With eighteen roller coasters, Canada's Wonderland has the third most of any theme park around the world, behind Energylandia in Poland with nineteen and Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California with twenty.

[6] In 1972, the Taft Broadcasting Company, headed by Kelly Robinson, first proposed building a 330-acre (130 ha)[7] theme park in the then small village of Maple, part of Vaughan, Ontario, located directly north of Toronto.

Several other possible locations in Ontario were considered, including Niagara Falls, Cambridge, and Milton, but Maple was finally selected because of its proximity to the City of Toronto and the 400-series of highways.

Other groups that fought the building of Wonderland included a Vaughan residential association called SAVE, which thought the increased traffic would reduce property values.

Taft Broadcasting was concerned about opposition and flew a group of opponents and regional councillors to Mason, Ohio (just north of Cincinnati) to show them the positive impact of one of its theme parks on the local community.

The Wonderland promoters were able to convince the province to amend the planning policy for the region, and the park secured infrastructure improvements, including a highway overpass and sewage systems, that were expanded and built out to the site.

Early park maps show the area encompassing what is now Splash Works, White Water Canyon, the Action Theatre and the southern part of Kidzville.

[11] On 13 June 1979, Ontario Premier Bill Davis depressed the plunger on an electronic detonating device at St. Lawrence Hall in downtown Toronto, triggering an explosion on the site.

After Viacom bought Paramount in 1994, a successful attempt was made to bring families back to the park by attracting children with original Nickelodeon cartoon characters that were familiar to a new generation.

Three new attractions were built in that area: Silver Streak (a family roller coaster), Blast Off (a "frog hopper"), and Jumpin' Jet.

During the Halloween season, it is re-themed as the "Haunted" Thunder Run, with a darker tunnel and more strobe lights, fog machines, and black-light lit scenes featuring the "skeletons" of miners.

On 14 May 2006, Cedar Fair announced it was interested in acquiring the five Paramount theme parks from CBS Corporation (successor of the original Viacom), including Canada's Wonderland.

The 2007 season was a transition year throughout the park and included renaming the movie-themed rides since Cedar Fair did not hold the rights to Paramount film properties.

[19][20][21] On 19 July 2009, stunt performer Nik Wallenda walked on a tight rope from the pond area of Medieval Faire to Wonder Mountain.

[22] For the 2010 season, Planet Snoopy opened to the public, which was a retheme of both "The Happy Land of Hanna-Barbera" & "Nickelodeon Central" areas of the park to align Canada's Wonderland with the rest of the Cedar Fair chain.

The area consisted of a retheme of all of the rides and facilities of both areas into one cohesive section themed to the Peanuts comics (both Ghoster Coaster & Swan Lake remained unchanged following the change), along with the addition of three new rides for children and families from Zamperla; Lucy's Tugboat, Peanuts 500, and Snoopy's Revolution.

It was also described as part of a "roller coaster renaissance" where theme parks distinguished itself by introducing bigger and faster rides to attract guests.

[34][35][36] Cedar Fair CEO Matt Ouimett also confirmed in December 2015 that virtual reality (VR) headsets would be added to Thunder Run in 2016.

The park also announced a Splash Works expansion for 2017 in the form of Muskoka Plunge, a 59-foot (20 m) tall waterslide complex featuring four "trap-door" speed slides.

Made by Italian manufacturer Zamperla, Lumberjack is a thrill ride that takes guests to heights of 75 feet (23 m) on two swinging axe-themed pendulums, propelling them into a looping 360-degree experience.

[39] They also announced the opening of Frontier Canada, a gold-rush-themed attraction area that includes Yukon Striker, Mighty Canadian Minebuster, Lumberjack, Soaring Timbers, Flying Canoes, Vortex, Timberwolf Falls and White Water Canyon.

Since the announcement, the attraction has been removed from the park and the area surrounding it was replaced with a pathway connecting Action Zone and Frontier Canada.

In addition, the park announced Mountain Bay Cliffs for Splash Works, which is a cliff-jumping style attraction featuring multiple platforms of varying heights, the highest of which is 25 feet (7.6 m).

The first, Tundra Twister, is a first-of-its-kind flat ride from Mondial that is located in Frontier Canada next to Yukon Striker's zero-g winder inversion, creating many near-misses with the coaster.

Canada's Wonderland posted a series of four horror vignettes 30 October 2020 titled Nighttime Walk to celebrate Haunt featuring the empty park.

[68] The five original sections include International Street, Medieval Faire, Grande World Exposition of 1890 (renamed Action Zone; Grande World Exposition of 1890 returned in 2019 by renaming a portion of Action Zone), International Festival, and the Happyland of Hanna-Barbera (divided into more than one children's area since 1998).

The Zoom Zone subsection of KidZville was created in 2001 with the debut of Silver Streak; it also contains the small rides Blast Off and Jumpin' Jet.

[8] The first ride accident in the park's history occurred on 23 August 2003, when the Jimmy Neutron Brainwasher (later renamed Woodstock Whirlybirds due to Cedar Fair's contract with Peanuts) fell apart.

Guests with these disabilities receive paper boarding passes in which ride operators provide wait times equal to those in the queue.

After the Budweiser Stage (then known as Molson Amphitheatre) opened on the grounds of Ontario Place in 1995, itself replacing The Forum, cultural festivals at the theatre became less prominent.