

Get around

 * Durham Regional Transit operates bus service in Ajax-Pickering and Oshawa-Whitby.
 * Durham Rapid Taxi, ) serves Ajax and Whitby.
 * Blue Line Taxi serves Ajax-Pickering.

Do
Ajax has five golf courses, 90 km of trails and sixty parks and playgrounds.



Eat
There are a hundred restaurants in Ajax; a full list is available on www.visitajax.ca but a few options include:

Connect
Ajax is a local telephone call from both Toronto and Oshawa. Wi-Fi is commonly available in coffee shops, hotels and fast-food restaurants. There are three Ajax public library branches (one at the town hall, one each at the two community centres) which offer public Internet.