Cambridge, Ayr and Surrounding Areas

Cambridge (2006 population 120,371) is at the confluence of the Grand and Speed rivers in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo.  It is an amalgamation of the City of Galt, the towns of Preston and Hespeler, and the hamlet of Blair.

Galt covers the largest portion of Cambridge, making up the southern half of the city. Preston and Blair are located on the western side of the city, while Hespeler is in the most northeasterly section of Cambridge.

In 1988, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada opened a plant in Cambridge, which employed 4,518 people as of December 2005 and is the city’s largest employer. Although beneficial to the city, traffic issues caused by slow-moving and long trains passing through main traffic routes to deliver material to and from the plant have caused some frustration for residents and emergency responders. Several other industrial companies also have locations in Cambridge, including Process Group Inc., Gerdau Ameristeel, ATS Automation Tooling Systems, Loblaw Companies Limited, Challenger Motor Freight Inc., Sutherland-Schultz Inc., Canadian General-Tower Ltd., iQor, Frito-Lay Canada (formerly Hostess), Babcock and Wilcox, Northstar Aerospace, Rockwell Automation, Com Dev and Northern Dynamics.

The climate in Cambridge is typical of southwestern Ontario, with mostly moderate winters and the occasional deep freeze. In summer, the temperatures tend to be in the high twenties on the Celsius scale, and like most of southern Ontario, there can be stretches of high humidity.  The last frost date of the season is around May 11, though most gardeners plant on the May 24th long weekend to be safe.  Environment Canada issues frost warnings for the area from May 9 through to October 30.

Cambridge:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge,_Ontario

City of Cambridge:  www.cambridge.ca

Ayr:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayr,_Ontario

North Dumfries:  www.northdumfries.ca/