There are a lot of small rural towns in Ontario that can take some time getting to if you're driving out there. If you live in a city like Thunder Bay, Ontario and live in the heart of the downtown core in Thunder Bay but own a summer camp or cottage in a surrounding area such as Neebing then you're looking at a drive of 30-60 minutes. One thing you'll notice the farther along these rural towns you drive through is the mail boxes outside their homes or driveways.

Homes in rural areas are different than the Waterloo Ontario homes you grew up in. Instead of having a number on the outside of the house indicating which house it is in the neighbourhood, they have what are known as fire numbers because they're not located on normal streets, avenues, crescents, etc., like the ones you grew up with living at your piece of London Ontario real estate property.

Instead, a lot of homes in rural towns in Ontario, especially farms, can be found on concession roads. This all dates back to colonial times when the government was trying to define undeveloped land. The word concession is a French word, coming from the era of Lower Canada, which means "row of lots." That's basically what homes or farms are categorized as on concession roads.

They're lots of lands on roads that are out of the way from most regular folks in the urban areas where you can find Ajax real estate properties. Properties on concession roads are usually straight, are a couple of kilometers apart from each other, and follow a square grid. If you come to a fork in the road and one of the concession roads you are driving down from your piece of Milton Ontario real estate property splits into two then each side becomes its own concession road.

Most properties on concession roads that are away from the lake are known as sidelines or side roads. Depending on the township, the numbering of the lots on concession roads can either be in multiples of 2 or 5, which makes them easier to find when looking over a Whitby MLS brochure. Now the next time you find yourself taking a road trip across Canada and find yourself driving through smaller, rural towns you'll now know if you're driving down a concession road or not.