Toronto's Historical Waterfront - Harbourfront Centre

One of the most interesting and historical places in Toronto is the Historical Waterfront or "Harbourfront" Centre.  

For over 40 years now this has been a place to 'go down to' check out the attractions and take in some art, food and music culture across the 10 acres of waterfront.

Back in the 70s, the central lakefront was nothing more than a wasteland of deteriorating industrial buildings - until Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau set out to make a change.  His vision was to bring the world to the waterfront of Toronto.  Since 2005, the Harbourfront Centre has been working on a series of projects that continue to transform the waterfront.

Part of Harbourfront Centre's charm is that it has retained and restored the original industrial buildings, creating a spacious campus-like site. 

The Bill Boyle Artport, formerly a trucking warehouse, is the central hub of Harbourfront Centre, housing administrative offices, multiple performance venues, exhibition spaces and our Craft & Design Studio. 

 

There's a constant shuffle of people along the harbourfront all year long.  You have to think of it as a central hub filled with every attraction imaginable to welcome people from all over the world.  This is the inception of how  the Historical Waterfront (Harbourfront Centre) began.

The Harbourfront stage is an outdoor venue, and has hosted Toronto audiences to artists that wouldn't normally be seen in commercial venues.  Artists like Celine Dion, Oscar Peterson, Philip Glass and Jim Carrey.

The COVID pandemic has closed off so many public venues that we didn't realize just how lucky we were to have access to so many attractions in the city.  

Restaurants to satiate any cuisine, waterfront parks such as Sugar Beach and the Queen Quay West park located on the waterfront.  

Boat rentals and boat cruises, art galleries and festivals; winter skating under the Gardiner bridge.  

In the summer, there are tall ship festivals that dock for a few weeks, and evening boat cruises with casinos and dinner menus included. 

If you come down and relax by the water in a high back colourful Adirondack chair, bring a book and stretch out your feet.  You'll be amazed how peaceful and quiet it can be in a one the largest populated cities on earth.

 One last thing to mention, if you ever do visit Toronto's historical waterfront - be very careful when you visit "Beavertails".  It is famous for it's Sundaes, and of course Beavertails which are dangerously delicious!

Beavertails - courtesy of 'tripadvisor.com'

Toronto Harbour Light on Vicki Keith Point in the Leslie Spit

One of the coolest places to go in Toronto is the Tommy Thompson Park.  I've been coming here long before it was cool to most anyone.  Or so I thought. 

When I first discovered this place about 10 years ago, there were very few people walking or cycling around.  This may have been due to the road blocks put out front to keep cars out at night -- but I'd squeeze through on my bike and ride along the asphalt trail as far south as I could go.  

Back then, there was nothing around but rubble and sand, mangled cables, bricks and cinder blocks as far as the eye could see.  It looked like nothing more than a construction dump site and that's exactly what it was. 

The dumping was intentional and started decades before in 1959.  In anticipation of a boom in shipping with the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Toronto Harbour Commission began developing an "outer harbour".  This was created by dumping millions of tons of fill into Lake Ontario to construct a five-kilometre-long barrier known as the "Outer Harbour East Headland" or what I know as the Leslie Spit.  

In the early 70s, it was apparent that the outer harbour would not be needed for port-related facilities, so they had to come up with other uses for the newly developed man-made peninsula.  

One plan was to develop the land into an aquatic park with a hotel, amphitheatre, private yacht clubs, and camping facilities, among other things.  Thankfully this was ruled out by local residents concerned about the destruction of Ashbridge Bay and thus the Friends of the Spit were established in 1977 to create a public urban reserve which it remains today.  

So here we are 60 years later beholding acres of a nature reserve that continues to thrive.  

When you finally reach the end of the 'spit' you will see off in the distance a lighthouse, known as the Toronto Harbour Light, which was completed in 1974 by the Toronto Harbour Commission.  Today it is fully automated and powered by a solar panel and directs shipping traffic along the Eastern Channel into the Toronto Harbour.  

The lighthouse stands at the highest point of land on the Leslie Street spit, called the "Vicki Keith Point", named after a noted marathaon Canadian swimmer who made most of her landings after crossing Lake Ontario.  Vicki Keith held 16 world records has received over 41 honours and awards, having crossed many of the world's most challenging bodies of water.

The Toronto Harbour Light is known on the Canadian Coast Guard's List of Lights  as the Toronto Harbour Aquatic Park Light.  

At night, the tower produces a red flash every ten seconds at night.  During the day, as you can see the tower has been vandalized with colourful graffitti and nonsensical scribblings.  It kind of makes me wonder why we deserve nice things...

I decided to take pictures of it anyways and turn it into some form of art even though I think it's a sin to destroy any historical landmark. 

Mountain Mill Decew Falls

The Morningstar Mill was a working grist mill owned and operated by the Morningstar family in 1872.

Today you can visit the Morningstar Mill as a heritage property owned by the City of St. Catherines with partnership with the friends of Morningstar Mill.

The property has several accessible buildings still such as the grist mill and turbine shed, a saw mill, a blacksmith and carpenter's shed and the home of the Morningstar family.

Mountain Mills as it was called operated from 1883 to 1933.  It had three turbines.  One for the grist mills, another ran the saw mill and third ran a generator which provided private lighting on the property.    The grist mill turbine also ran an apple cider mill.  There was an orchard of apples, cherries, pears and peaches.  Local farmers would bring their horses and wagons and wait for their apples to be pressed into cider.  The nearby barn had a team of horses, a cow, chickens and pigs.


To make repairs in the grist and saw mills, the Morningstars had a blacksmith and carpenter shop located on the property.

When the Morningstars first purchased the Mountain Mills, the sawmill building was used as a community hall where local dances were held.  After a serious fight had ensued on the property they closed it down and converted it into a sawmill which continued to operate for over 40 years!

After Mr. Wilson Morningstar passed away, the sawmill was not maintained and was eventually dismantled.  The current sawmill was built by the Friends of Morningstar Mill in the 1990s.


I love history and especially when it applies to architecture.  I want to come back and revisit again to take a walk along the Laura Secord trail and the Bruce trail, which is just located directly behind the Morningstar house.

Rockwood Conservation Area

My hubby and I went to the Rockwood Conservation area because of an Instagram photo I saw of how amazing this place was.  I wasn't really disappointed, although the sky wasn't what I would call ideal.  It had rained a few times but I managed to take some photos.


The park charges $7/each person.  They are friendly and had pointed us in the right direction to the waterfall I thought would be the main feature, but wasn't.  The real feature here are the caves.

There are over 194-acres of great hiking trails, boardwalks and idyllic sandy beaches.  It also houses an interesting array of castle-like ruins which are the remains of a woolen mill that once existed here.

Rockwood is just an hour outside Toronto. Its accessibility and proximity to major highways like the 401 make it an easy city escape.  What makes Rockwood Conservation Area unique from most parks is the sheer amount of activities it boasts and its rich geological aspects.   A few environmental features it’s known for are the glacier bluffs, extensive cave systems (12 in total) and some of the oldest dated trees in Ontario. 


Even with Rockwood being a nature lovers paradise, it seems over the years the biggest tourist draw has been the stunning Harris Woolen Mill ruins, the remnants of an ancient textile mill.

Built in the mid 1880s, the mill was forced to shut down during the Depression and has remained vacant since.

Over the past decade, the mill had gone through almost a million-dollar renovation to preserve its history and make it safe for visitors to walk through and appreciate.The site is part of the Grand River Conservation Authority, and is an extremely popular spot for picnics, hikes, photography shoots and weddings.

If you want to spend more than a day inside the park, there are over 120 campsites on four main campgrounds.

Fill your entire weekend up with swimming, fishing, canoeing, hiking, and even paddle boarding — which you can rent in the summer.  The conservation area is open year-round and camping is available from May to October.

I loved it here so much that at the end of the day I almost wished I brought a tent.

Silver Creek Conservation Area (Scotsdale Farm)

Within the Silvercreek Conversation Area near the lovely and quaint town of Georgetown is a hidden treasure called Scotsdale Farm. It's a working farm, but there is so much more to this place.  For one thing, there is over 530 acres of gorgeous trails in and around the Niagara Escarpment.  

One of the most popular and largest trail here is the Bennett-heritage Trail.  Fall is the best time of the year.  For the simple abundance of colour, the crisp and cool air and the many photo opportunities you can capture if you are so inclined. 

             
We met up with a fellow photographer who had won a Canon contest while shooting here.  The sunsets here just rock through the trees.  Perfect setting - perfect lighting.  In fact this is a fave spot for many photographers and film producers.  Parking is free and ample as long as you are out of there by 8 p.m. at night when the park closes.

There are a few waterfall features here as well! 

Not in comparison to our friends out west in Hamilton or Niagara, but enough to keep your interest up.  Since it's part of the Bruce Trail network, you are bound to find plenty of rolling hills and woodlands and glacial rocky remnants to exercise your legs making it a great work out.

Halton Hills region has been a favourite for a few years now with so many conservation areas and things to do here all year long - set in a pastoral countryside.  

The main house of Scotsdale was built in 1836 by Christopher Cook. The farm was bequeathed to the Ontario Heritage Trust by Stewart and Violet Bennett in 1982.  Bennett had developed Scotsdale into an internationally renowned breeding farm for his Arabian horses and shorthorn beef cattle.

To learn more about the Bennetts and to the historical beginnings of this beautiful landscape which has  has been, click on the link below

Scotsdale Farm : A Hidden Treasure

Electric Radial Museum in Guelph

One of my favourite places to go is to visit historical sites.   I don't really have a particular interest in historical transportation - though you would know that considering the fact that this blog began a decade ago while traveling through Toronto on the TTC and blogging every station!  Still I do have a particular love for nostalgia and anything that reminds me of my childhood and in the advancement of modern civilization.

It's nice that there are museums like this that give new generations the opportunity to see how buses and rail trains once looked so that they too can have a glimpse into the past.

It was on a rainy Sunday early evening when we passed through the County of Halton when I first saw this working museum of electric streetcars, buses and trolleybuses.  It was too late in the day to make it a decent visit, so we didn’t buy tickets.  Though we did show up when one of the trolleys went by along the radial tracks that once provided the right of way in Guelph. 

The museum is open to the public – the focus is primarily on the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), with rides on many of its now retired vehicles. It is located in the town of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.  If you happen to pass through it might be fun for you to step in to a little piece of history and take a trip yourself.