S
shawnmicallef
Guest
In eye this week there's an article by me on the Islands, and Dale Duncan (also of Spacing) on other stuff to do in the city. If you're not leaving the city this weekend, take a peek and do some of it. I'm sure Babel will have some comments on my use of his dear England as well.
eye - 07.28.05
www.eye.net/eye/issue/iss...sland.html
Our own private Brighton
BY SHAWN MICALLEF
During the summer, at about noon on Fridays, Toronto starts to empty out. You can almost hear the slow drain to the north, as tens of thousands of Torontonians make for the highways on their way to Wasaga, Bala, Bobcaygeon and Killbear. Those of us on the wrong side of the cottage-gap are left with a quiet city. A few of us find our adventures in the urban wilderness (see "There's no place like home,"). Many more of us head for the Toronto Islands.
The islands are to our city what the seaside resorts of Brighton and Blackpool were to Britain: a place where working-class folks could take cheap holidays of their own. Blackpool would heave with factory workers from the north of England while Brighton, just a short train ride from London, was an escape from the tumult and pollution of the city. The resorts were full of amusements of all kinds: from giant Victorian piers to streets called "The Golden Mile" (our own Golden Mile is in Scarborough, but that's another story). Until the 1970s, their beaches and promenades were packed with people: there was nowhere else to go.
With the advent of cheap holiday packages, lobster-red Britons now choose to sun themselves on the Mediterranean shores of Ibiza, Majorca and Malta, where they dance to crappy trance and drink pints in recreated British pubs. The old resorts are seen as melancholy places where the skies are perpetually cloudy and the beaches cold and windswept. Morrissey, in perhaps the most apocalyptic pop song ever written, summed up the sensibility best in "Everyday is Like Sunday": "Hide on the promenade / Etch a postcard / 'How I Dearly Wish I Was Not Here' / In the seaside town / That they forgot to bomb / Come, Come, Come -- nuclear bomb / Every day is like Sunday / Every day is silent and grey."
Though I'd love an excuse to take maudlin trips to the Toronto Islands and sing sad songs to myself, I can't, because there's not much depressing about the place. Even First Nations people day tripped to the island. In 1813, an early European settler, D.W. Smith, recorded in the Gazetteer that "the long beach or peninsula, which affords a most delightful ride, is considered so healthy by the Indians that they resort to it whenever indisposed." Certainly Smith paints too rosy a portrait of aboriginal life under British Rule, but I too like to sneak over when "indisposed."
The ferry trip makes the separation between here and there official. Arriving at Centre Island, visitors are met with some of the softest, greenest grass I've ever seen in a public park. On weekends, these greens are packed with large groups of new Canadians cooking food and playing games. My favourites are the South Asian men who wear dress pants and shirts to the park, even on heat alert days, just as most men here did here 60 years ago in a more formal time.
Nearby is Centreville, a cute little amusement park not unlike those found on the British piers. It's more small-town fair than Canada's Wonderland: the theme is quaint and slightly cheesy and the rides' modest speeds are unlikely to shatter any world records. Yet even without the fake mountain, the kids (and their adult handlers) seem to love it. At the snack bars, nearly everything is deep-fried, just like in Britain.
To the south, beyond Centreville, a series of formal gardens with Pearson-era fountains leads to the islands' only pier, jutting out over Lake Ontario. The only amusement there is the view, but on shore whole families rent strange looking quad-cycles to explore the islands. Most head east towards the clusters of houses full of equally strange Ward's Island residents, whose homes were saved from Metro's wrecking ball by Premier Bill Davis in 1980. A few head west, towards Hanlan's Point, site of Toronto's clothing-optional beach.
At Hanlan's, people wear as much or as little as they want. The naked coexist happily with people less willing to burn their sensitive parts. On one occasion I even saw someone in what looked like a woolen bathing costume. It's Toronto's most liminal of spaces: an in-between place in our backyard that somehow feels far from home. Like our ravines, Hanlan's is one of the places where nature and metropolis collide, and unlike the largely private cottage country to the north, a very public beach culture thrives here. Wander south, away from the crowds, and you'll find secret coves and water so clear it seems downright Bahamian. It's easy to forget the city, but then the occasional glimpse of someone's painful-looking genital piercing reminds me that we're still safely surrounded by Toronto.
Like anybody, I'd happily take a weekend at the cottage when one is offered, but the Islands and their Disney-like perfection are a good substitute -- and the ferry ride back at the end of the day sure beats the Highway 400 parking lot.
Shawn Micallef is an editor of Spacing magazine and a founder of the [murmur] project.
------
eye - 07.28.05
www.eye.net/eye/issue/iss...doors.html
There's no place like home
Canoeing the Humber? Fishing in Lake Ontario? Inner-city astronomy? A guide to getting out of the city, in the city
BY DALE DUNCAN
The August long weekend is upon us. It's the height of summer, but most of my friends are planning to escape the city. Citing the heat and smog, they pack themselves into a car to spend hours in standstill traffic that creates even more heat and smog, so they can spend a couple of days beside a lake somewhere in Muskoka or Georgian Bay.
A couple of years ago, I'd say that I didn't really blame them. Summer, after all, is for lakes and camping. It's the time to reconnect with nature, when kids catch bugs and snakes, grandfathers go fishing and couples take a canoe down a lazy river. Summer is for barbecues, picnics in the park, catching fireflies at night and sitting out under the stars.
These were the summers of my childhood, anyway. Giving them up was part of the trade-off when I moved to the city. Or at least that's what a lot of us think. Waiting for a slow streetcar on a busy street in the midst of heat-absorbing concrete, it's easy to forget that urban forests, nature trails and healthy beaches actually exist here. But what if you don't have the cash or car to make the trip north? What if you're sick of planning the best route out of town every Friday after work?
"You can do everything in the city that you can do in cottage country and more; you just need to know where to do it," says Allan Crawford, recreationist with Parks, Forestry and Recreation. Crawford has taken me to the Inner City Out-tripping Centre (www.innercityouttripping.blogspot.com) at Sunnyside Beach (South of Lakeshore and Parkside). He shows me the large canoes they use with groups, and introduces me to three young adults in charge of the Leadership Program, a two-week course for youth teaching paddling, wilderness and leadership skills. According to Crawford, so many of us fail to make a connection between nature and the city because we don't learn about it as kids.
"We brought a kid down here this week who was 12 years old, had lived here all his life, but didn't know that this was Lake Ontario," he says.
Karen Nasmith first got the idea to canoe down the Don River from her grandparents, who paddled there in their courting days. Though not an avid canoeist, she managed to convince a friend to portage through Riverdale Park (south of Broadview station) one spring for a jaunt down the infamous stream. Unfortunately, canoeing the Don is only possible in the spring, when the dam at G. Ross Lord Park (east of Dufferin between Steeles and Finch) is opened to raise the water level for Paddle the Don (www.trca.on.ca/water_protection/strategies/don/paddle/), an event organized with the Toronto Regional Conservation Authority. It provides an opportunity for novices like Nasmith to paddle the river from E.T. Seaton Park (by Leslie Street and Don Mills Road, north of Eglinton East) to the dirty mouth of the Don.
The Humber River, in the city's west end, is a better choice for canoeists in the summer months. This Canadian Heritage River is navigable from the lake right up to the historic Old Mill by Old Mill Station at Bloor Street, and just as scenic. Those wishing to paddle around Toronto's harbour, with the skyline looming above, can rent a canoe and receive lessons from organizations such as Harbourfront Centre (416-203-2277) or the Toronto Island Boathouse (416-397-2628) .
Floating in a canoe on top of Toronto water might be considered acceptable but, for many, actually submerging yourself in Toronto water, or even worse, eating something from it is unthinkable. Because of this, the city spends thousands erecting flags, designing pamphlets and planning photo ops simply to convince residents that its water is safe. The inexperienced are still skeptical when they hear rumours about the great opportunities to fish here. But not only can you catch a wide variety of fish at places such as Toronto Island, the Humber River and Gren-adier pond in High Park, you can also fry most of the them up for dinner, as long as you have a fishing licence. Licences can be obtained from the Boathouse on Centre Island, which also lends out rods and reels for free.
Many of our negative views on Toronto's relationship with nature no doubt come from the media. And though it's important that pollution is criticized in the press, the disadvantage is that we begin to disassociate Toronto from the paths, parkways and beaches we can actually use. Toronto's network of river valleys don't often come to mind when we think of the city. But our inverted mountain range, as I once heard it described, is as uniquely Toronto as the CN Tower.
"I especially like the Don Valley this time of year when you're choking on the smog," says John Hanje, of the Community Bicycle Network. "I go in and there's literally more oxygen because of the trees."
Hanje enjoys mountain biking on the winding single-track trails hidden throughout the valley, accessible by Pottery Road and the Bayview Extension. According to Hanje, some trails are quite technical and difficult to master, even for the experienced. And they don't suffer from erosion because they aren't overused.
Pinky Winterton of the Toronto Field Naturalists (TFN), a volunteer-run organization offering over 100 free walks a year, enjoys walking the trails throughout the city and exploring our natural parks. Her voice grows excited when she talks about the first time she saw a mink and an albino squirrel along the Humber, or birds nesting on the Leslie Street Spit, a man-made peninsula that extends five kilometres into Lake Ontario at the foot of Leslie Street, or a field of yellow lady slippers by Sunnybrook Park. TFN walks are listed in newspapers and on the web (www.sources.com/tfn), but those interested in exploring trails by themselves can look for Discovery Walks brochures online or at city hall, or pick up a green tourism map from community centres and visitor information booths across the city.
Camping is also possible in the city and accessible by TTC. The Glen Rouge Campground, on the western bank of the Rouge River (about two minutes away from the Toronto Zoo), lies within 12,000 acres of forests and meadows (take the 85A bus from Don Mills Station to Kingston Road).
Though there are numerous ways to feel like you've left the city during the day, it's difficult to forget you're in the city at night. No matter where you go, the lights from highrises and lampposts make seeing most of the stars impossible. When I called Sara Poirier, a researcher of astronomy and space sciences at the Ontario Science Centre (770 Don Mills), to ask if there was anything worthwhile to see in the sky in Toronto at night, I was prepared for my question to prompt laughter. Instead, she told me of major constellations we can see from the city, as well as five planets, including Mercury (if it's not too hazy), Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, which has recently been on its closest approach to the Earth. The website www.skyandtelescope.com will tell you what you can expect to see each night and where to look.
"What sucks about star-gazing in the city is the lights in the big buildings, but we have a great opportunity to escape all of that," says Poirier. "Grab a blanket and binoculars and head down to the lakeshore where there will be no obstructions."
It seems the summers of my childhood are closer than I think.
Says Crawford, "We don't need to escape the city, we need to discover and use the city's natural spaces. Activities and adventure are around every corner for those who have the eyes and skills to appreciate them."
eye - 07.28.05
www.eye.net/eye/issue/iss...sland.html
Our own private Brighton
BY SHAWN MICALLEF
During the summer, at about noon on Fridays, Toronto starts to empty out. You can almost hear the slow drain to the north, as tens of thousands of Torontonians make for the highways on their way to Wasaga, Bala, Bobcaygeon and Killbear. Those of us on the wrong side of the cottage-gap are left with a quiet city. A few of us find our adventures in the urban wilderness (see "There's no place like home,"). Many more of us head for the Toronto Islands.
The islands are to our city what the seaside resorts of Brighton and Blackpool were to Britain: a place where working-class folks could take cheap holidays of their own. Blackpool would heave with factory workers from the north of England while Brighton, just a short train ride from London, was an escape from the tumult and pollution of the city. The resorts were full of amusements of all kinds: from giant Victorian piers to streets called "The Golden Mile" (our own Golden Mile is in Scarborough, but that's another story). Until the 1970s, their beaches and promenades were packed with people: there was nowhere else to go.
With the advent of cheap holiday packages, lobster-red Britons now choose to sun themselves on the Mediterranean shores of Ibiza, Majorca and Malta, where they dance to crappy trance and drink pints in recreated British pubs. The old resorts are seen as melancholy places where the skies are perpetually cloudy and the beaches cold and windswept. Morrissey, in perhaps the most apocalyptic pop song ever written, summed up the sensibility best in "Everyday is Like Sunday": "Hide on the promenade / Etch a postcard / 'How I Dearly Wish I Was Not Here' / In the seaside town / That they forgot to bomb / Come, Come, Come -- nuclear bomb / Every day is like Sunday / Every day is silent and grey."
Though I'd love an excuse to take maudlin trips to the Toronto Islands and sing sad songs to myself, I can't, because there's not much depressing about the place. Even First Nations people day tripped to the island. In 1813, an early European settler, D.W. Smith, recorded in the Gazetteer that "the long beach or peninsula, which affords a most delightful ride, is considered so healthy by the Indians that they resort to it whenever indisposed." Certainly Smith paints too rosy a portrait of aboriginal life under British Rule, but I too like to sneak over when "indisposed."
The ferry trip makes the separation between here and there official. Arriving at Centre Island, visitors are met with some of the softest, greenest grass I've ever seen in a public park. On weekends, these greens are packed with large groups of new Canadians cooking food and playing games. My favourites are the South Asian men who wear dress pants and shirts to the park, even on heat alert days, just as most men here did here 60 years ago in a more formal time.
Nearby is Centreville, a cute little amusement park not unlike those found on the British piers. It's more small-town fair than Canada's Wonderland: the theme is quaint and slightly cheesy and the rides' modest speeds are unlikely to shatter any world records. Yet even without the fake mountain, the kids (and their adult handlers) seem to love it. At the snack bars, nearly everything is deep-fried, just like in Britain.
To the south, beyond Centreville, a series of formal gardens with Pearson-era fountains leads to the islands' only pier, jutting out over Lake Ontario. The only amusement there is the view, but on shore whole families rent strange looking quad-cycles to explore the islands. Most head east towards the clusters of houses full of equally strange Ward's Island residents, whose homes were saved from Metro's wrecking ball by Premier Bill Davis in 1980. A few head west, towards Hanlan's Point, site of Toronto's clothing-optional beach.
At Hanlan's, people wear as much or as little as they want. The naked coexist happily with people less willing to burn their sensitive parts. On one occasion I even saw someone in what looked like a woolen bathing costume. It's Toronto's most liminal of spaces: an in-between place in our backyard that somehow feels far from home. Like our ravines, Hanlan's is one of the places where nature and metropolis collide, and unlike the largely private cottage country to the north, a very public beach culture thrives here. Wander south, away from the crowds, and you'll find secret coves and water so clear it seems downright Bahamian. It's easy to forget the city, but then the occasional glimpse of someone's painful-looking genital piercing reminds me that we're still safely surrounded by Toronto.
Like anybody, I'd happily take a weekend at the cottage when one is offered, but the Islands and their Disney-like perfection are a good substitute -- and the ferry ride back at the end of the day sure beats the Highway 400 parking lot.
Shawn Micallef is an editor of Spacing magazine and a founder of the [murmur] project.
------
eye - 07.28.05
www.eye.net/eye/issue/iss...doors.html
There's no place like home
Canoeing the Humber? Fishing in Lake Ontario? Inner-city astronomy? A guide to getting out of the city, in the city
BY DALE DUNCAN
The August long weekend is upon us. It's the height of summer, but most of my friends are planning to escape the city. Citing the heat and smog, they pack themselves into a car to spend hours in standstill traffic that creates even more heat and smog, so they can spend a couple of days beside a lake somewhere in Muskoka or Georgian Bay.
A couple of years ago, I'd say that I didn't really blame them. Summer, after all, is for lakes and camping. It's the time to reconnect with nature, when kids catch bugs and snakes, grandfathers go fishing and couples take a canoe down a lazy river. Summer is for barbecues, picnics in the park, catching fireflies at night and sitting out under the stars.
These were the summers of my childhood, anyway. Giving them up was part of the trade-off when I moved to the city. Or at least that's what a lot of us think. Waiting for a slow streetcar on a busy street in the midst of heat-absorbing concrete, it's easy to forget that urban forests, nature trails and healthy beaches actually exist here. But what if you don't have the cash or car to make the trip north? What if you're sick of planning the best route out of town every Friday after work?
"You can do everything in the city that you can do in cottage country and more; you just need to know where to do it," says Allan Crawford, recreationist with Parks, Forestry and Recreation. Crawford has taken me to the Inner City Out-tripping Centre (www.innercityouttripping.blogspot.com) at Sunnyside Beach (South of Lakeshore and Parkside). He shows me the large canoes they use with groups, and introduces me to three young adults in charge of the Leadership Program, a two-week course for youth teaching paddling, wilderness and leadership skills. According to Crawford, so many of us fail to make a connection between nature and the city because we don't learn about it as kids.
"We brought a kid down here this week who was 12 years old, had lived here all his life, but didn't know that this was Lake Ontario," he says.
Karen Nasmith first got the idea to canoe down the Don River from her grandparents, who paddled there in their courting days. Though not an avid canoeist, she managed to convince a friend to portage through Riverdale Park (south of Broadview station) one spring for a jaunt down the infamous stream. Unfortunately, canoeing the Don is only possible in the spring, when the dam at G. Ross Lord Park (east of Dufferin between Steeles and Finch) is opened to raise the water level for Paddle the Don (www.trca.on.ca/water_protection/strategies/don/paddle/), an event organized with the Toronto Regional Conservation Authority. It provides an opportunity for novices like Nasmith to paddle the river from E.T. Seaton Park (by Leslie Street and Don Mills Road, north of Eglinton East) to the dirty mouth of the Don.
The Humber River, in the city's west end, is a better choice for canoeists in the summer months. This Canadian Heritage River is navigable from the lake right up to the historic Old Mill by Old Mill Station at Bloor Street, and just as scenic. Those wishing to paddle around Toronto's harbour, with the skyline looming above, can rent a canoe and receive lessons from organizations such as Harbourfront Centre (416-203-2277) or the Toronto Island Boathouse (416-397-2628) .
Floating in a canoe on top of Toronto water might be considered acceptable but, for many, actually submerging yourself in Toronto water, or even worse, eating something from it is unthinkable. Because of this, the city spends thousands erecting flags, designing pamphlets and planning photo ops simply to convince residents that its water is safe. The inexperienced are still skeptical when they hear rumours about the great opportunities to fish here. But not only can you catch a wide variety of fish at places such as Toronto Island, the Humber River and Gren-adier pond in High Park, you can also fry most of the them up for dinner, as long as you have a fishing licence. Licences can be obtained from the Boathouse on Centre Island, which also lends out rods and reels for free.
Many of our negative views on Toronto's relationship with nature no doubt come from the media. And though it's important that pollution is criticized in the press, the disadvantage is that we begin to disassociate Toronto from the paths, parkways and beaches we can actually use. Toronto's network of river valleys don't often come to mind when we think of the city. But our inverted mountain range, as I once heard it described, is as uniquely Toronto as the CN Tower.
"I especially like the Don Valley this time of year when you're choking on the smog," says John Hanje, of the Community Bicycle Network. "I go in and there's literally more oxygen because of the trees."
Hanje enjoys mountain biking on the winding single-track trails hidden throughout the valley, accessible by Pottery Road and the Bayview Extension. According to Hanje, some trails are quite technical and difficult to master, even for the experienced. And they don't suffer from erosion because they aren't overused.
Pinky Winterton of the Toronto Field Naturalists (TFN), a volunteer-run organization offering over 100 free walks a year, enjoys walking the trails throughout the city and exploring our natural parks. Her voice grows excited when she talks about the first time she saw a mink and an albino squirrel along the Humber, or birds nesting on the Leslie Street Spit, a man-made peninsula that extends five kilometres into Lake Ontario at the foot of Leslie Street, or a field of yellow lady slippers by Sunnybrook Park. TFN walks are listed in newspapers and on the web (www.sources.com/tfn), but those interested in exploring trails by themselves can look for Discovery Walks brochures online or at city hall, or pick up a green tourism map from community centres and visitor information booths across the city.
Camping is also possible in the city and accessible by TTC. The Glen Rouge Campground, on the western bank of the Rouge River (about two minutes away from the Toronto Zoo), lies within 12,000 acres of forests and meadows (take the 85A bus from Don Mills Station to Kingston Road).
Though there are numerous ways to feel like you've left the city during the day, it's difficult to forget you're in the city at night. No matter where you go, the lights from highrises and lampposts make seeing most of the stars impossible. When I called Sara Poirier, a researcher of astronomy and space sciences at the Ontario Science Centre (770 Don Mills), to ask if there was anything worthwhile to see in the sky in Toronto at night, I was prepared for my question to prompt laughter. Instead, she told me of major constellations we can see from the city, as well as five planets, including Mercury (if it's not too hazy), Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, which has recently been on its closest approach to the Earth. The website www.skyandtelescope.com will tell you what you can expect to see each night and where to look.
"What sucks about star-gazing in the city is the lights in the big buildings, but we have a great opportunity to escape all of that," says Poirier. "Grab a blanket and binoculars and head down to the lakeshore where there will be no obstructions."
It seems the summers of my childhood are closer than I think.
Says Crawford, "We don't need to escape the city, we need to discover and use the city's natural spaces. Activities and adventure are around every corner for those who have the eyes and skills to appreciate them."