LaSalle is a town in Essex County,

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. It is a

bedroom community A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

of the City of Windsor, part of the Windsor

Census Metropolitan Area The census geographic units of Canada are the census subdivisions defined and used by Canada's federal government statistics bureau Statistics Canada to conduct the country's quinquennial census. These areas exist solely for the purposes of stat ...

, and located south of that city. LaSalle, along with Windsor, is the oldest French settlement area in

Southwestern Ontario Southwestern Ontario (census population 2,796,367 in 2021) is a secondary region of Southern Ontario in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. It occupies most of the Ontario Peninsula, bounded by Lake Huron (includ ...

and the oldest continually-inhabited European settlement in Canada west of the

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

border. The town was named for explorer

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (; November 22, 1643 – March 19, 1687), was a 17th-century French explorer and North American fur trade, fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada ...

. The current Town of Lasalle was originally incorporated as the Township of Sandwich West in 1861. A portion of the township incorporated as the Town of Lasalle in 1924, but was dissolved in 1959 and rejoined Sandwich West. In 1991, the Township changed its status to that of a town and was renamed Lasalle. It is the second most populous municipality within Essex County, after the Municipality of Lakeshore. The town's land area includes Fighting Island in the Detroit River on its western side. Fighting Island is privately owned by

BASF BASF SE (), an initialism of its original name , is a European Multinational corporation, multinational company and the List of largest chemical producers, largest chemical producer in the world. Its headquarters are located in Ludwigshafen, Ge ...

, the world's largest chemical company.

Town features

One of LaSalle's biggest events is the annual Strawberry Festival which takes place on the first weekend in June. The annual LaSalle Craft Beer Festival, put on by the Corporation of the Town of LaSalle, is another annual event that features different types of beer, from popular brands to smaller microbreweries. LaSalle has two secondary schools: Sandwich Secondary School and St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic Secondary School. Elementary schools include Sacred Heart Elementary School, Legacy Oak Trail Public School, LaSalle Public School, Sandwich West Public School, École Monseigneur Augustin Caron, and Holy Cross Catholic Elementary School. LaSalle also has a bicycle trail network called the LaSalle Trail, which links up to neighbouring Windsor Trail network, allowing people to ride from Sandwich Secondary School to Windsor's Riverfront Trail. The town has expressed intention to connect LaSalle (and indirectly, Windsor) to the Chrysler Canada Greenway by constructing a link to the

Trans Canada Trail The Trans Canada Trail is a cross-Canada system of greenways, waterways, and roadways that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, Pacific to the Arctic Ocean, Arctic oceans. The trail extends over ; it is now the longe ...

near Oldcastle. LaSalle's Brunet Park has a 2.6 km loop trail and is generally considered an easy route, which takes an average of 28 minutes to complete. With 40 km of paved trails in LaSalle, you can walk, jog or ride your bicycle throughout the town. There are 16 signs along the trails, with facts about LaSalle, Ontario and/or Canada. The town also features the Vollmer Culture and Recreation Complex, home to the LaSalle Vipers, of the GOJHL and the LaSalle Sabres, of the OMHA. It is also home to the LaSalle Stompers, of the Ontario Soccer Association. The complex has multiple rooms for hosting of events, 2 arenas, an Olympic-sized pool and slide, outdoor skate park, splash pad, soccer fields, and baseball diamonds.

LaSalle Landing

LaSalle is currently revitalizing its waterfront with an initiative called the LaSalle Landing. The project will include an event centre, a retention pond, sport zone, water fountain, skate trail, boat launch and multiple new bridges. This project is projected to cost 48.5 million dollars. LaSalle will be using $4 500 000 from the Federal Gas Tax and $500 000 from the Pedestrian Safety Reserve to help pay for the project. LaSalle has taken on $12 000 000 of debt after being denied a grant through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program.

Communities

Besides the urban area proper of LaSalle itself, the town comprises a number of villages and hamlets, including Delisle's Corners, Heritage Estates, Lukerville, Oliver and River Canard.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...

, LaSalle had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Notable people

* Jeff Burrows - member of rock band The Tea Party; grew up in LaSalle * Stuart Chatwood - member of rock band The Tea Party; grew up in LaSalle * Pete Craig - former MLB player * Andy Delmore - former NHL player * Jesse Divnich - Industry personality in video games; grew up in LaSalle * David Finch - comic book artist * Julia Hanes - para-athletics athlete *

Richie Hawtin Richard "Richie" Hawtin (born June 4, 1970) is a British-Canadian electronic musician and DJ. He became involved with Detroit techno's second wave in the early 1990s, and has been a leading exponent of minimal techno since the mid-1990s. He becam ...

- electronic musician; grew up in LaSalle * Zack Kassian - NHL player * Paul Lucier - Senator * Jeff Martin - member of rock band The Tea Party; grew up in LaSalle * Kylie Masse - competitive swimmer; a world champion and a world record holder in the 100 m backstroke; grew up in LaSalle * Dalton Prout - former NHL player * Amanda Reason - former world record holder and Olympic swimmer * Marc Reaume- former NHL player * Derek Wilkinson - former NHL player *

Luke Willson Luke Michael Willson (born January 15, 1990) is a Canadian former professional American football, football player who was a tight end in the National Football League (NFL). Willson played his first five seasons in the NFL for the Seattle Seaha ...

- former NFL tight end, Super Bowl Champion * Andrew Gibson - NHL player with the

Detroit Red Wings The Detroit Red Wings (colloquially referred to as the Wings) are a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit. The Red Wings compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NHL), Atlantic Division in the East ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Towns in Ontario Lower-tier municipalities in Ontario Municipalities in Essex County, Ontario Ontario populated places on the Detroit River