Parks are for everyone.

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Most Toronto parks on a weekend are filled with people enjoying themselves. To paraphrase an old saying, Parks are the lungs of the city and a natural setting with trees and grass provides cleaner and fresher air along with a chance to relax.

There are parks that are ideal for picnics while others provide tranquility and a natural setting. Some Toronto parks have bathrooms and built in barbecue stands while others, like Raymore Park are more natural.

Glorious fall colours in Raymore Park’s wild area (October 2013).

Raymore Park is quite large and there are areas where you can throw a ball, walk the dog, have a picnic or just sit on one of the many benches and contemplate. Watching the water going over the weir is mesmerizing and the negative ions created by falling water are said to be therapeutic. If you like shade, there are lots of trees – just be careful not to feed the summer mosquitoes! There’s even a rudimentary baseball diamond tucked away north of the dog off-leash area. We don’t have flower beds or seasonal plantings but we have a large variety of flora and fauna.

Geese enjoying the weir in September 2022.

In nearby Lions Park, people like to set up in groups and barbecue on warm weekends. They bring chairs and tables, awnings and coolers and relax by the river. Walking or cycling past these groups is a treat for the nose and if your hunger is stimulated, there’s an increasing number of fast (and slow) food locations a five-minute walk away on Weston Road.

Who are the people using parks? Every age group, athletic level and ethnicity are represented in Toronto’s green spaces and ravines; people looking for exercise, a meal or a relaxing stroll. There are no barriers or fees, everyone is welcome and people become more relaxed when they arrive. If you want to strike up a conversation, talk to a dog owner about their dog – or better yet, borrow a dog and walk it in the park (on leash of course). Dogs are instant ice-breakers. There are many volunteer organizations that help clean our parks after a long winter (locally it’s Humber River Pals) and get rid of accumulated litter while others look for invasive plants and remove them. Garlic mustard is a frequent target for those wanting some springtime greens and provide breathing room for native plants.

Raymore’s wooded area in October 2021.

It is possible to cycle from Raymore Park down to Lake Ontario with very few diversions onto side streets. The trail loosely follows the Humber to it’s mouth on the lake. Cycling through several parks on the way down to the lake reveals the variety of beautiful parks along the Humber.

So what’s stopping you? Get out and enjoy.

Raymore Park: changes over the years – Part 1.

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This year marks 30 years since I started coming to Raymore Park. During that time many changes have occurred, most of them reflecting adjustments in park philosophy and management.

1. Pesticides:

Herbicides were sprayed here – just north of the current off-leash area. October 2000.

Back in 1993, park staff would spray grassy areas with herbicide in order to keep weeds down and in particular, poison ivy. They used Roundup (Glyphosate) which is pretty potent. Caution notices were placed on the grass informing people that weedkiller had been sprayed but these didn’t last long. At that time, much more of the park was grass (more on that in another article). Despite the claims of Monsanto, Roundup when sprayed over such a wide area is probably terrible for wildlife and dogs. The City banned pesticides in theory in late 1998 but the practice continued for a while after that according to this article from 2000.

2. The Humber Footbridge.

The 1917 ‘swing’ footbridge that was condemned and replaced in 1950. Photo via Weston Historical Society.

When Hurricane Hazel struck in 1954, a four-year-old footbridge over the Humber was swept away. This link between Westmount and the stores in Weston wasn’t replaced until 1995 some 41 years later. The bridge gets a substantial amount of use from cyclists, sightseers and commuters who can be whisked to the airport or downtown in about 15 minutes via the UP Express on Weston Road.

Read this excellent article on the three Weston footbridges from the Weston Historical Society.

The bridge with an abutment of the 1950 version in the foreground; looking upstream in March 2009.

3. Garbage Containers.

Garbage containers were either lined wire-mesh bins or the occasional re-purposed oil drum back in the 20th Century. There were no recycling containers back then – just open-topped receptacles that went uncollected during the winter. The cans and baskets weren’t replaced with the current wheeled carts until 2012.

Even with our clearly marked carts, park users are fairly indiscriminate where they toss their waste, so the recycling bins become contaminated and their contents worthless. As a result, garbage and recycling are collected by the same truck and the contents lumped in altogether.

From February 2004.

Humber Gap project gets deep-sixed by Ford government.

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The Humber Gap is the name of the missing segment of the Humber Trail between Mallaby Park and Cardell Avenue. Apart from the infamous gap, the Trail connects Brampton to Lake Ontario. At the moment, cyclists wishing to proceed north must climb a hefty set of stairs then risk life and limb on busy Weston Road which is optimistically painted with sharrows. These indicate that cyclists are to share the road with other vehicles without barriers or protection.

The perilous stretch of Weston Road with an actual sharrow in September 2020.

The Trail can be re-joined after deking into Cardell Avenue opposite the Loblaws Supercentre.

With much public encouragement, Toronto city planners have tried to solve the problem for years. Read this excellent blog post and the follow-up about the difficult choices that planners had to make. A ton of money went into designing alternative the routes, a Municipal Class Environmental Assessment and public consultations.

After receiving much input, a decision was made to create a path that stayed at river level, crossing the Humber twice as it navigated the patchwork of public and private properties along the way.

From: toronto.ca (click to enlarge)

One of the private properties affected is the Weston Golf and Country Club which had raised some concerns about safety of cyclists and pedestrians travelling along the edge of their property. WGCC were also concerned that flood events may wash away the new trail. The city assured them that fencing would be secure and that the trail would be built high enough to be safe from flooding. No doubt they weren’t keen on losing a strip of land as well as the issues that members of the public might bring to the course.

Luckily WGCC has friends in high places and out of the blue (literally) came word that:

“On January 18, 2023, the Minister of Environment Conservation, and Parks (David Piccini) (the “Minister”) issued an order requiring that the City and TRCA carry out an individual environmental assessment of the Project (the “Order”). The Order states that allowing the Project to proceed on the basis of the MCEA (Municipal Class Environmental Assessment) would not be consistent with the purposes of the Act.“

Conveniently, the reasons behind adding this additional environmental assessment are confidential but uncharitable speculators might assume that the WGCC membership doesn’t want the project to happen and they have pulled some strings. Not coincidentally, Premier Doug Ford lives about a kilometre away from the golf club.

That’s the thing with hiding behind confidentiality, people get to speculate. If I was a betting man I would speculate that the project is dead.

Billions of trees!

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Trees are great at cleaning the air and capturing carbon. They also moderate the extremes of weather and keep wind speeds down year-round. They also smooth out temperatures, keeping them lower in summer and higher in winter. Recognizing this, Prime Minister Trudeau promised that Canada would plant 2 billion trees by 2030. This was during the 2019 election campaign and we all know the value of campaign promises.

From Democrat and Chronicle.

The idea for a mass tree planting may have come from New Zealand and Australia which had announced similar ambitious goals in 2018 and 2019. The U.S. is also promising to plant 4.1 billion trees in the same timeline as Canada. All told, Canada has around 318 billion trees so adding two billion to the total won’t be a big increase. In fact it won’t even replace the trees that will be cut down by then. Even so, two billion has a nice ring to it.

Presumably the Liberals thought they would be safely out of office by 2030 and wouldn’t have to worry about actually achieving the target. According to lots of news outlets, the number of trees planted thus far is pretty dismal. The government says it planted about 29 million trees in 2021. At that rate the two billionth tree will be planted around the year 2092. The job of planting and monitoring the trees has been entrusted to Natural Resources Canada but tellingly, the 2BT initiative isn’t high enough of a priority to make the front page of their website.

Obviously vast tracts of land will need to be planted in order to achieve the two billion target. Even so, Raymore Park stands ready to play its part – there’s lots of room at the park entrance and around the dog off-leash area (both of which could do with some shade in summer).

Looking south towards the dog off-leash area. April 16, 2023.

Whatever we do, let’s make sure we protect any new trees from our local beavers!

UPDATE, June 14, 2023:

According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the federal government was never in a position to plant billions of trees as it’s the provinces that do most of the tree planting in Canada. On June 13, 2023, Environment Commissioner Jerry DeMarco testified at the Commons natural resources committee that, “We found that given the number of trees planted so far, this program is unlikely to succeed unless significant changes are made.”

Auditor Kimberly Leach said that provinces would have to do most of the planting and that Cabinet had not signed up all provinces to do so.

According to Blacklock’s, “The program originally budgeted at $3.16 billion over ten years is now expected to cost $5.94 billion, by Budget Office estimate.”

Today in Raymore Park – April 13, 2023.

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A group of TRCA employees and volunteers was on a litter cleanup this morning and they gathered quite a haul of trash in perfect weather with temperatures in the 20’s.

All in a morning’s work.

I shouldn’t be surprised at the volume of trash and litter the park receives on a regular basis but this is a fairly typical haul for springtime and more was being gathered while I was there.

Tree graveyard – what’s going on?

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Just south of the leash-free zone in Raymore Park there’s a narrow rectangular strip of woodland that stretches below the houses along Westbank Crescent.

The small woodland runs west of the Humber from just north of the weir and runs alongside Scarlett. (Google Maps) (Click to enlarge)

The strip extends down to Eglinton but the area in question ends at the Humber Creek and is about 200m long.

Inside this small flood-plain wood lie the trunks of many trees that have fallen – seemingly pushed over and uprooted by a strange and powerful force.

Looking south at the entrance to the wood. (April 2023) (Click to enlarge)

The downed trees are mainly at the base of the hill that rises up to Westbank Crescent and Scarlett Road (on the right in these images). This hill is thought to have been part of the shore of Lake Iroquois, which existed about 13,000 years ago.

Further south and more uprooted trees. (April 2023) (Click to enlarge)

This tree graphically illustrates the violence of what is going on.

Looking south a tree has been violently snapped in two about 8 feet off the ground. (April 2023) (Click to enlarge)

It looks as if the downward slope of the hill is helping to focus intense, violent downbursts and uprooting trees during summer thunderstorms when such wind gusts are common.

Why is the last tree bent over the opposite way to the others? I have no idea other than it might be some sort of rolling vortex that caught the top of the tree during a storm. It must have been a powerful gust.

Given the sheer quantity of downed trunks it might be wise to steer clear of this area when a summer storm is forecast.

Are there beavers in Raymore Park?

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The amount of wildlife in Toronto parks is quite amazing and we aren’t always aware of the secret lives of the animals who live alongside us. Yes, beavers are a presence in Raymore Park and although it’s rare to see them, we can often see signs of them.

This young tree is close to the bike path by the footbridge. (April 2023)

One sign is the tell-tale gnawing of tree trunks at about 30-40 cm above the ground – often leaving a stump with a conical point. When the city plants trees in Raymore Park, they have (usually) learned to protect the new trees’ trunks with wire cages or else beavers will make quick (and expensive) work of them. Another sign might be a noisy tail splash – used as a warning to other beavers as you approach the water. Sometimes a cluster of sticks on the riverbank is evidence of a lodge.

Protect it or else… (July 2018)

Beavers need to eat wood as part of their diet and since their rodent teeth are constantly growing, gnawing on wood helps keep them in trim. Beavers restrict the flow of rivers and therefore mitigate the impact of flooding. Other wildlife benefit from the presence of these native animals. Eurasian beavers (slightly different to our North American variety) were hunted to extinction in the U.K. a few centuries ago but have been re-introduced in several locations throughout the British Isles and particularly in Scotland.

A fallen branch suspended at the right height is being consumed by beavers. (April 2023).

Where can beavers be seen in Raymore Park? One place seems to be fairly constant from year to year. There is an island just above the weir where they often hang out as it’s relatively safe from disturbance from humans and especially dogs. The Humber is quite wide so rather than dam the river, beavers will create a riverbank lodge that accommodates several animals.

A beaver swimming upstream by the island in May 2013.

Be patient as beavers are shy and usually hide when humans are present. If a dog is swimming in the river, a beaver might attack (they have the advantage in the water) so it’s wise to follow park leash rules.

A pair of ducks across from the clearly visible beaver island lodge. (April 2023).
‘Beaver Island lodge’ in summer (on the far bank). (August 2018) (click to enlarge)

A bench above the dam can be a good observation spot. Early mornings and late evenings are the best times for catching a glimpse of these mainly nocturnal creatures.

A costly lesson in neighbouring Lions Park. This tree was planted just a few years ago. (April 2023)

Lastly, a piece of beaver trivia – the minster town of Beverley in Yorkshire, England – which gave its name to Beverley Massachusetts and subsequently Beverley Hills in California – was named because of the beavers once living there. The town’s coat of arms proudly sports a Eurasian beaver.

Beverly Town Council coat of arms (from Wikipedia).

Spring Runoff

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Temperatures hit the mid-teens today and with yesterday’s rain adding to melting snow coming from further north, the Humber river is running high. A good benchmark is the old footbridge abutment and today it was almost underwater. Adding to the drama, logs and dead trees were cascading down the river – probably after being blown over during this winter’s storms, having waited for a good flood to float them and flush them down to Lake Ontario.

The abutment can just be seen slightly to the right of centre behind the farthest log. Click to enlarge.

The Condo building called ‘The Humber’ is almost ready for occupancy and residents facing the river will soon have a ringside seat for the ever-changing river landscape as it makes a 90° turn in front of the building.

A few hundred metres downriver at the weir, some large trees were stuck as they lumbered over the edge. The roar of the river by the weir is quite something. People were standing mesmerized, soaking up the vibrations.

A couple witness the power of the river with their dogs. Click to enlarge.
Two people watch from the Mount Dennis side as trees get stuck on the weir’s edge. Click to enlarge.

Water levels should go down tomorrow during a one-day temperature dip but inevitably, spring is pushing its way north.

No doubt we’ll be complaining about the heat soon.

The ever growing Condo

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The site at 1746 Weston Road and Wilby is going to be redeveloped. The current occupant is the Starfish Caribbean Market which has operated there for many years. A developer, imaginatively called A1 Development has proposed placing a condo on the site.

A year ago, the developer proposed a 25-storey building with 253 units that would, they claimed, …”fit harmoniously within the existing context of tall buildings along the Weston Road corridor in Toronto”. In reality all of the area’s buildings have several fewer than 25 storeys but never mind. A1 used an architect who created a quite nice design with a nod to art-deco curves.

From urbantoronto.ca

This month, A1 announced a redesign of the building and has goosed the floor count up to 40 storeys. As for context (and harmony), Hickory Tower will be more than double the height of most high rise buildings in the neighbourhood and will squeeze in an extra 193 apartments for a total of 446 units. The art-deco design has been dumped for a more angular utilitarian look. No details have emerged about the size of the apartments but I wouldn’t expect generosity or an appropriate range of bedrooms.

The 40-storey update – not so art-deco. From urbantoronto.ca

What kind of an impact will about 950 new residents have on the area? Well for starters, there will only be 113 underground parking spaces with a less than generous 25 spaces for visitors. No doubt the residential side-streets will be flooded with parked cars. Despite the neighbourhood being well served by transit and the U.P Express / GO service, it’s not that walkable for groceries. There will be some retail on the ground floor but the developer will provide no customer parking. On the plus side, 447 bicycle spaces will be provided but cycling is still an unrealistic option in Toronto’s climate and disconnected bicycle network. Raymore Park will obviously be affected and a large increase in foot and bicycle traffic can be anticipated. The adjacent 232 condos at 10 Wilby will be occupied starting in spring of this year. Incidentally, there are 150 parking spots in that building.

How will the city view this latest iteration? Based on the sheer scale it will stick out like a sore thumb and based on the number of units, seems to be aiming at maximum possible profit. Generally, condos should allow spaces in bedrooms for children to study and the trend these days is for buildings to have fewer studio apartments while increasing numbers of two and three-bedroom suites. As for amenities, the area is not well served having been neglected for decades. Toronto’s planning department should reject it out of hand.

Read the urbantoronto.ca article here.

Protest planned for January 7

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From Stop the Trains in Our Parks:

Join us for a peaceful protest to tell Metrolinx and the Ford Government to listen to the community and keep the entire Eglinton Crosstown West Extension (ECWE) underground. We must act now: Metrolinx plans to clear cut thousands of trees in the coming months!

Date: Saturday, January 7, 2023 

Time: 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Location: Starts at the parking lot at 101 Emmett Avenue (near Jane Street and Eglinton Avenue West)

Bring your family, friends and neighbours! Help spread the word!


The Indigenous community and residents in York South-Weston/Mount Dennis are fed up with Metrolinx and the Ford Government’s complete lack of transparency and meaningful community consultation on their ill-conceived plan to build a 1.5km section of the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension (ECWE) LRT as an elevated concrete structure running through irreplaceable urban forest and parkland.

We support the ECWE but demand that this 1.5km section is built underground like the rest of the line. Metrolinx has publicly admitted it is technically feasible to go underground. 

This greenspace—the Humber River, Eglinton Flats and Fergy Brown Park—is a sensitive ecosystem and wildlife corridor that is home to Threatened and Endangered species. It is used for Indigenous ceremony and education, recreation, sports and social activities. 

Who’s leading the protest?

The protest is being led by the ENAGB Indigenous Youth Agency, with the support of allies and community groups, including Stop the Trains in Our Parks (STOP), the Mount Dennis Community Association (MDCA), the Mount Dennis eco-Neighbourhood Initiative (MDeNI), and others. 

About the ECWE

The Eglinton Crosstown West Extension (ECWE) will continue the Eglinton Crosstown LRT from Mount Dennis Station west to Renforth Drive. Metrolinx and the Ford Government plan to build most of the ECWE underground (the section that runs through Etobicoke), but in Mount Dennis, one of the most economically-disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the city, they plan on constructing an elevated LRT train expressway through Fergy Brown Park, Eglinton Flats and over the Humber River, with two massive overhead stations over Jane Street and Scarlett Road.

Learn more

Watch ENAGB’s video message 

Read ENAGB’s letter to Metrolinx Board Chair and Ford Government 

Watch video with drone footage of the parkland  

Questions?

Email stopthetrainsinourparks@gmail.com