Riverdale Farm

Monday Feb. 16, 2015

Minus 19 feeling like minus 27 but it is Family Day in Ontario thus requiring that I do something with my day off other than sit around and worry about how cold it is. I parked on Carlton Street near West Riverdale Park.

John Scadding had come to Upper Canada with Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe and after working as a government clerk he was granted land near York. In 1856 the city purchased 119 acres from the Scadding estate on which to build a jail farm (Don Jail) and a park. On Aug. 11, 1880 Riverdale Park officially opened. In 1888 some deer were donated and by 1894 there were enough exotic animals to open Riverdale Zoo.

Around the same time that the animals were being collected, the city was hatching a plan to straighten the Don river where it flowed through the lower part of the city. The Lower Don snaked back and forth and flowed through a series of marshes and wetlands similar to the Humber Marshes. By placing the Don into a straight deep channel they hoped to make shipping accessible to the local industry. Flooding and mosquitoes were also supposed to be better controlled by eliminating the marsh land The project started where the river flowed through this piece of property. The river was moved to the east and the section on the site of Riverdale Zoo was cut off from the rest of the river. The ponds that exist on the lower zoo property are, in fact, left over pieces of the river. In the May 1888 map below the river is shown on the Riverdale Park and Jail farm near the right side of the map.

Sitting in the middle of this section of the old river is an island which can only be reached by means of a stone arch bridge. There are only three buildings remaining from the days of the Riverdale Zoo and one of them stands on the island. Known as the Island House it still has the bars in the windows from its days as The Monkey House. The picture below is from Dec. 14, 1921 when there were no trees on the little island.

The Monkey House today serves as a storage shed for garden equipment.

The residence was built in 1902 by captives of the Don Jail. It served as a zoo keeper’s residence, staff building, animal hospital and temporary morgue for the Necropolis across the street. The bricks on this home are made of regular pressed brick as well as a material that looks like coal slag. The bricks have not been placed in even rows and some stick out from the side of the building giving it a most unusual look.

The Donnybrook ruins stand near the cow paddock. This building was originally a two story building with a tower but only the lower floor remains. When the floor was poured, a hippopotamus sat in the wet concrete and left his rump print for posterity. Kids have been sticking their feet in wet cement ever since.

Riverdale Zoo, like other Victorian zoos, took little care to display the animals in their natural settings. The city began to look for a new location for a modern zoo and a site in Scarborough was selected. The new zoo opened in 1974 and the Riverdale zoo closed on June 30, 1974.

Over the next 4 years most of the zoo buildings and cages were torn down except for the three described above. It was decided to turn the zoo into a working farm as an educational site for local school children. Riverdale Farm opened in 1978 as a free public park. Several new buildings were constructed to illustrate life in a 19th century farm. The Simpson House is a replica of an 1852 home that stood on the Francey farm in Markham.

Inside the pig and poultry barn there are several different types of chickens, ducks and turkeys.

The Francey Barn was built in 1858 in Markham and was donated to Riverdale farm. It is a rare surviving sample of a Pennsylvania bank barn. Designed and built into a hill side or river bank these barns have ground floor access to both the upper and lower floors. The picture below shows the huge hand hewn timbers that the barn was constructed from. The trees on an individual’s land grant would be used to build their homes and barns. This barn was taken apart, moved here and re-assembled in 1975. Having grown up in small town Ontario I was taken back to my youth by the familiar smell inside the barn.

When the dutch came to Ontario from Pennsylvania they brought some of their traditions with them. The Mennonite’s call their places of worship a meeting house and one of the largest church groups in Ontario is called The Meeting House. In keeping with the theme of the farm, the drop in centre is called the Meeting House.

In the Francey barn are many antique items including old sleighs and carriages. One that I found particularly interesting is this old wooden barrel washing machine. Gilson was a manufacturer of washing machines, dryers, gas engines and furnaces that operated in Guelph from 1907 until 1977. By 1920 enamel barrels had replaced the wooden ones to make cleaning easier and the machine much quieter. Electric washing machines were first made in 1907 and the machine in the picture below was likely made within the first decade of production.

Across the street from the farm sits the Necropolis. This burying ground was opened in 1850 when the “potter’s field” cemetery at the north west corner of Yonge and Bloor was found to be on prime development land and was closed and moved. A crematorium was added in 1933. Some of the early founders of the city are interred here including the old rebel himself, William Lyon Mackenzie.

For now the Polar Bears have moved to the new Toronto Zoo where they have a much more natural habitat than the concrete pond they used to call home and the animals on the farm now enjoy a pastoral setting.

Thanks to my brother Allan who suggested I visit this site. It was a lot of fun and may need some more exploration in the summer.

Like us at http://www.facebook.com/hikingthegta

National Flag Day

2 Replies

Saturday Feb. 14, 2015

The weatherman has been calling for a very cold weekend with wind chills in the range of -40, but this morning it was only -7 feeling like -18. We parked in West Deane Park and headed south along the east side of Mimico Creek. After the trail passes under Martin Grove Road the park changes names to become Ravenscrest Park.

Sumacs are one of the first plants to take hold on previously cleared land. They can reach heights of over thirty feet and produce a type of fruit known as a drupe. These clusters of reddish fruit are known as sumac bobs and form the tips of each branch. Sumac is used as a spice in some middle eastern foods and also as a dye. The drupes are used as a winter source of food for birds who spread the seeds through their droppings. In the picture below sumac bobs frame the sun as it was peeking out from behind the clouds.

On July 21, 1793 the Queen’s Rangers under the direction of Lieutenant-Governor General Simcoe landed on the north shore of Lake Ontario and stuck a British flag in the soil where they would build Fort York. This was the founding of the town of York (Toronto) and the beginning of Simcoe’s plans for the defense of Upper Canada. Simcoe moved the capital of the colony from Newark (Niagara) to York in 1797. In 1801 the British flag was modified to include a red saltire inside of the existing white one to represent the Irish who were united with England that year. The British flag is known as the union flag. It is only correctly called a union jack if it is flying on a naval vessel.

During the war of 1812 the Americans attacked Fort York on April 27, 1813. The British, sensing defeat, decided to retreat to Kingston to prevent the army from being captured. They left their flag flying at Fort York to fool the attackers into thinking they remained inside. On the way out they detonated their munitions store to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. When the dust settled the Americans replaced the British flag with their own and used the British one for a pillow for General Pike who was mortally wounded in the explosion. This is the only British flag ever captured in battle that was never recovered.

The Union Flag was used in Canada until after confederation. In 1868 Canada adopted a Red Ensign with the union flag in the upper corner, and featuring the arms of each of the four original provinces. In 1922 the Royal Arms of Canada replaced the provincial arms and 3 green maple leaves adorned the bottom of the crest. In 1957 the maple leaves were changed to red.

Having the union flag as part of the Canadian flag became an issue during the Suez Crisis in 1956 as the Egyptian government objected to Canadian Peacekeepers because of it. The flag was never popular in french Canada, also because of the union flag it contained. In the early 1960’s a proposal came to create a uniquely Canadian Flag. The new flag was to feature nothing distinctive to any group of people which meant it could not contain the union flag or the french fleur-de-lis. A symmetrical design was chosen so the the front and back would look the same in the wind. An 11 point maple leaf was selected because wind tunnel experiments showed there was the least distortion of the leaf in high winds. The flag was officially flown for the first time in a ceremony on Parliament Hill on Feb. 15, 1965. As I write this on Sunday afternoon of Feb. 15, 2015 the flag is celebrating it’s 50th birthday. Happy Birthday to our flag!

As we walked through Ravenscrest Park we saw that one of the homes on the top of the ravine was flying our flag. The picture below and the cover photo illustrate the majesty of the Canadian Flag.

We followed the trail under Rathburn road into Echo Valley Park. There is section of trail here that passes through a wooded area. If you stand on the side of the trail for a few minutes all the birds that have been scattering in front of you will return. We saw a selection of Blue Jays, Cardinals, Doves, Downey and Hairy Woodpeckers and Chickadees. A Kestrel appears to have seen them as well.

Along here we saw an old utility pole on which someone has spray painted a heart with an arrow through it. Since it was Valentine’s Day when we noticed the pole it seemed to be appropriate. There are several traditions surrounding the origins of Valentine’s Day, some suggesting Christian roots and others Roman. Either way, greeting card companies manage to sell 150 million cards each each year. Valentine’s Day is special to me and my wife as well because eight years ago we got engaged on this day.

A common tool used for inventory control in manufacturing is known as the Kanban System. A tag is used to identify a quantity of an item. When that quantity is consumed the tag becomes the ticket to order replacement stock. Toyota has been credited with developing the system in 1953 but in reality it has been in use far longer than that. In Toronto there were community dairies in various parts of the city. Due to poor refrigeration, milk had to be delivered almost daily. Houses had a milk chute (delivery door) like the one featured in the picture below. If you needed milk you just left your empties and the money in the chute and when you came home there were fresh bottles of milk there instead.

As we continued down stream we saw that someone’s playground toys have ended up frozen in the middle of Mimico Creek.

The ice on Mimico Creek is several inches thick in most places and people have been going back and forth. On the opposite side of the creek is an ornate bench that someone has crossed over to examine. Perhaps it was just a two minute bench minor.

There is a foot of snow on the ground but there appear to be some interesting areas here for exploring later in the year.

The Arsenal Lands

13 Replies

Saturday Feb. 7, 2015

Along the Lakeshore stands an abandoned water tower, part of a WW2 small arms factory and rifle testing range. Today we are 49 days into winter with only 42 remaining which to me means its almost over. The forecasters are calling for up to 30 cm of snow over the next couple of days. Even so, this is the first hike of the winter where I’ve switched from hiking to winter boots. It was minus 4 with almost no wind chill and a steady light snow. I parked in the parking lot for Marie Curtis Park on the west side of the Etobicoke Creek.

Col. Samuel Smith was granted lots 4-7 in 1806 and they remained in his family until they were sold to the Halliday’s in 1877. They were used for mixed farming for the next few years. Following confederation in 1867 the British Government wanted the new country of Canada to assume greater responsibility for its own defense. In 1868 the Ontario Rifle Association was formed for the training of militia. They used the garrison common at Fort York until 1891 but the increase in the use of the CNE grounds and the addition of a passenger wharf at the foot of Dufferin Street made firing rifles at the fort increasingly unsafe. The property on the west side of Etobicoke Creek was purchased as the Long Branch Rifle Ranges. A militia and cadet training camp was maintained on the site until WWI when the Royal Air Force administration offices were located here. Canada’s first aerodrome was at Long Branch and over 130 students had graduated, at a cost of $400 each, by the time it closed in December 1916. William Faulkner, the famous author, was stationed here while training for the Royal Canadian Air Force.

The most prominent structure remaining on the site today is the old water tower. It was built in 1941 to serve the needs of the industry on the site.

In 1935 the Department of National Defense purchased the property with the idea of creating an arms manufacturing site. Small Arms Limited was founded as a crown corporation on August 7, 1940 to supply the Canadian Military with rifles for use in WWII. The 1957 picture below shows the factory and several out buildings. The large building with the lines on the top is shaped like an “L” with the black circle in the inner corner of the “L” being the water tower. The rifle range building is in the lower left and the first several baffles can be seen below it.

Women played a major role in the workforce at Small Arms Limited as can be seen in the cover photo making up most of the staff by 1943. The factory produced its first weapons in June 1941 and by the end of the year had made 7,589. By 1943 the plant was working three shifts, using 5,500 employees to produce over 30,000 units per month. World War Two ended in 1945 and war-time production was completed in December with over 900,000 rifles and 126,00 machine guns having been produced. Various military parts were produced in the facility from then until it closed in 1974. At the foot of the water tower stand two yellow gas regulators that were installed at the time the Small Arms company was founded. They are dated 1940.

In 1910 Canada’s Department of Militia and Defense (renamed the Department of National Defense in 1922) acquired the property and built the wooden baffles that remain in place today. The DND built firing booths in 1940 to assist with the training of militiamen for service in WWII. The rows of baffles and concrete backstop can be seen in the centre of the 1957 aerial picture below.

On the short rifle range there are 16 remaining baffles after 105 years exposed to the elements. Originally there were 30 of these which were hollow and filled with sand and soil. They were intended to stop any stray bullets from leaving the range but also served to provide sound barriers for the adjacent small arms factory. The picture below shows one of the few that is intact and not over grown with brush. These wooden baffles are the last of their kind from this era in Ontario and are considered a militarily significant heritage site.

At the back end of the rifle range is a fifteen foot high and thirty-five foot wide concrete backstop which was constructed around 1925. It’s surface is dotted with the impacts of hundreds of bullets from over the years.

The only manufacturing building remaining on site is building number 12. Dating to 1939, it was used as the rifle inspection facility. It has a double fence, each with three strands of barbed wire surrounding it. I guess they don’t want you to go in there.

The various uses of the site over the years has taken the farm land and left it with a mix of PBC’s, VOC’s, metals and radioactive waste. Over 72,000 tonnes of contaminated soil was removed from the site between 1998 and 2002. The consolidation mound pictured here contains low level radioactive soil that has been buried in a containment facility since 2005. It sits inside a third barbed wire fence behind the inspection building. I guess they really don’t want you to go in there.

Circling back through the Small Arms Ltd property I noticed that someone left the door open at the top of the water tower. Anyone want to climb up that ladder on the roof and close it?

Making my way across the Lakeshore Road edge of the arsenal lands I came to Etobicoke Creek. The trail along the creek’s edge brings you to a bridge that crosses the creek to the east side. Following the disaster of Hurricane Hazel in 1954 when the creek flooded destroying the homes along 43rd street (see Middle Road Bridge) this area was taken under authority of the conservation authority and Marie Curtis Park was created. I walked that side of the creek to where it spills into the lake. The ice on the railing at the edge of the lake is several inches thick and, to me, resembles baleen plates like those in the mouth of a baleen whale.

Bufflehead ducks suddenly disappear when they are feeding and can pop back up several metres from where they dove. They are distinct with their white and black markings and spend the winter in sheltered bays and inlets. I watched a few of them right in the mouth of the creek.

There are likely artifacts located here that will only be visible when the snow is melted. I guess we’ll have to see sometime.

Like us at http://www.facebook.com/hikingthegta

West Deane Park

5 Replies

Sat. Jan. 31, 2015

It was -11 feeling like -12 which seemed like a nice temperature considering that the weatherman had been calling for -18 with a wind chill of -30. It started off cloudy but the sun came out a little later on. We parked in the parking lot off of Martin Grove at West Deane Park.

Andrew and Martha Coulter emigrated to Etobicoke from Ireland in 1822 along with the first two of nine children. They bought 100 acres of land which lay between highway 27 and Martin Grove Road, halfway between Rathburn and Eglinton in an area known as Richview. Over the next few years they acquired an additional 150 acres. The Coulter’s operated the farm until the 1880’s and in 1939 the land was purchased by construction magnate Percy Law. He kept race horses here until he sold it for development in 1956.

We crossed Mimico Creek and headed uphill on the south side of the bridge. At the top of the hill we found a small playground where there was a coyote sitting in the distance in the snow. Coyote are related to the grey wolf and have become quite adept at living in close proximity to humans in urban environments.

We started to sneak up on what we believe was a female but when she saw us she ran into the trees. One advantage of fresh snow is the ability to follow animal tracks and we soon found where she had gone. Following her we found ourselves in the middle of her hunting ground. The coyote started circling us at a distance and we were soon able to capture the short video below and the picture in the cover photo.

Tracking the coyote we found that the footprints were smaller than some we had seen previously suggesting that perhaps the animal was not fully grown.

We came across the remnants of a Christmas party hanging in the trees.

The sun came out at one point and lit up the valley in front of us. For scale, the large tree laying in the bottom of the ravine once stood at the base of the hill but would not have been tall enough for the canopy to reach the upper rim.

We followed the west side of Mimico Creek north and soon came to an area full of winter birds. A cardinal was singing in the trees above us and we soon spotted him. Cardinals eat insects in the summer, raising their young almost exclusively on them. In the winter cardinals will live off of seeds and will also eat the bark of elm trees. There were several pairs of doves sitting in the trees. Doves are one of 11 animals that mate for life, along with termites and Schistosoma mansoni worms. Wolves, which are related to Coyotes, also mate for life. This is perhaps the reason that doves come in pairs in the Twelve Days of Christmas.

There was a flock of a dozen or more woodpeckers moving through. There were both the larger Hairy, pictured below, and the smaller Downey flocking together. These two birds are not actually birds of a feather as they are unrelated in spite of their nearly exact same marking and appearance.

Andew Coulter built a saw mill on Mimico Creek and operated a farm on his property. After his death in 1857 the farm was run by his 4 sons. Andrew Coulter and his sons are buried in the Richview Methodist Cemetery which sits in the very middle of the highway 401 and 427 interchange. By 1852 Andrew had built an 11 room 5 bay Georgian style farmhouse on the property. The Coulter’s house was built of red brick with yellow quoins and lintels. Percy Law modified this brick farm house to create a Kentucky colonial revival style home by adding white clapboard siding and a two story classical portico with four Corinthian columns. He also built himself a horse ranch complete with stables and a carriage house. The picture below shows the Coulter’s 1852 house as it appeared in 1929.

The house remains today at 59 Beaver Bend Crescent but the white siding has been replaced with yellow aluminum. The Law family retained the house and 11 acres surrounding it until it was sold for development in 1981. The original patterned brick house is still hiding inside the veneer that has been added to the outside over the years. I think I’d strip it all off.

Law built a house for his farm manager which stands at 18 Deanewood Crescent. It is conspicuous among the surrounding homes as it faces sideways to the rest of them. It also sports a tv antenna indicating that it was constructed prior to the arrival of cable in the neighbourhood. In Sept. 1952 CBLT, the Toronto CBC station began experimenting with cable broadcasts in the city. By the time this part of the the farm was sold for development in 1981 cable would have been installed in the new built homes on the street.

The Coulter’s oldest son, Robert built his house around the same time as his father’s. It still shows it’s yellow brick quoins and lintels. The house originally faced east and Martin Grove Road, overlooking what is now Glen Agar Park. The board and batten addition that now serves as a front entrance and garage would have been a later addition.

This was our first visit to this section of Mimico Creek but there is lots of unexplored area here for future visits both in the winter and after the snow has melted.

Adamson Estate

7 Replies

Saturday Jan. 24, 2015,

Joseph Cawthra came to York in 1802 and was given 400 acres of land near Port Credit where Lotten – Cawthra House would eventually be built. He was a prominent reformer working with the likes of William Lyon MacKenzie to bring responsible government to Upper Canada. Like Robert Baldwin, of Spadina house, he was elected to the government where he sought to bring about change. Cawthra street in Mississauga used to be his driveway. When his daughter Mabel married Agar Adamson they were given the lakefront property and it became known as the Adamson Estate. The property remained in the hands of their son Anthony until 1970.

It was minus 2 feeling like minus 6 with the odd snow flurry. Parking off of the end of Hampton Street will place you just east of where Cooksville Creek empties into Lake Ontario. As we walked along the waterfront we found many species of birds including Mute Swans which have made their home along the waterfront.

The icy waters of Cooksville Creek have been splashing off the branches along the creek edge creating an elaborate ice sculpture.

Right at the mouth of Cooksville Creek we spotted a Snowy Owl sitting on the ice. These owls spend their summers north of the Arctic Circle hunting lemmings. Each bird can consume up to 1600 lemmings per year. It is normal for a few Snowy Owls to be seen in Southern Ontario each winter. Last year they appeared in record numbers for the first time in about 15 years. When large numbers of birds are found outside of their normal migration zones it is called an irruption. If it happens a second year in a row, as it has this year, it is termed an echo. We observed this female from both sides of the creek as well as on a rooftop where she flew when we got too close. We also saw what was likely a second one in the park near our cars when we returned at the end of the hike.

My first encounter with a Snowy Owl came almost exactly 40 years ago in February 1975 when local band Rush released their album Fly by Night.

From the mouth of the Cooksville Creek looking west you can see an old freighter. This is the Ridgetown and it guards the entrance to Port Credit harbour at the mouth of the Credit River. Built in Chicago in 1905 it became grounded in a storm on it’s maiden voyage and suffered $100,000 worth of damage. In 1970 it was sunk at Nanticoke to form part of a temporary break wall while construction of the Ontario Power Plant was being completed. Later it was raised and brought to Toronto where it was filled with stone and sunk on June 21, 1974 in it’s present location.

Giant Hogweed is a noxious plant that grows up to 10 feet tall and can cause severe burns and blindness. There are many examples growing along the west bank of the Cooksville Creek. If you hike here in the summer beware as the path leads right through a patch of them.

As you enter the Adamson Property there are two old tree stumps that have been carved with animal figures. One has three squirrels carved into it while the one in the picture below features raccoons.

Built in 1932 by Anthony Adamson, son of Agar and Mabel, the Derry House sits on the east end of the Adamson property. It’s “U” shaped construction frames a central fireplace and flagstone courtyard. Anthony and his wife Augusta lived here until his mother passed away in December 1943. After they moved into the family mansion this house was sold to the Derry family, whose name it bears today. Anthony was awarded the Order of Canada for his contribution to Canadian architecture.

The barn dates to 1870 and is one of the oldest surviving agricultural structures in the region. It is built with a foundation of field stones and mortar and an upper portion of board and batten. The farm was known as “The Grove” due to the large grove of white pine trees that were reserved to be used as masts for ships by the Royal Navy.

The main house was built over the winter of 1919-1920 and it’s date stone is featured in the cover photo. It replaced a summer cottage from 1866 that stood between it and the lake. The site of the original log cabin from 1809 was identified in 1991 and stood close to the water front. It appears that each time the family built a new home they moved a few feet further away from the lake. This view is taken from the upstairs balcony below the bell on the gatehouse.

The gatehouse or “Folly” was built in 1904 and is one of only three of this design in Canada. The other two are in Ottawa at the residence of the Prime Minister and the Governor General. The upstairs served as a nursery for Anthony who was born in 1906.

The so-called orange room extends from the west end of the house and contains a unique rounded balcony and a small cupola.

Rhododendron gardens grow under the evergreen trees on the front lawns of the house.

By 1968 there were only 15 acres of the original property left that had not been sold off. Anthony applied to the city for permission to develop the site for apartment buildings and the city rezoned it for high rise in 1972. After neighbours sent in 115 letters of objection the Credit Valley Conservation Authority stepped in and expropriated the land, buying out the Adamsons in 1975.

Like us at http://www.facebook.com/hikingthegta

High Park – Eastern Ravine

3 Replies

Saturday Jan. 17, 2015

There are plenty of nice days for hiking in the winter and this was one of them. It was minus 8 with a wind chill of minus 16 and absolutely free of bugs. In recovery mode from a head cold I was likely over-dressed which isn’t a good thing as you don’t want to sweat. Sweating in the cold air can actually leave you feeling even colder. Today I accessed the park from the Keele subway station. Two visits to the park in November had explored the west side and then the middle sections. The first ending at Colborne Lodge and then the second taking in The Zoo. This time the target was the area known as the east ravine. This 176 acre section of High Park had belonged to Percival Rideout until it was sold to the city and added to the park in 1876.

Prior to any ice ages, the Laurentian River drained much of Ontario through what has become the St. Lawrence River. Ice age debris has buried the ancient river channel and much of it now lies under the Great Lakes. As the cover picture of the 1890 map of the river system shows, it was believed to have passed through the Toronto area. In 2003 a 15 meter geyser led to the discovery that the preglacial river system still flows 50 meters below the surface under bedrock. High Park sits above the southern terminus where the Laurentian River system is blocked from entry into Lake Ontario.

Following the last ice age the lake was larger than today, reaching to the area of Davenport road. This lake was known as Lake Iroquois and it left large sand and gravel deposits along it’s shore. The area of High Park sits on extensive sand banks. In one place there is a sink hole ten feet deep where the sand is being washed away.

There is a large oak forest on the eastern ravine of the park. This hollow red oak tree is capable of concealing various kinds of wildlife including the specimen hiding inside it in this picture.

Toronto Urban Forestry maintains 4.1 million trees in the city including about 3.5 million in our parks. Every year they plant about 100,000 trees to replace diseased or unsafe trees that are removed. Red oak number 26827 is tagged in the picture below. It stands, along with others in the same number sequence, along one of the sand rills behind Colborne Lodge.

A rear view of Colborne Lodge and the carriage house.

Crown galls are caused by a bacterial infection and can attack thousands of different species of plants. They cause galls to form, often near the soil line of the plant. The red oak featured in the picture below has a gall larger than a beach ball.

Spring Creek flows down the eastern ravine and has been dammed near Colborne Lodge, perhaps to create a swimming pool.

Spring Creek empties into Lower Duck Pond where it is fed into the lake by means of pipes and a detour through Grenadier Pond. The picture below looks from the south end of Lower Duck Pond back into the park. The willow tree in the middle of the picture will become a harbinger of spring in a few weeks when the branches start to take on a green colour.

In December 1913 a set of gates was constructed on the entrance off of Parkside drive in honour of John George Howard for donating the property. Ironically, they are constructed on the Percival Rideout property that the city acquired in 1876 and not on the former Howard property . The metal work in this 102 year old structure is highly ornate. The city had just received electricity from Niagara falls a couple of years earlier and this must have looked quite special with it’s central light and two corner post lamps lit.

This large oak branch is lying on the ground with it’s leaves still intact. As discussed in the post Winding Lane Bird Sanctuary the tree will extract chlorophyll from the leaves and store it in the wooden parts of the tree for the winter. It then forms a scab and a new bud for the next spring. This process causes the tree to eject the old leaf. As this branch fell prior to that happening, the leaves will remain on the branch until they rot enough to be blown off by wind, rain or snow.

The tree branch broke off early in the season when the acorns were just beginning to form. For scale a baby acorn is placed beside a 1974 5 cent piece.

High Park has plenty left to discover in future visits. For a gallery of additional photos please visit our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/hikingthegta

Graydon Hall

9 Replies

Saturday January 10, 2015

Minus 12 with a wind chill of minus 26 but sunny and really not as bad as it sounds. As long as I was in the valley I didn’t notice any wind chill at all, and dressed in my new parka, I was quite comfortable. I parked on Olsen Dr. near the little walkway that goes down to the intersection of Don Mills road, Duncan Mill road and Graydon Hall drive. I entered the Don River Ravine on the east side just off of Duncan Mill road. This property originally belonged to the Duncan family who operated a sawmill on the East Don River in the mid 1800’s

Henry Rupert Bain made his fortune first in his own brokerage firm then as a gold investor during the depression. In 1934 he bought 100 acres of land from the Duncan family on which to build his estate. One of the features of his estate was terraced gardens with cascading waterfalls. Bain built a pump house near the river to pump water up to his estate for his gardens. There are the remains of two old buildings here. The building closer to the river is made of rough fieldstone and is likely much older than the other one. Inside, it has been divided into two rooms with modern concrete blocks. This suggests that it has been remodeled at the time the second building was added. It contains some electrical potheads made by G&W Electric in Chicago and a large oil storage drum. A roadway ran just south of the building crossing the river on a bridge until the late 1980’s. Bain’s barns and race track were on the west side of the river and accessed by this road. The bridge has been torn up and the concrete was just tossed in the woods near the pump house.

Closer to the embankment is the pumphouse. It is made of preform concrete block in the Art Deco style that was popular in the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Inside the pump house water was fed into the pipe-head at the back of the room. The flash of my camera revealed a large pipe which curves to the right about ten feet in.

Alder trees grow along the riverbank just north of the Duncan Mill Road bridge. The alder is unique in that it is a cone bearing deciduous tree. The tree has it’s male and female parts on the same branches. The longer male catkins produce pollen in the spring which is wind blown to the rounder more cone shaped female catkins. Like other trees that rely on the wind for pollination, the alder will flower prior to the leaves forming in the spring.

I walked along the east side of the river, crossing under the Duncan Mill road bridge and the bridge on Don Mills road. Under the Don Mills road bridge someone has crawled out and strung up a swing.

Completed in 1936 Graydon Hall may have been named after the Gray family that operated a grist mill on the Don river just below the property. The grist mill remains today on the property of the Donalda Golf course. When Bain completed his estate it boasted a private 9 hole golf course, race track, stables, polo field and kennels for raising hunting dogs. The cover photo shows Henry Bain standing near his garden fountain. This fountain statue of a lady kneeling and holding a bowl is now housed at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The 29 room house was built for $250,000, a sum equal to $4,250,000 today. Notice the large front canopy that was common on estate mansions of the early 20th century. Similar structures can be seen in Bayview Estates on the three Clifford mansions that now form the Toronto French School.

Much of the rear ground of the property is still preserved as parkland in the form of Graydon Hall Park. A small rectangle of concrete which stands in a hollow slightly uphill from the house is all that remains of a small building. This may have been the upper end of the pumping system.

The terraced gardens remain along the back of the house. Between the gardens and the river stretched four acres of pools and waterfalls as the water made it’s way back downhill.

On the east side of Graydon Hall road stands a pair of gate pillars that mark the old laneway to Graydon Hall. Prior to the construction of Graydon Hall Drive in 1964 the estate was approached by a looping driveway off of Woodbine Avenue. This portion of Woodbine was removed in the 1960’s for construction of the Don Valley Parkway. A new access was created off of the recently extended Don Mills Road.

In the 1957 aerial photo below the property of Henry Rupert Bail is seen. The 401 cuts across the top of the picture. Graydon Hall stands roughly in the middle of the picture on the right hand side. A private roadway leads from the house, past the small building and down the lawn to the river. The road crosses the river near the pump house and reaches the barns and racetrack. Don Mills Road has not yet been extended this far north yet but it will soon cut between Graydon Hall and the river.

In 1954 Bain died of complications from a horse riding accident. His property was sold in 1964 to developers who constructed apartment buildings on the estate. The house remains and now serves as a banquet hall. A cardinal provides a little splash of red among the evergreens along the old lane way as I made my way back to the car.

Like us at http://www.facebook.com/hikingthegta

Erindale Orchards

6 Replies

Sat. Jan. 3, 2014

The day started off nice at -2 but was predicted to have a storm starting around noon. We parked one more time in Erindale Park. The plan was to enter the west side of the Credit River just south of the Sawmill Valley Creek’s confluence with the Credit. We wanted to try and get to a point across the river from the Erindale Power Plant that we had been seeking when we hiked the Credit River at Erindale on January first. We walked down the edge of Sawmill Valley Creek and turned south along the west side of the Credit River. Almost immediately we came to the foundations of an old building which we identified as a house when we found the swimming pool in the back yard.

Keeping to the river side of the fence line, we made our way along the river. Soon we were past the point where we were stopped two days earlier by the shale cliffs on the east bank of the river. Presently we found a raccoon who, contrary to their normal nocturnal habits, was sitting on the ground in broad daylight. Suspecting that he was ill we acted with caution but there was no aggression. In captivity a raccoon can live for up to 20 years but the normal life expectancy of a raccoon in the wild is less than 3 years. Ones like this that aren’t in peak condition can become dinner to the local coyote helping to keep that number low.

As we approached the bend in the river we started to see that the shale banks farther along would pose a problem like the one we experienced a couple of days earlier. At the bend in the river we found the mouth of a small stream and so we followed it west toward Mississauga Road.

A little way upstream we started to find extensive sections of old pipe along with concrete foundations in the creek.

As we contemplated what their original purpose had been we noticed two people working in the woods with a Bobcat cleaning up fallen trees. The man approached us and we had an opportunity to ask about the pipes. He shared with us that the area above the ravine had been an extensive orchard and in the 1930’s a pump house had been built to irrigate the orchards. He also told us that the creek was named Loyalist Creek. Pipes still run up the side of the hill on the south of Loyalist Creek toward orchards that were already gone by the 1960’s.

We crossed Loyalist Creek and made our way as far along the shale cliffs as was reasonable and then turned back. The shale along here has layers of thick harder stone that stick out like rows of broken teeth.

Right at the mouth of Loyalist Creek are several pieces of old concrete. We met the gentleman a second time and he had actually never noticed them. It is likely that a dam was placed at the mouth of Loyalist Creek to retain a pond of water for consistent irrigation of the orchards during dry seasons. As we were leaving we encountered the Bobcat operator who was quick to inform us that we were on private property, a fact that her husband had already failed to mention twice. When we got to Mississauga Road we discovered that the property was very well marked with No Trespassing signs. We had missed them by entering along Sawmill Valley Creek. This is one hike that you can’t try yourself. The old concrete at the mouth of the Loyalist Creek is shown in the photo below.

Returning home it was time to do some research to see what could be learned. I discovered that the 1880 Historical Atlas shows extensive apple farms around Erindale including the farm of Thomas Hammond. In the 1971 aerial photo below, the Hammond farm has a large orchard that by quick calculation contains over 900 trees. They appear as the straight rows of little dots. The Hammond farm house appears just to the left of the orchard at the top of the picture. It was designated as a heritage building in 1991 and so a quick follow-up appeared to be in order. The area was sold for development shortly after this picture and by 1976 houses had replaced the orchards.

(Sunday, Jan. 4) We returned and parked near the old Hammond house which was built by Oliver Hammond. Oliver was born in 1812 and is featured in the cover photo. Oliver built his house in 1866 and it currently sits on a large property tucked in the middle of the subdivision which was his farm’s final crop. Loyalist Creek flows through the property close to the house. A developer’s proposal suggests that the open space around the house will soon hold 7 new homes. Hammond’s house will become just an odd old house, looking out of place, amid the modern homes on a small cul-de-sac.

All that remains of the orchards is three rows of old trees in the park along the side of Lincoln Green Close. It seems like these trees might still produce fruit in spite of their age. Apple trees are not native to North America but were introduced by the French around 1606. The McIntosh apple is named after John McIntosh who discovered a sapling on his farm in Upper Canada in 1811 and cultivated the tree which produced an exceptional fruit. By the early 1900’s the McIntosh was the most commonly cultivated apple in North America. This was due to the fact that it was good for both eating and cooking. I’m not sure what kind of trees these are but they were planted around the right time to be McIntosh.

The old Erindale Power Station remains elusive, but there is always future explorations to be made.

Like us at http://www.facebook.com/hikingthegta

Yorkville Water Works

3 Replies

Friday January 2, 2015

I parked on Russell Hill Road near the entrance to the St. Clair reservoir to enjoy the sunshine and a rare Friday off work. Nordheimer Ravine runs just south of the reservoir. I had been introduced to the ravine while exploring the Baldwin Estate known as Spadina. The toponym (place name) ‘Nordheimer Ravine’ appears to have been in use since at least the 1940’s. Castle Frank Brook ran through the ravine across Baldwin’s property and then through Samuel Nordheimer’s estate. A brief history of Nordheimer was also introduced in the Spadina post. Samuel Nordheimer had married Edyth Boulton in 1871. He built her a grand estate he called Glenedyth, after the forest glen where it was set and her name. In the process he demolished the 1818 home of Russell Hill leaving just a street name to remember the original landowner by. The gatehouse of Glenedyth is featured in the cover photo. Nordheimer died in 1912 and his son Roy inherited the estate. When the son died in 1921 a subdivision plan was approved and the estate commemorated in the street names Boulton and Glen Edyth. Roycroft Drive, named after Roy, was also one of the streets in this 1923 plan but was closed to traffic in 1971. The trail from the reservoir to Boulton Drive roughly follows this old road allowance.

Following Castle Frank Brook brings you out to Boulton Drive where the brook flows under a row of houses. The brook itself was buried in a sewer pipe around 1930 to facilitate development of the subdivision. The edge of the ravine can be seen in this picture with the brook flowing out from under the houses to the north and under Boulton Park where I’m standing.

Samuel Nordheimer dammed the brook on his property to create a pond for the garden setting of his estate. In 1874 the town of Yorkville refused to buy water from the City of Toronto and entered into an agreement with Nordheimer to buy water from his pond. A combined Pumping house and engineer’s house was built in 1875. The water in the pond became so foul that the drinking water in Yorkville became a problem. In 1883 the town voted to be annexed by the city of Toronto in order to gain access to potable drinking water. The pump house was integrated into the the city water plan and renamed High Level Pumping Station. High Level referred to both the station’s position on top of the Iroquois Bluffs and it’s function of pumping water to the higher elevation area’s of the expanding city to the north. The first pump house remains today as a private residence.

The pumping station expanded with the growth of the city with major construction in 1889 (now demolished). A large central block was added in 1906.

The 1906 block in the middle, the 1910 addition on the right and the 1952 expansion on the left.

The 1910 expansion with it’s ornate yellow brick pattern on the top of the building.

The 1952 expansion was the final one. The High Level Pumping Station has taken on a role as the nerve centre of Toronto’s water system. It controls the water from 4 water treatment plants, 18 pumping stations, 10 underground reservoirs and 4 water towers. These in turn supply water to over 3 million people. It has come a long way from it’s inception as the Yorkville Water Works. The 1952 expansion is seen in the picture below.

The 1953 aerial photograph below shows area that once belonged to Samuel. The Nordheimer Ravine comes out of the top left corner. Someone has marked the Castle Frank Brook sewer pipe in a brown marker where it flows between Glen Edyth on the left and Boulton on the right. The brook itself used to wander back and forth across what became Boulton Drive. The black circle at the bottom centre is Nordheimer’s pond with it’s fountain in the middle. The first pumping station is the small building right at the edge of the pond at “one o’clock” if the pond were a clock face. The new pumping station and it’s additions are at the top of the pond at “twelve o’clock”.

Samuel and his brother Abraham will be remembered for their contribution to music in Toronto more than to the water supply. The Nordheimer piano was considered a local masterpiece in the 19th century. The program below is for a concert in St. Lawrence Hall on February 19th 1862. The first note below the agenda proudly informs everyone that “The piano used on this occasion is from Mssrs. A & S Nordheimer’s Ware-rooms.”

Access covers have long been dated and I found the oldest one in my knowledge on the High Level Pump Station propery. This cover was installed at the time of the 1910 expansion.

Like us at http://www.facebook.com/hikingthegta

Credit River at Erindale

7 Replies

Thursday Jan. 1, 2015

It was minus 6 feeling like minus 14. Realizing that I hadn’t been hiking all year, I set out to fix that. When we had investigated the Erindale Hydro Electric Dam in October we hadn’t looked for the power plant on the south end of town. Parking in the first lot at Erindale Park we set off for the Credit River on the east side.

We crossed Dundas Street and entered a pathway down to the river from the east end of the bridge. There we came across a large paper wasp nest. Paper wasps build their nests out of chewed up plant fiber that they mix with saliva to make a paper-like substance. They secrete a chemical onto the anchor stem of the nest so that ants don’t invade. Gardeners consider paper wasps to be beneficial because they pollinate the plants as well as eat garden pests.

It may have been New Years Day but we didn’t see any people swimming in the river, doing their polar bear thing. A pair of mallard ducks were swimming in the slushy river, feeding and enjoying the day. Mallards form breeding pairs in the fall and perform courtship rites all winter. In the spring when the eggs are laid they separate. The male takes no role in the raising of the ducklings but will hang out with the guys all summer. In the fall a male duck’s fancies turn lightly to love and he leaves the boys in search of a mate.

As we made our way along the eastern river bank it started to look like we wouldn’t get around the curve in the river due to the shale banks along the side. Going up and over wasn’t an option because in places the fence along the top was already falling down the embankment. Water seeping out between the layers of shale has created icicles that reach down to the river in places.

We were able to get out to where the ice had formed in the shale layers. Where it flows out onto the thin river ice is currently impassible. There is a possibility of making it around here in the summer when the water level is low.

We decided to try to come at the old power station site from the top of the ravine. We hoped to find access from one of the original Erindale side streets south of Dundas. Turning north again we came to where Sawmill Valley Creek enters the Credit River just below Dundas Street. It has been placed into a concrete channel with a series of concrete squares which help prevent the discharge from getting frozen by accelerating the water.

Dundas Street was surveyed in 1796 by Augustus Jones who also surveyed Yonge Street. These two streets were built by the Queens Rangers under the direction of Lieutenant-Governor General Simcoe. Roads were required for easy movement of troops should the defence of Fort York become necessary, as it did in 1812. Dundas Street has had several bridges over the Credit from the earliest wood structures to the current 4 lane version. The remnants of the foundations for earlier bridges can be seen below the modern one.

The picture below shows Erindale in 1910 looking west toward the river. There is a vehicle just entering the bridge where the road hooks to the left. Also featured in in this image are the stone flower mill, blacksmith shop, Barker’s Hotel with the large veranda and Caven’s store. The community hall is on the left. All of these buildings were destroyed by fire in May 1919.

Passing under the bridge we made our way back to the old power dam that created Lake Erindale from 1910 until 1940.

Along the side of Dundas street stands the old head race for the power generating station. Water from Lake Erindale was diverted through a tunnel under Dundas Street to the power plant south of town. A large intake structure allowed for the controlled flow of water from the lake.

We climbed the hill behind the intake and crossed Dundas Street. Following Proudfoot Street we looked for a way to get down to the river. Short of boldly walking across someone’s lawn there is no access anywhere along the ravine. This older part of town contains many historical homes from the days of settlement in Erindale. The 1855 log home on Jarvis Street wasn’t one of them though. It was moved here in the 1970’s but is cool because of it’s collection of antique wheels and pumps that are displayed around the outside of the house.

Just east of the 1928 Community Hall is this old driving shed. The cover photo is of this building with it’s horseshoe hanging upside down. Horse shoes are considered lucky by some. By hanging it with the open ends facing down it was supposed to pour the luck out over the doorway preventing evil from entering the building or home.

This tree has been confused by the weather and is thinking about blooming.

So, no luck on finding the tail race and foundations of the power plant today. That will have to wait perhaps for a time when we can pass below the shale cliff on the side of the river.

	P Louise Ahrens on Strathmore House Cobourg
	wp28286574881 on Strathmore House Cobourg
	Charlie A on The Vale Of Avoca
	Madocian on Eldorado – Ghost Towns O…
	Flynn's Folly on Eldorado – Ghost Towns O…

Hiking the GTA

Places to hike and things to see in and around the Greater Toronto Area

Riverdale Farm

National Flag Day

The Arsenal Lands

West Deane Park

Adamson Estate

High Park – Eastern Ravine

Graydon Hall

Erindale Orchards

Yorkville Water Works

Credit River at Erindale