• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

a History Of TO s H 2 O By Kim TaiT and mary Burridge The waTerways ThaT surround and run Through ToronTo have shaped iTs pasT Photos: TK Photos: 28 ROM Magazine Spring 2011 The name Toronto likely derives from the mohawk word Tkaronto, meaning “where there are trees standing in the water.” Fish-Market, Toronto, circa 1838. Modern reproduction of a hand-coloured engraving by W. H. Bartlett Photos: TK Photos: (1809–1854). ROM Magazine Spring 2011 29 or more Than Two cenTuries, an abundant supply of fresh water has fuelled Toronto’s growth and prosperity. The city’s many waterways have offered pleasurable places for recreation and abundant sources of fresh food, but they’ve also been the source of outbreaks of cholera and typhoid fever. In many ways, Toronto’s water has shaped the city we know today. Toronto’s six waterways—the Etobicoke, charge of guarding against future infectious diseases. But the city’s Mimico, Humber, and Don rivers, Highland numerous waterways made it particularly vulnerable to epidemics Creek, and the Rouge River—drain into Lake of water-borne illnesses and the board was not able to prevent Ontario along 157 kilometres of constantly outbreaks of typhoid fever in 1845 and 1847 and of cholera in 1849, changing shoreline. The first settlements in the 1854, and 1866. Toronto region, established by the Petun and In the early 1860s, before unsanitary water was discovered to be Neutrals, were strategically located near the the cause of the cholera outbreaks, Taddle Creek was dammed to mouths of the Humber and the Rouge. When create McCaul’s Pond, a long sinuous water feature on the Europeans arrived, they followed the same University of Toronto campus. Students used it for fishing, pattern, building their settlements around water. skating, and swimming. But it, too, became increasingly polluted By 1834, when the city of York was incorpo- as more large buildings went up in the area, including the Toronto rated as Toronto, there were 9,254 residents. Baptist College (now occupied by the Royal Conservatory of As the population grew and became more Music). The increased waste in the Yorkville drains was concentrated, the availability of clean, safe discharged into the already-overwhelmed Taddle Creek and swept drinking water and proper means for disposing downstream to fester in McCaul’s Pond. Meanwhile in the of waste and sewage developed into issues. The Toronto Harbour there was so much sewage accumulation that it dangers and consequences of unsanitary was interfering with the movement of cargo. conditions were not immediately recognized— Clearly something had to be done. The city established the at great cost to public health. Water Works Commission and installed an infrastructure and In those early days, many small streams and piping system to draw the city’s water supply from the lake. In the creeks flowed through the city. Taddle Creek— early 1870s, the commission decided to move the intake pipe for which flowed from the Annex southeast through the city’s water supply from the harbour to the lakeside of Toronto the University of Toronto lands before emptying Island, and water was piped through a 3-kilometre wooden into Lake Ontario—was one example. Local conduit, using the island’s sands as a natural filter. In 1881 the city residences and breweries drew on it for their enacted a bylaw that required citizens to abandon private wells fresh water. But the creek was also used as a and use the piped city supply. dumping ground for waste, and by 1830 people As time went on, a series of broken pipes, more sewage dumping, were reporting foul smells. The contamina- and further typhoid epidemics led the city to experiment with tion of waterways such as Taddle Creek led to and adopt chlorine disinfection as a sanitization method. Toronto several cholera outbreaks in the city. In 1832, became a North American leader in the use of this technology. It cholera claimed the lives of more than 200 wasn’t until much later, due to the high cost, that Toronto got its residents and threatened the city’s economy. first sewage-treatment facility, which uses physical, chemical, and As a result, the York Board of Health was put in biological processes for decontaminating water. 30 ROM Magazine Spring 2011 THe ice ages began to melt and fill the Toronto’s sedimentary in glacial ice, sea level at the basin. The lake would deposits. many remnants of time was almost 100 metres Over the last 2 million years, have filled only to the same the shoreline are familiar below where it is today. glaciers advanced and depth as today had the Toronto landmarks today. When the ice blocking the retreated through what is water been able to drain One section can be found St. Lawrence outlet suddenly now Ontario, scouring and out the St. Lawrence Valley near davenport road and cleared about 12,000 years re-shaping the landscape. into the ocean, but this Spadina avenue—where Casa ago, it was like a plug being about 100,000 years ago, the passageway was still blocked Loma is perched on top of the pulled from a bathtub, and last major event began, and by ice. The water rose to a bluff. Seven thousand years Lake iroquois abruptly ice eventually covered much level 45 metres higher before the castle was built, drained. Sea levels were still of Canada. By 20,000 years than Lake Ontario is today the perch was a convenient low and huge quantities of unn d ago, the ice sheet extended as before it could find an ice- lookout from which early fresh water were still locked far south as Ohio. free outlet—into the Hudson paleo hunters spotted prey, up in ice to the northeast—so The basin of Lake Ontario river Valley. such as caribou, mastodon, all the great Lakes also had been scraped out by This deep lake sitting in and mammoth. drained, almost entirely. various glaciations, the last the Lake Ontario basin was in the east end, the as a result, Toronto’s advancing southwest from its called Lake iroquois, and Scarborough Bluffs are rivers had to travel tens of source in Labrador and was much larger than today’s another landmark remnant kilometres further to reach Quebec. The climate slowly Lake Ontario. We know of the ancient shoreline. the much smaller lake, now warmed again, and about this because the prominent The towering cliffs were the called Lake Ontario. To do 14,000 years ago the finger of shore bluff it cut at its high reason elizabeth Simcoe so they energetically cut ice across Lake Ontario water mark is recorded in named the area Scarborough down through the glacial in 1793, for their similarity sediments left by the ice to the cliffs of Scarborough, sheet and then through the Left: Reaching england. lake-bottom sediments, as high as 65 metres in at the same time, the carving a physical record of rchives nationales du Québec. Scarborough Bluffs, Phil Bluffs, Scarborough du Québec. nationales rchives spots, the area occupied by downtown the event in what are now a Scarborough Toronto today would have Toronto’s many ravines. Bluffs are a been under about 60 metres Low lake levels persisted remnant of ancient of water—the height of a until at least 8,000 years ago, Lake Iroquois’s 20-storey building. While when the eastward-sloping shoreline southern Ontario and Quebec land began rapidly to tip back and remain ock, Bibliothèque et ock, were glaciated, the weight to its original horizontal plane d a popular recreation of the ice, up to 2 kilometres as the weight of the glaciers destination. thick, actually tilted the land lifted, a process called so that it sloped down to the “glacio-eustatic rebound.” onge Street Street onge y east. Because so much of the it is still occurring today, earth’s water was locked up though at a much slower rate. Photos: Photos: ROM Magazine Spring 2011 31 Left: The Great Toronto Fire TaddLe creek of 1904 With its headwaters located in the Annex, demolished the block Taddle Creek flowed through the area now immediately occupied by Philosophers’ Walk behind the east of the ROM, the Princess Margaret Hospital, the second Union Station, shown Hospital for Sick Children, and New City Hall here, and the towards the Eaton Centre, eventually to empty land was into Lake Ontario near Parliament Street and annexed to the Esplanade. build a new passenger terminal, Left: Image which opened from Toronto in 1905. Historical Board plaque on Philosophers’ TOrOnTO’s railway tracks, so the lake was radically filled Walk. in at the shoreline to create the needed cHanging space. and as commercial and industrial LakesHOre development intensified during the second half of the 19th century, the land area Over the years, Torontonians have re-shaped between Bathurst and Parliament streets the city’s waterways for public health was extended significantly by means of reasons and altered the shoreline of Lake timber cribbing, which was set 3.4 metres Ontario to suit their needs. early mapping down into the water and filled at first with indicates that Toronto’s original lakeshore sewage, municipal waste, dredgings from Left: Built in lay between 50 and 150 metres south of the harbour bottom, and material from 1875, the open air present-day Front Street—somewhere construction sites; later fill contained Rosehill Reservoir underneath the current railway tracks. Since derelict boats, the remains of wharf also sat along a the mid-1850s, repeated waves of lake-filling structures, and other abandoned material. section of the ancient Lake have extended the land area to create Some of the most dramatic shoreline Iroquois shoreline more space for industry, port functions, changes resulted from the filling in of and was used by recreation, condos, and the railway.

Load more

  5

Copy Link