The King's Mill and The Humber Marshes

common parking lot birds, the cute Kildeer

King's Mill Park is located just south of the Old Mill Subway Station in Toronto (if you are getting there by Toronto Transit) or east of Bloor W and Islington by car (Vehicles can enter at Humber Valley Drive, north of Riverwood Parkway or from Old Mill Rd).   If you are biking it, you can travel through the park on the beloved Tommy Thompson Trail.  

It's a little over a half a km walk so I decided to cover a longer stretch in this post, from our walk from Kings Mill to the South Humber Park which is is over a 2 kilometre walk.  It that takes you through large open and leveled park lands which I recognize to be a similar characteristic all over Etobicoke.  

...and some pretty interesting pieces of history as well.  One thing I learned was that most of what is Kings Mill Park is a land fill site from the early 50's.  

this kildeer tried to run away, but I still caught him

After you pass the Toronto Humber Yacht Club, which was established in 1956, there's a strange looking flying-saucer like structure off into the distance.  It kind of reminded me of those old-fashioned drive-in restaurants from the 50's, but as it turns out it was nothing more than a neglected and vandalized public washroom. 

Abandoned flying saucer building

clockwise: hidden bike trails, and the flying-saucer

Historically speaking, this large open park was once the site of the King's Mill and Reserve, established by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe in 1793 as Etobicoke's first industry. In 1821, Thomas Fisher leased the King's Mill, just below the Old Mill site, where he built his home.

The Humber River and Marshes, as you may know is the largest one in Toronto and is a crucial corridor for migratory song birds and monarch butterflies.

The Humber River has over 60 different species including some sports fish like trout, pike and salmon.  The Humber Marshes are one of the few remaining river mouth marshes in Toronto and provide a breeding habitat for ducks, turtles and fish.  Humber River’s importance is recognized now by its designation in 1999 as a Canadian Heritage River.

Overall an easy walk through some pretty areas just before you reach the shores of Lake Ontario at the South Humber Park, which is next.

I wanted to mention something about the Kildeer, because I posted it a couple of times here.  They are actually very common shorebirds that you can see without ever having to go to the beach...you can spot them often on lawns or golf courses and football fields and even parking lots! They are so cute and scamper hurriedly in jolts stopping now and then to check their progress.  Their calls are high-pitched can be heard often even at night when the are in flight.

Raymore Park (feat Hurricane Hazel)

Original footbridge starting network of trails in 1995

Boulder relocated from 'Hazel's aftermath

Newspaper captions pasted on fallen cement block

Raymore Drive and the surrounding parkland of the Humber River valley was one of the areas of Toronto hit the hardest in the aftermath of Hurricane Hazel, over sixty years ago.  The Hurricane started in the afternoon of October 5, 1954 just off the island of Grenada.  Its winds were already peaking over 160 km per hour shifting east through the Caribbean islands up through the Carolinas and heading towards the mid Altantic states and finally into Canada.


The hurricane left a path of destruction killing over a thousand people in Haiti, and destroying homes and properties and six more lives in the Bahamas.  For nine straight days the storm traveled at an alarming forward speed of over 45 km per hour, the winds picking up to 250 destroying the entire town of Garden City, South Carolina. 

Cement dropped from strong winds

Twelve hours after leaving South Carolina it forged ahead with extreme speed passing Washington D.C. , into Pennsylvania and New York and up into Southern Ontario with a fury on October 15, 1954, sending a wall of water 7 metres high down the Humber River Valley.

The damage reached over 1.5 billion with over 100 lost lives in Ontario, including firemen and other rescue workers (there's a plaque in Home Smith Park commemorating them)  In the aftermath, Toronto was left with massive flooding which left over 1,800 families homeless and 4,000 and over 80 people lost their lives in Ontario .  One of the streets which had been completely washed away was Raymore Drive.   

'my heart' web :)

Today there is scattered evidence of the force of winds and power of the Hurricane Hazel in Toronto.  Raymore Park for one has a few large pieces of cement that was picked up and transported by the gale.  It baffles the mind to imagine a wind being that powerful.  In all there was over 300 million tons of water that had fallen during Hurricane Hazel leaving it one of the worst Hurricanes in history.


Raymore Park was the site of another distillery and a number of mills in Toronto which used the Humber river as a viable natural resource.  In the 1850's the land was owned by the Scarlett family up until '57 when a local businessman proposed to build a canal four metres deep and fourty wide, with sixty four double locks to link Lake Onatrio and Georgian Bay through Lake Simcoe.  Cutting through Raymore Park, the canal route followed the Humber River Valley.  It was never completed even though it cost over $35million.

On a positive note, the province of Ontario stepped in to build a new footbridge in 1995 completing the Humber Trail and greenway system which we all enjoy today.  The footbridge called, The Raymore Bridge was the start of Toronto's goal for a network of regional trails in Toronto and throughout Ontario and beyond.