Footprints on the Don

Footprints on the Don

The East Don River Pathway pops out via the Betty Sutherland trail from Duncan Mills Road, off Don Mills just north of York Mills: a plethora of Mills, strangely absent now from the flowing water, evoking a simpler time when the river carried energy rather than sludge. Here, the valley offers a genteel oasis from the nearby grime of paved patches and squat windowless buildings. This is my version of Toronto the Good: Toronto the Treed. The Don River snakes senescently under rusted bridges next to graffiti-covered cement walls and through to gritty urban parks in the easternmost part of downtown Toronto from the more sparsely populated north, with its willows and brambles and more easily-discernible bird calls.

Here in the northeast of the metropolis, I cycle far under the bridges that carry thousands of cars per hour over the Don Valley. Safe from any motorists who might cut me off unexpectedly or startle me by yelling out, I can imagine myself deep in the countryside. The only clashing element is the graffiti on the concrete beams of bridges, though some of it seems almost elegant, like the explosion of skulls drawn in thin black lines on whitewash. Even if it does say “You’re dead”. It’s violent but creative. I suppose that’s the idea.

A rabbit shows its white behind and a cardinal hides in the evergreens. As I go up the path, there’s a foot-long turtle just off to the side, with a longish barbed tail and a snail burrowing just above its hind leg. It looks more like a native snapping turtle than a petshop red-eared slider, but I’m no expert. The turtle doesn’t move until I and some passersby check to see if it’s wounded. It looks alright but can’t seem to decide whether it wants to cross the paved path or not. A few more bicycles whiz by. The turtle peers at us with heavy-lidded eyes, then backs up a bit. We leave it alone.

Dutifully, as I wait for the light to change at Leslie and Sheppard, I read that Betty Sutherland was a city bureaucrat who did a lot for parks. I yawn, then feel guilty. Then I feel callow. Caring for green spaces is a noble vocation. The Group of Seven would have been anonymous and broke without trees to immortalize. Therefore, people such as Betty Sutherland are heroes of the arts. This sounds more important than giving people like me something enjoyable to do, so there you are. Then again, the Group of Seven was there to give people like me something enjoyable to do, as well.

Signposts along the river path explain it was named after the Don in Yorkshire in 1793. Before that, it was called many things, including Nechinquakakonk (or Necheng Qua Kekonk, or again Niching qua kakinki, depending where you look). This is the only aboriginal name the signpost makers have retained of the “many”, no doubt because its several syllables give it the appearance of being difficult to pronounce, thus making it memorable. It’s the kind of name that children like the one I used to be delight in practicing in order to befuddle company and schoolroom denizens alike. However, a brief search does not reveal what this word means. Apparently, no one bothered to ask - starting with the first surveyor Alexander Aitkin in 1788. It’s probably something mundane like “Hey, nice river.” According to the City of Toronto website, however, “Wonscoteonoch, meaning “black burnt lands”, was another name used, probably signifying that the Don Valley had been swept by fire at one point.”

The signs that dot the path running from Leslie Street at Sheppard to Steeles Avenue all look the same: there is a picture of an iris on the left, one of a garter snake in the middle, and a sugar maple leaf on the right. Neither the iris nor the garter snake leap out from the general undergrowth at any point, but they must be there since the signs say so. Two more rabbits hop in sight, at least. I have read somewhere that there are coyote dens in the Don River Valley but they remain invisible. This is not particularly surprising. If I were a coyote, or any sort of animal, I wouldn't install any neon signs with giant arrows around my den either. I am also botanically challenged. There’s little detailed description of the flora or fauna along the river. I couldn’t recognize the name or particular genus of a fern if it sprang up in front of me and started doing charades.

To cyclists marauding the East Don River Pathway for a glimpse of its namesake, the river reveals itself only very occasionally, like a bit of forbidden leg from a peekaboo peignoir. Perhaps a more apt image is that of a luxuriant boa – in fervent, fluffy shades of green, composed of ferns, vines, bushes, weeds, wildflowers and many overhanging branches. The current trend is to let it grow, let it grow, let it grow; and that it does, like an English garden run amok.

Best of all, a lingering constant scent of sweet peas and honeysuckle envelops the trail. It smells of air washed fresh in the rain, of clean sky far from smog, of the promise of early summer before the staggering heat dampens willpower and pins everyone to chairs in air-conditioned rooms, or sends them out in search of chlorinated wetness as a substitute for polluted lakes and pestilent streams.

Now is the best time to careen out on a bicycle in the shaded trails of the Don Valley. I smile. I breathe deeply, my nostrils wide open to the scented breeze. I feel the wind on my scalp. I wish to engrave all these things in my memory to bring them back at will, once they have faded away.

Cycling down from the northeast to the downtown core poses a challenge to anyone who doesn’t live next to Edwards Gardens, The starting point for interconnected bike paths running from Leslie and Lawrence down to the lakeshore. They start at Wilket Creek Park, where I have adolescent memories of frisbee playing, campfire songs and guitar strumming with friends. Nearby Sunnybrook Park has stables where my sister once took riding lessons which she would pass on to me, and now long forgotten. After that, it takes a bit of guessing to find the trail again to Ernest Thompson Park, since it stops, merges into the park road and starts again at the end of a parking lot. Then, all's clear until the signs that point to Taylor Creek Park, which is east instead of south, but the apparent detour is necessary. Eventually, a path leads to a wood and metal bridge with speed bumps. Another similar and shorter bridge comes up, after which there's no more confusion right down to the lakeshore.

Just before crossing the bridge, underneath the Don Mills interchange, giant planters loom up close: the ones that look like the bottom half of a hippo with greenery sprouting out of them. This is the “Elevated Wetlands” project, created by Toronto artist Noel Harding. It contains over 5,000 pounds of shredded rubber and uses waste plastics as a mechanical filter while the plants serve as a biological filter to remove impurities from the water. Solar-run pumps draw water from the polluted Don River into the ponds below the six raised plastic planters; The water is pumped from the ponds to three of the planters where it flows into the others. Over 50 companies from the plastics industry and 20 others from outside it have sponsored the project. It was inaugurated in October 1998. I'm not sure how effective it is, but it looks funky enough.

From then on, the trail takes on a different character. Gone is the near-pristine, shielded quality of the parks behind, where riders and walkers are enveloped in trees. The Don River on the left-hand side is sluggish and somber. There's a clear view of the Don Valley Parkway and the high-rise apartment buildings beyond. More and bigger graffiti appears on nearby concrete. The bridges above are impossibly high, rising up to 125 feet in the case of the Prince Edward Viaduct. This is the true name of the Bloor Street viaduct, where 480 people jumped to their deaths from 1918 to 2003, a number second only to the Golden Gate Bridge, until Toronto installed a barrier that doubles as an piece of art. The Luminous Veil has won the Canadian Architects Award of Excellence. This insistence on making art out of anything functional seems like a permanent trend. I don't object in principle, except that I find morbid the 9,800 16-foot metal rods installed like a giant harp along the viaduct to shimmer and look nice to passing motorists while saving the lives of those who probably don't have cars, like a song-and-dance number entreating a homeless man to cheer up while he's holding a gun to his head. I wonder if they've ever done a study of the socio-economic circumstances of people who kill themselves. If they do, I am willing to bet that abject poverty will be a positive correlate. They say money can't buy happiness, but below a certain level despair must make it seem inaccessible.

This time, I decide to get out at Queen Street. The staircase on the metal bridge there, just before the Don Valley Parkway exit, has a metal gutter for bike wheels. Clever. I wish more stairs in Toronto had those. Upstairs the traffic is not too bad, though it's a tricky intersection, with two main roads merging. I amble about.

On Sumach Street, just off Queen at River, three pieces of architecture get my attention.

The Magic Building has pseudo-Corinthian stone square pillars. Two bearded frowning heads support the pediment over the doorway. Inside the pediment is a cameo with a thoughtful-looking cowgirl in a ten-gallon hat. The building says “magic” in blue letters on yellow, in case you missed it. Blue stars spread into yellow from a blue base and vice-versa. The top is red. It houses film production tenants, as far as I can tell.

Next door, Dixon Hall originally opened its doors as a soup kitchen in 1929. Now it services the homeless and high-risk youth. There's a poster about harm reduction in the window. This sounds like a euphemism for feeling no pain, which its users already don't. It has cheery blue walls with red trim and yellow window sills. A very thin man, skin sallow, expression anguished, clothing rumpled as if permanently windblown in a single direction, appears oblivious to the world as he sits on a ledge near the steps.

Nearby, there's a storefront with an ostentatious black wood door frame in a pseudo-Art Nouveau step motif. It all seems part of a tentative renaissance in the general area between Church and River streets near and on Queen.

Just before the bridge, alongside a recent-looking coffee shop that has Second Cup pseudo-funkiness but without the chain store signage, a new furniture store is open for business. You can smell the paint and fixtures still. Prices match the pattern of gentrification: $ 1,500 for a shelf unit on display just near the door.

The renewal of the area is still uneven, with the Good Shepherd refuge for the homeless the same as ever and staple businesses such as an old greasy spoon defying the drive toward the young and shiny. Here, there's less yoga, fewer surfboard motifs and more edge and noise than further east at the Beaches.

At the Bridge, I take a closer look at the sign across the metalwork. It's a public art project, supposed to be a “river of text”. It says: “This river I step in is not the river I stand in.” As a comment on the neighbourhood, or on the state of the Don River flowing below, it doesn't sound flattering. I don't blame the sign, though. I would feel the same way, I think, even with the shiny new shelving units on sale for $ 1,500 just down the road. When I look it up, I find out that the artist, Eldon Garnet, got his inscription from a quote from Greek philosopher Heraclitus: "You cannot step into the same river twice.” The quote is also reported and translated as “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” I take this to mean Garnet meant that when you’re standing in the water, it’s changed from the moment you stepped into it.

As I watch the streets over which the sign hangs, I reflect it’s very true. We change the landscapes in which we stand. The Don River is a sorrowful testament to our many footprints.

And yet, it flows. Like the traffic above.