A Most Unusual Street Name, Kingston, Ontario

The Tragically Hip Way. What an unusual name for a street, and I was sure there had to be a story behind it.

We spent some time in the town of Kingston, Ontario. The city is a really nice town on the northeast shores of Lake Ontario, where the all the water from the Great Lakes flow into the Saint Lawrence River, ultimately ending up in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s the beginning of the Canadian side of the Thousand Island region, where Thousand Island dressing was invented.

Kingston is a college town, with several colleges and universities. It’s a military town with a large Canadian Forces Base and the Royal Military College. At one time it was an industrial town with a large steel production, railroad and steam ship manufacturing plant. And it has been known as the Prison Capitol of Canada. There are 9 Provincial and Federal prisons in the Kingston area, and it is home to the now-closed Kingston Penitentiary. For 178 years, the Kingston Pen housed some of Canada’s most notorious criminals.

There’s another thing that Kingston is famous for, although you may have to be younger or Canadian to know about it - The Tragically Hip.

The Tragically Hip Way is not named for all the cool but sad college kids that hang out here. In fact, I didn’t see any that I would describe that way. What I discovered was The Hip, as they became known, were a Canadian rock band from Kingston formed in 1984 who were “discovered” as they were performing at a night club in Toronto. The band stayed together and performed until 2016, with 9 of their 13 albums reaching the No. 1 spot in Canada. They took their name from a skit in Elephant Parts, a movie produced by Michael Nesmith** of The Monkees. The band’s last concert was in the K-Rock Centre in Kingston on August 20, 2016, and their lead singer, Gord Downie, passed away the following year from brain cancer.

In 2012, the band’s popularity was such a point of pride for the city that the Kingston City Council entered a debate about naming a city street after them. It was somewhat contentious because the street was tied to Kingston’s military history, having held the name, “Barrack Street” since the late 1700’s. In the end, the Council voted 7-6 to rename a block of the street “The Tragically Hip Way.” And as Paul Harvey used to say, now you know the rest of the story.

You have be old and have grey hair to know who Paul Harvey was.

**Michael Nesmith’s mother, Bette Graham, invented the typewriter correction fluid, Liquid Paper.