Hello friends,
Summer ☀️ has properly arrived, and the calendar filled up to match. This weekend downtown Whitby turns into a music festival 🎶, the fishing 🎣 is licence-free, the World Cup parties roll on ⚽, and there are a couple of brand-new parks 🌳 to break in.
We have also got a Changemaker who brings the whole region to a smiling 😀 standstill in an eight-foot inflatable wiener dog costume, and Oshawa just handed out its first-ever community awards 🏆 to the people quietly holding the city together.
Pour the coffee. Let's go. ☕
Each week, the most important civic and community news from across Durham Region's eight municipalities, curated in one place.
This week across the region.
photo: City of Oshawa
🏆 Oshawa handed out its first-ever Community Awards.
The inaugural Oshawa Community Awards celebrated the people quietly making the city better: ten long-serving Citizen Volunteers, accessibility advocate Matisse Hamel-Nelis, artists Michael Drolet and Yongzhen Li, youth DEI champion Khushi Dhalla, and Marlene Grass, honoured for perseverance through adversity, among others. Exactly the kind of neighbours we love. See the full list at oshawa.ca/Awards.
Source: City of Oshawa
Photo: Dave Pickles
🛝 Pickering broke ground on a big new community park.
Dave Ryan Community Park is on its way in Seaton: a 4.7-hectare space with a splash pad, lit sports fields, playgrounds, pickleball and tennis courts, and a future skate park. It is named for the former mayor, who, fittingly, now spends his retirement volunteering around town. Details at pickering.ca.
Source: durhamregion.com · City of Pickering
Photo: City of Pickering
🎾 Whitby's Folkstone Park tennis courts are reborn.
The rebuilt courts officially reopened this week, with the Whitby Tennis Club hitting the first balls. They also mark a decade of the town's partnership with Tennis Canada, backed by National Bank. Grab a racquet.
Source: Durham Post · Town of Whitby
Also this week across the Eight
🏊 Oshawa: The rebuilt Rotary Park Pool reopened as a $19-million centennial legacy project, with free season passes for residents and free lessons coming in August. durhamregion.com →
⚡ Region: Velan and GE Vernova Hitachi will build a small modular reactor parts plant in Durham, Ontario-made components bound for Europe and a wave of skilled jobs. Durham Post →
🏡 Ajax: The town is moving ahead on a new affordable-housing project with Ashley Manor, with a focus on seniors. Durham Post →
🏳️🌈 Pickering: Jacqueline Mak's Pride piece, L.O.V.E., is on display at City Hall through June 30. Pickering.ca→
Each week's Changemaker is a Durham Region neighbour who decided not to wait. They show the rest of us what's possible, and what's already being done. They are the change.
🌭 He walks his dog dressed as a giant wiener dog, just to make you smile. Oshawa made it official.
You may have already done the double-take. Somewhere between the splash pad and the grocery checkout, a beaming eight-foot inflatable dachshund comes ambling by, walking an actual dachshund. Meet Rich Luchford, better known as the Undercover Dachshund, and his dog, Mia.
It started last summer with a gloriously simple idea: "I was thinking it would be kind of cool to walk a wiener dog wearing a wiener dog costume." He tracked the suit down on Amazon (sold out for months, until he went straight to the supplier), and the reaction on his street was instant. So he kept going.
Since then, the Undercover Dachshund has turned up just about everywhere: Newcastle's Harvest Festival, Apple Fest in Bowmanville, seniors' homes, charity runs, the checkout line at Loblaws. Luchford is a roofer by trade, and he hasn't made a cent from any of it. "Everything I've given away or purchased, my time, my gas to get places, has come out of my own pocket." He does it purely for the smiles.
"There's enough bad and hate in this world. So put a smile on somebody's face, make their day."
Rich Luchford
The Undercover Dachshund
That spirit is exactly why, at the inaugural Oshawa Community Awards we mentioned up top, the city named the Undercover Dachshund its 2026 Community Legend, with a permanent plaque on the Community Legend wall. (Whitby got there first, with a "Certificate of Joy" after he strolled into town hall in full costume to "renew a dog licence.") When he accepted, he turned the spotlight straight back on everyone else: "This award belongs to all of you too," he posted that night.
He now has a full event calendar including "Wiener Dog Wednesday" group walks for other dachshund owners. But the mission is the same as it was on that first walk down his street. As he signed off the night he won: "Here's to continuing to spread kindness throughout our community."
Source: People of Durham podcast · durhamregion.com · INsauga
Know a Durham Region Changemaker? Hit reply.
Your weekend, sorted.
🎶 Whitby Music Festival · Whitby
Town Brewery's festival takes over Celebration Square June 25 to 27. Friday is Country Night (Elyse Saunders), Saturday is Indie Night with The Rural Alberta Advantage and Shad, and free shows pop up at shops around town all weekend.
🎤 Super Singers Live · Whitby
Saturday June 27 from 5pm at the Canada Event Centre, a night of rising Tamil music talent. All ages, free parking. Tickets →
🎣 Ontario Family Fishing Week · Region-wide
June 27 to July 5, you can fish licence-free anywhere in Ontario. Lake Ontario, the creeks and conservation ponds are all fair game, and some libraries even loan out rods. Details →
⚽ World Cup Fan Zones · Ajax, Whitby & Pickering
The free watch parties roll on across Durham as the tournament continues, big screens, food, and the home crowd. Bring a chair.
🇨🇦 Then midweek: Canada Day across the Eight.
Canada Day lands on Wednesday, July 1, and every one of Durham's eight municipalities is throwing a free party, most capped with fireworks after dark. Here's where to celebrate:
Ajax: Ajax Fairgrounds, 2 to 10pm, with cultural performances, a sensory-friendly zone, food vendors, and fireworks at 10pm. It's car-free, with free shuttles from Town Hall and the GO lots.
Whitby: Victoria Fields, into the evening, with fireworks after dark.
Oshawa: Lakeview Park, 2 to 10pm, with live music, food trucks, games, and fireworks over Lake Ontario at 10pm.
Clarington: Garnet B. Rickard Complex in Bowmanville, 5 to 10pm, fireworks at 10pm. It also hosts a youth-led Guinness World Record attempt, "Knock Down Hunger," collecting boxes of mac and cheese for Feed the Need in Durham.
Pickering: afternoon fun at Esplanade Park (noon to 5pm), then an evening concert and fireworks at Kinsmen Park. Free accessible shuttles run from Pickering GO.
Scugog: a parade through historic Port Perry at 10:30am, a full day of festivities, and fireworks over Lake Scugog at Palmer Park.
Uxbridge: Elgin Park, gates at 5pm, fireworks at dusk.
Brock: Cannington's MacLeod Park, all day from 11am, with a classic car and truck show, a Lions BBQ, and fireworks at dusk.
Most are free. Times can shift, so confirm with your town before heading out.
And a couple beyond the town parties:
Country Fest, Trail Hub (Uxbridge): a full-day country celebration up at the GTA's highest point, 722 Chalk Lake Rd. The daytime is free and family-friendly from noon to 6pm, with live country music, a local vendor market, line-dancing lessons, BBQ, and face painting. An over-19 Country Night follows from 7pm to midnight ($30), with Whitby's own Alycia Hebert on the lineup.
Baitul Mahdi Mosque (Pickering): the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community's Durham chapter holds its annual free Canada Day celebration at 3505 Salem Rd, with a community BBQ and a short ceremony welcoming all. RSVP at 289-608-9954.
New in the neighbourhood.
🧩 Playtoria · Courtice
A brand-new inclusive, sensory-friendly indoor play centre just opened at 1656 Nash Rd. Built so autistic kids and adults (and everyone else) can play their way, it has a calm sensory room and gear that rearranges to suit different needs. Co-owners Vix Daguman and Kris Watson named it for Kris's late mom, Victoria. The grand opening is this Sunday, June 28, with free play, a ribbon-cutting, games and face painting. playtoriacentre.com →
The week in good news.
⚽ Hometown hero, made official. Ajax unveiled Derek Cornelius Square (the World Cup rename of Pat Bayly Square), and Canada promptly thumped Qatar 6-0. Not a bad week to be from Ajax.
🏖️ Beach season is on. Most Durham beaches, Iroquois and Whitby Beach in Whitby, Paradise in Ajax, and Lakeview in Oshawa, are testing safe for swimming. (Thorah Centennial and Beaverton South are the two to skip for now.)
🧩 Brilliant kids alert. Ajax's own Rayyan Rajani, a Grade 9 student at Pickering High, just won gold at the Canada-Wide Science Fair for inventing a wearable that catches silent choking. Watch this one.
The history hiding along Kingston Road.
Two veterans of the War of 1812 just got their due, more than 200 years on. In a June ceremony, Ajax installed graveside markers for Jabez Lynde and George Washington Post, militia men who helped defend these lands.
Their names still dot the map. Lynde's old log home on Kingston Road, once a tavern, inn and military stop, is the oldest house in Durham Region.
It has been moved a few times and now sits at 900 Brock St. S. in Whitby as the Lynde House Museum. And Post's son built Post Manor at Kingston and Brock in Pickering, where it still stands today.
Next time you drive Kingston Road, you are tracing a route these two knew two centuries ago.
Source: durhamregion.com · Town of Ajax
Some weeks the throughline writes itself. A man zips into an eight-foot wiener dog suit, on his own dime, just to watch strangers light up. A city pauses to name the neighbours who have spent years quietly making it a better place. Two friends turn loss into a place where every kid belongs. None of it waited for permission.
That is the quiet secret of this place: the good gets built by people who simply decide to start, then wave the rest of us over to join in. Kindness, it turns out, is contagious. Pass it on.
So this weekend, catch a song, cast a line, and pet the giant dachshund if you spot him. And when the fireworks go up on Canada Day, picture all eight towns lighting the sky at once. We'll see you on the far side of the long weekend.
Until next week.
This is Durham Life.
Be good. Do Good. ❤️
MiKe Dee
Publisher
Durham Life - Local Media that Inspires
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Covering Durham Region’s 8 municipalities: Ajax · Brock · Clarington · Oshawa · Pickering · Scugog · Uxbridge · Whitby