News   Mar 28, 2024
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Urban Wilderness!

Milne might have lost his creek but at least his house is still standing (just barely):

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"here's the 2008 view from the Heritage Toronto site"
QUOTE EVCco.

I much prefer the "Board & Batten" to the above "restoration".


Regards,
J T
 
Great Then and Now of that Milne House. The Then picture with evidence of life within; the homemade ladder.. splendid.
 
there's a splendid, isolated home at the northern end of rosedale valley road, sitting right where the creek used to go (presumably beside it, not actually on it)

sadly, google street view does not show the portion of rosedale valley road that runs parallel to aylmer, but it's gorgeous down there
quoting myself for context, i wanted to update evcco on that house on rosedale valley road where that "whippet crossing" sign is...

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turns out this building is a designated heritage property

i was through there again last month just to get that picture (as part of a longer jaunt through my neighbourhood urban wilderness), but ended up taking a couple of weeks to write everything up properly with links and everything... Six ravines and an abandoned rail line
 
"turns out this building is a designated heritage property."
QUOTE r937.

I don't quite understand what I am seeing in the Might's Directories:

MIGHT'S TORONTO CITY DIRECTORY - 1933:

Blacklock, Robt W
100 Roseheath
Salesman, Eaton's.

Blacklock, R W
100 Rosedale Valley Road.

And the same for 1942.


Regards,
J T
 
i was through there again last month just to get that picture (as part of a longer jaunt through my neighbourhood urban wilderness), but ended up taking a couple of weeks to write everything up properly with links and everything... Six ravines and an abandoned rail line

Great article r937! I can tell you you'd never get me out on that bridge with no railings! - though I have dodged the cars under it a few times.

And speaking of heading under bridges...



Highland Creek - eastenders, part 1

Yesterday I resolved to finally put an end to my journeys down the Highland Creek watershed, and complete the last leg of its course into Lake Ontario. When last we met I stopped my eastern egress at Morningside Avenue. Now I sally forth into the UofT Scarborough campus, and beyond:

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Between two bridges and between two Kingstons; from the Old to the new:

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Continuing south through Colonel Danforth Park:

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Through Lawrence Avenue East, and into Lower Highland Creek Park:

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Past the grounds of the Highland Creek Sewage Treatment Plant, with the vast Stevenson Swamp just across the creek:

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At last, a glimpse of the end as I spot the great CN rail crossing / East Point pedestrian bridge configuration - a perfect place to indulge my infrastructurphilia:

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A few parting shots as I bid farewell to the Highland Creek:

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The End.


or is it?...
 
Beechgrove/Woodgrove Ravine - eastenders, part 2

Having at last completed my project of travelling every inch of the Highland, West Highland, Southwest Highland, and all other forms of Highland in this fair city, I find myself feeling strangely unfulfilled. Perhaps this last bit of the journey was all a bit too easy. After a few serious stretches of bushwhacking during my last two outings, perhaps this trip was somewhat lacking in challenge. Strolling well-worn paths the length of the way, it did take me only a few hours. Time enough then for another trek! So I head back north a few hundred meters, then head west through the sewage treatment grounds, down a very unworn water feature which my map alternately designates as both the Beechgrove and Woodgrove Ravine:

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Not very far in I'm finding this detour quickly climbing in the rankings of my "pointless" expiditions. Not only is the route often virtually unnavigable, but, even more vexingly, I find myself chin-deep in the capitol of mosquito country. Millions of them, in my ears, in my nose, in my mouth! I make haste to higher ground once I reach Janellan Park, though I can't say it helped much:

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Under Beechgrove Drive, where the stream begins to descend down an endless series of stepped cascades:

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Through Bennett Road now, into Woodgrove Park, where swarms of aphids have joined the chase:

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Some more hospitable wildlife here - spot the squirrel in his apartment tower:

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At the back of a Woodgrove Drive residence my love of wilderness and street signs come together at last!:

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Through the pylons into Westhill Watercourse Park, where the stream eventually retreats under Manse Road:

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From here, the stream travels underground for a block or so, then ends up in Deekshill Park, where I fully intended to follow. However, right before taking that final picture above, something (a mosquito or aphid no doubt) flew right into my eye, causing me much irritation and forcing me to cut my journey short.

A little later, as I attempt to rinse out my eye in the bathroom of the Heron Park Community Centre just up the road, I reflect on some of the other misfortunes that have befallen me on these journeys - the faulty battery which cut short another trip last October, then the camera lost to a creek only weeks later. It then occurred to me, both these events took place on the Highland! And both these events left me with more of the Highland to do!

"Ahhh," I sighed out loud with more than a twinge of resignation.
"It never ends..."
 
some very interesting shots in your latest excursions, evcco

having done most of the ravines in the city, are you going to venture further afield, or revisit some of the ones nearby?

i would like to ask, once again, to come with...

:)
 
Ah yes! Good find k10ery!

That's the 1955 view. And here's the 2008 view from the Heritage Toronto site:
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Quite frankly, I despair of the Milne house. It's increasingly clear to me Toronto means to do what Mississauga did with the Sandiford residence at Eglinton and Mavis... just drum its fingers and look the other way until vandalism eliminates any need or responsibility to act. "Oh, look, another fire! Gosh, darn it, we were just about resore the old place to its former glories, but darn, now I guess we'll just have to finally give up the land to the developers. Shucks." Anus obit, onus abit. Toronto's had literal decades to move on the Milne house, and it has had a public life before. That it's survived this long, out of sight of police patrols and everyday traffic, astounds me. But obviously Council considers it a palliative patient.

What, honestly, would it cost to do something about the place? A few tens of thousands of dollars? This is a city of 2.5 million in a region of nearly 6 million. Surely in all that, volunteers, private and corporate, could be found to front at least some of the money and materials, and probably all the labour, to fix the place up and give its some kind of public life again, for the cost of a few proud names on a bronze plaque. People use that park. Something could be done with the place. It might even be rented again, as it once was, to one organization or another. The Milne house is exactly the sort of place you take grade threes on field trips to open them up to the realization that no, Toronto didn't always look like this. People once lived differently, right here in the spaces you know.

But, I think, soon enough, all we'll have is these photos.
 
Though one difference from Eg + Mavis is that it's not in the middle of a high-pressure development zone. (Which doesn't lessen the threat; just makes it "different".)
 
Yes. And it's all the more galling because it could have been rented to a park-keeper, or maybe even on commercial terms, and so been kept in good shape at minimal cost to the public.

But I will say that there's 5000 better Gothic farmhouses still standing in Ontario. And the modern siding probably destroyed any architectural value in the building anyway.
 
some very interesting shots in your latest excursions, evcco

having done most of the ravines in the city, are you going to venture further afield, or revisit some of the ones nearby?

i would like to ask, once again, to come with...

:)

Thanks again! But I think your assessment of me "having done most of the ravines in the city" may be a little over optimistic... I don't think I've even done half!
I still have the northern parts of the Etobicoke, Mimico, Humber, West Don, and East Don to do - not to mention the entire Rouge and numerous other smaller streams and tributaries.

Maybe we should organize some sort of UT wilderness trek one day.
Or perhaps a UT death march - say start at the mouth of the Humber, in the middle of August, then start hiking north.
The last one to quit wins... LOL
 

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