Toronto is the financial heart of Canada’s economy. It is the largest city of the country, and the greater Toronto area (GTA) has a population of about six million people. It is a modern city with lots of skyscrapers, but it is also a city with lots of quaint ethnic neighbourhoods and lots of green. It is an eminently liveable city.
An important part of Toronto is its green space. There are hundreds of parks and parkettes and so-called “urban wildernesses”. The urban wildernesses are probably among Toronto’s best kept secrets, and among its most surprising. Even most Torontonians are not or hardly aware of the existence of these wildernesses and it is quite possible to spend a lifetime in the city and never come into contact with them. Yet, they exist, they are abundant, and they make it possible to see some real wildlife in the heart of this City of Cities.
Having just survived a heatwave, I decided to go for a walk on Saturday, 10 July 2010. My walk took me from Ryerson University to Riverdale Park West, next to Toronto’s only city farm, across and then north along the Don River in the Don Valley to historic Todmorden Mills where I visited the wildflower preserve. From there, I crossed the Don River again and walked south along the Don River to the Brick Works, where I climbed the slopes to the Governor’s Bridge Lookout, and then returned to the inhabited part of the city via Chorley Park, and finished where I started at Ryerson University.
I’d like to clear something up here. I am most definitely not a hiker. Hiking does not interest me one bit. I am a walker. That means that the physical efforts are not the goal, only the means to see what I want to see. It also means that most of my walks are not going according to plan. I follow my nose, or a fascinating little bug, a snail, or a trail I haven’t seen before, or anything else that somehow manages to catch my attention at that time.
That said, I can’t go on walkabout without any preparation, and in that, I resemble a hiker. Where I go, there are usually no wash-rooms, no stores, no restaurants, and there is no fast and easy way to get to them. That means that I need to carry everything I will need, from toilet paper to food and drinks.
I had brought a 350 g loaf of self-baked bread and a pot of chocolate paste, and two one-litre Nalgene bottles, filled with ice cubes and topped up with water. This time, I left at 6:30 in the morning, and I was back 2:45 in the afternoon, and I was both very hungry and really thirsty when I came back. I should have brought more, especially water. I had planned to be back at noon, and those nearly three hours extra made a big difference. It’s a lesson: better bring more, rather than less.
I used to freeze water in the Nalgene bottles, but the ice cube cum water method is -in my experience- a lot better. One, there is no risk of breaking the bottles by overfilling and freezing them. Two, a small amount of really cold water is available right away. The bottles are put in an isolation bag. This has the advantage of slowing down the melting of the ice, and of containing any annoying condensation on the outside of the bottles. The bottles are wrapped in a light kitchen towel as well. This absorbs the condensation and is kept cold by the ice: a welcome coolant when the sun gets too hot.
Leaving at 6:30 am had the advantage that I was able to avoid some of the heat that was to come. Since most people were still sleeping, it was also quiet. The disadvantage is that it is a lot harder to take pictures at this time of the morning, because of the harsh contrasts.
The video starts at the staircase of Riverdale West Park. I use it to go to the pedestrian bridge over the Don Valley Parkway, that has itself a staircase allowing access to the Don Valley Trail. The video contains images from this point all the way to Pottery Road where Todmorden Mills is located.
Although I am always looking for herps, I have not been particularly successful along the Don. Once, I have seen a common garter snake there, but that was years ago. This time, however, I did see a black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax). While not as spectacular as a great blue heron, it is always a pleasure to see these red-eyed herons at work, and when they take to the air, they offer an impressive spectacle indeed.
At 8:07 am, I arrived at Todmorden Mills, where I proceeded for the wildflower preserve right away. The most interesting animals I saw were a northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) and a green frog (Rana clamitans). After visiting the preserve, I sat down at one of the tables to have breakfast, and read a bit in Trick or Treatment, a book on medical quackery by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst that I highly recommend.
Todmorden Mills is one of the most enjoyable places in all of Toronto for a picnic, because the tables are close to large trees that provide shade, unlike most places where the tables are being burned by the sun.
From Todmorden Mills, I went to the Brick Works, another historic industrial site along the Don Valley. Going from Todmorden Mills to the Brick Works is not particularly pedestrian-friendly. One has to cross Pottery Road to walk along its north side to cross the bridge, and then cross Pottery Road again, to follow a trail going south along the railway. In order to cross Bayview Avenue to access the Brick Works, one has to wait quite a while for the traffic lights to change. This is a very dangerous crossing, and waiting for the traffic lights is therefore a must.
This was a Saturday, and Evergreen Brick Works was having its weekly Farmer’s Market where “Organic” is all the buzz. It was a nice reminder that the Green-and-Organic crowd is often anything but and with the typical ignorance-inspired arrogance of the middle classes, they parked their SUVs and other gas guzzlers along both sides of Bayview Avenue, a place where it is not only illegal to park (who cares?) but also highly dangerous, which is far more important.
Yet, coming by car is both officially discouraged by Evergreen, the company that exploits the site, as well as unnecessary, since there is both a shuttle service and a regular bus service to the site, and that’s not taking into account bus stops at mere minutes from the site and the access possibilities through Chorley Park.
Fortunately, the activities of Evergreen are limited to the historic buildings and the nature park itself is maintained by the City of Toronto. This time, I walked through most of the pathways, along most of the ponds, and I also took the path up the slope to the Governor’s Bridge Lookout on the ridge around the quarry. From the lookout, I walked all the way along the path on the ridge to the Northern Slope, which I often call the Geological Slope because of its geological importance.
A word of caution here: about halfway the Northern Slope, the trail slopes down steeply for not much more than a metre, maybe less, and the path continues. Don’t be tempted to walk any further. Although the path looks inviting enough, it becomes harder and harder to follow it, and you may get stuck with no way to go forward and no way to go back. On top of that, it’s a long way down, as can be seen from the pictures. At one time, I ended up having no choice but to let myself fall against a tree a metre or so below me. It was scary, and dangerous, and not good for the slope either. So, when you see this break in the path, turn around and return. This is your only warning, since there are no warning signs on the trail.
After descending from the slope, I walked to the Northern Slope again, this time through the meadows. A narrow trail brought me to Moore Park Ravine. I followed it until I could cross to the other side (underneath the Governor’s Bridge) and then turned to the direction I came form, following the path. Eventually, I came to a slope with two narrow trails that cross each other. A friend once asked me where those trails went, so I followed one of them to take some pictures and show her. As you can see in the video, the trails end in Chorley Park, a park of the manicured-lawn-vacuum-cleaned-tree type so typical for city parks. It is a beautiful and large park, that was once home to the palatial residence of the Ontario Lieutenant Governor.
From Chorley Park, I followed my instincts to return to Ryerson University where I started, and took a few pictures along the way, most of which are not in the video, because of the 10-minute time limit. The last picture is a small park in St. James Town.
In all, I hope that this video illustrates that Toronto offers more than skyscrapers and historic and ethnic neighbourhoods, but is also a green city where manicured parks and wildernesses are never far away, and always accessible for an enjoyable walks in beautiful and natural surroundings.
I should add that this was a 17.2 km walk and therefore not necessarily for everyone. Since there are several entrance/exit points along the way, it is possible to break up this walk in several shorter walks.
Toronto, City in a Park, is more than just another idle slogan invented by a cotton-headed marketeer. It’s actually an accurate description of this City of Cities.
