KNOWING LANDSCAPE: LIVING, DISCUSSING, AND IMAGINING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE
ANNIE VEILLEUX
A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
Graduate Programme in Interdisciplinary Studies York University, Toronto, Ontario
December 2011
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ABSTRACT
This study explores how people throughout history have come to know and ascribe
meaning to landscape and place. It focuses on the case study of the Toronto Carrying
Place, a unique cultural landscape that while of great antiquity, continues to resonate with
people today. This thesis draws together a wide array of theoretical perspectives, research
methods, and data to create an original and innovative exploration of the Toronto
Carrying Place, a series of land and water routes that connected Lake Ontario to Georgian
Bay. I suggest that cultural landscapes, past and present, can be known in three ways,
whether by local peoples or outsiders: people make sense of landscape by living it, by
discussing it, and by imagining it. An exploration of cultural landscapes through different
ways of knowing allows for a nuanced narrative, one that encompasses the various
historically specific, individually experienced, and culturally constructed ways people connect and ascribe meaning to place. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is a great pleasure to extend my thanks to all those who have supported me throughout my studies.
I have benefitted enormously from the supervision of an excellent committee. Thanks to Kathryn Denning, Carolyn Podruchny, and Jamie Scott for your guidance, your advice, and your encouragement. Your unwavering confidence in me throughout the writing process helped me get through it.
Thanks to Jamie Scott, Fiona Fernandez, Marlene Kadar, Ouma Jaipaul-Gill, and all those behind the scenes of the Graduate Program in Interdisciplinary Studies. What an amazing program!
Thanks to all my friends and colleagues at Archaeological Services Inc. for their moral and intellectual support. This thesis has benefitted greatly from the conversations I have had with many of you over the years concerning cultural landscapes, the Toronto Carrying Place, travel, and place. I am reluctant to list names for fear of missing someone. You know who you are! I would, however, like to specifically thank Peter Carruthers, colleague, mentor, and friend. Thank you for sharing with me your wealth of personal knowledge and for showing me that every landscape has a story to tell. A special thanks to Ron Williamson for supporting and encouraging my decision to go back to school (again). Finally, thanks to Rebecca Sciarra, Lindsay Popert, and Mary-Cate Garden for their encouragement, their flexibility, and for generally putting up with me over this past year. I truly love working with you every day.
Many individuals graciously gave their time to the improvement of this thesis at various stages in the writing process. I thank Peter Carruthers, Rachel Anne Farquharson, Peter Fraser, Rebecca Sciarra, and Ron Williamson. Thanks to Mary-Cate Garden for reviewing and commenting on the entire manuscript.
Thanks to Peter and Valerie Fraser for your love and support, and for always having the kettle on.
Un gros merci a ma famille, Gaetan et Carmelle Veilleux, Eric et Lissa Veilleux, et Andree et Phil Isaac, pour votre amour et votre encouragement. Merci Cloe, Anabel, et Laura - vos petites faces souriantes m'ont encourage a plusieurs reprises durant cette derniere annee.
A special belly rub to Luchini who kept my feet warm and reminded me to take breaks during those long days of writing.
Most importantly, thanks to my husband Peter for making me laugh every single day. Je t'aime. TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
CHAPTER ONE: KNOWING LANDSCAPE 1 INTRODUCTION 1 'Le Passage de Taronto': Walking into the Heart of the Land 2 Historical Summary of the North Shore of Lake Ontario 5 INVESTIGATING CULTURAL LANDSCAPES 14 Landscape Studies as a Scholarly Pursuit 14 Cultural Landscapes in Heritage Conservation and Management 20 METHODOLOGY: MAKING SENSE OF THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE ..23
CHAPTER TWO: LIVING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE 28 LIVING LANDSCAPES 28 The Embodiment of Trails and Travelling 33 METHODOLOGY AND SOURCES 35 LIVING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE 38 "High Places and Low Places" 39 Ancestral Landscape 42 New Landscape 48 Landscape of Fear 53 Landscape of Encounters 61 SUMMARY 71
CHAPTER THREE: DISCUSSING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE 73 DISCUSSING LANDSCAPE 73 METHODOLOGY AND SOURCES 74 DISCUSSING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE 76 Talking 76 Naming place 84 Writing 93 Mapping 103 SUMMARY 112
CHAPTER FOUR: IMAGINING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE 116 IMAGINING LANDSCAPE 116 METHODOLOGY AND SOURCES 124 IMAGINING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE 125 Becoming a Lieu de Memoire 125 Early Historians and Artists of the Toronto Carrying Place 128 National, Provincial, and Local Commemorations 137 vii
Late Twentieth-Century Research on the Toronto Carrying Place 142 The Brule Debate 148 Interpretive Trails and the Toronto Carrying Place 152 Living the Toronto Carrying Place once more? 156 SUMMARY 158
CHAPTER FIVE: ENVOI 161
SOURCES 165 1
CHAPTER ONE: KNOWING LANDSCAPE
INTRODUCTION
How do people come to know and ascribe meaning to landscape and place? This study explores these processes by bringing together theoretical and methodological concepts, tools, and data that cross disciplinary boundaries. As a case study, this thesis focuses on a particular landscape feature that, while of great antiquity, still continues to resonate with people today: the Toronto Carrying Place. This cultural landscape comprises a series of trails that connected Lake Ontario to the Upper Great Lakes by way of Lake Simcoe. The goal of this study is not to provide a complete history of the various peoples who have crossed the Toronto Carrying Place, nor is it to determine the exact route of the individual trails. Rather, this study aims to answer a seemingly basic question: what has the Toronto Carrying Place meant to the myriad of people who have walked its paths, either physically or in their imagination, from its earliest inception until today? The goal is to illuminate this cultural landscape that, while ever-changing and evolving in collective imaginations, manages to connect us through time and space.
Following a brief introduction to the Toronto Carrying Place and a historical summary of the north shore that provides a historical and cultural context for the rest of the thesis, this chapter contains a short historiography of the study of cultural landscapes in academic and heritage conservation and management settings, highlighting the extensive range of theoretical and methodological approaches. Drawing on this diversity,
I then propose an interdisciplinary approach to the study of cultural landscapes to better understand how people, past and present, come to know and make sense of a particular 2
cultural landscape such as the Toronto Carrying Place. I argue that to fully understand a cultural landscape, in the past as in the present, one should explore how it has been lived, discussed, and imagined over time.
'Le Passage de Taronto': Walking into the Heart of the Land1
The topography between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay has invited the development of major transportation routes for millennia. A network of major rivers and tributaries flows both north and south from the Oak Ridges Moraine, the drainage divide between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay. Along with the surrounding landforms, this network has always influenced both methods and direction of travel. For example, while canoe travel in south-central Ontario was limited to the lakes and the lower reaches of the major streams and rivers, the waterways provided a permanent system of landmarks to orient people travelling on foot along the dry highlands of the river valleys. A number of these land and water routes connected Lake Ontario to the upper Great Lakes by converging on Lake Simcoe.
Perhaps the best documented of these routes was that which followed the Humber
River valley. The Humber trail followed the East Branch of the Humber River northward over the drainage divide to the West Branch of the Holland River. An alternate route, however, extended from the mouth of the Rouge River northwards to the headwaters of the Little Rouge and over the drainage divide to the East Branch of the Holland River at
1 A special thanks to Peter J. Carruthers for this title. 2 Robert I. MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario: A Study of Ecological Relationships and Culture Changes" (PhD diss., McGill University, 2002), 285. 3
Holland Landing. This trail is often referred to as the eastern branch of the Toronto
Carrying Place. There is evidence that another trail followed the Don River, and still more footpaths from Lake Ontario's north shore followed other major river systems
(Figure l).3 As eloquently stated by Peter J. Carruthers in his preface to Toronto: A Short
Illustrated History of its First 12,000 Years, these trails are likely of great antiquity and the general routes they followed have remained important, yet ever-changing, strategic transportation corridors over the centuries - "from the earliest beginnings of Yonge Street in the late eighteenth century, to Toronto's first Northern Railway in the middle of the nineteenth century, and the present-day multi-lane Highway 400."4 This study focuses on the original, pedestrian iteration of these transportation corridors.
Most researchers have considered the Toronto Carrying Place, or 'le Passage de
Taronto' as the French called it, as a trail or a series of trails, but over time the Humber
River branch became more or less synonymous with the term. For clarity, I refer to the different trails as the Humber Carrying Place, the Rouge Carrying Place, and the Don
Carrying Place. Recently, however, some researchers have been considering a slightly different sense of the term, proposing that "Passage de Taronto" was actually
3 Farther east, two routes connected Lake Ontario to Rice Lake: a portage-laden canoe route from the Bay of Quinte up the Trent River and an overland route from the mouth of the Ganaraska River, near present- day Port Hope. From Rice Lake, another canoe and portage route led to Lake Simcoe. A third trail led from the eighteenth century French trading post of Cabane de Plomb, which was located near Harmony Creek in present-day Oshawa, to Lake Scugog and then northward to Lake Simcoe. For information on these trails, see Leslie M. Frost, Forgotten Pathways of the Trent (Don Mills: Burns & MacEachern, 1973). From Lake Simcoe, travellers had a choice of a few routes to reach Georgian Bay. These included the Nine Mile Portage from Kempenfeldt Bay near what is now Barrie to the Nottawasaga River, the Coldwater trail from the narrows between Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching to the Coldwater River, or following the Severn River at the north end of Lake Couchiching. This thesis, however, focuses on the overland portion of the Toronto Carrying Place south of Lake Simcoe. 4 Peter J. Carruthers, "Living in the Middle Ground," preface to Toronto: A Short Illustrated History of its First 12,000 Years, ed. Ronald F. Williamson (Toronto: James Lorimer & Company Ltd, 2008), 8. LAKE COUCHICHING
POTENTIAL ROUTES HOLLAND RIVER HUMBER RIVER DON RIVER ROUGE RIVER
CITYOf TOftONTO
LAKE ONTARIO igure 1: Possible routes of the Toronto Carrying Place north and south of Lake Simcoe. 5
exceedingly expansive in its original intent, representing more than just a trail. In this case, the Toronto Carrying Place can be defined as the actual place or landscape that was crossed by this series of overland and water routes linking Lake Ontario and Georgian
Bay.5 Both senses of the term are referenced in the following pages.
Historical Summary of the North Shore of Lake Ontario
The following section provides a brief historical summary of the north shore of
Lake Ontario, providing a contextual background for the remainder of the thesis. More detailed information focusing on topics and events that potentially influenced the use or avoidance of the Toronto Carrying Place is provided in the following chapters.
The arrival of the earliest peoples in southern Ontario is thought to have occurred between approximately 11,000 and 10,500 years ago, as soon as the area became inhabitable. These earliest peoples travelled in small groups over large distances hunting herds of caribou, their main prey, through a landscape of relatively barren tundra interspersed with areas of open boreal forest.6 Over the next few thousands of years, the landscape of southern Ontario changed dramatically. The tundra-like environment was
5 Ron Williamson, "It's not the Trail: It's the Land it Crosses," Heritage Toronto Blog, January 13, 2010, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.heritagetoronto.org/news/blog/ron-williamson/its-not-trail-it-s- land-it-crosses. 6 Archaeological Services Inc. (ASI), "Southeast Collector Recreational Enhancements, East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place, An Historical Overview," (report on file at Archaeological Services Inc., Toronto, 2009), 7.The environment of south-central Ontario at this time was similar to the environment found today in the subarctic region of Canada. Paleo-Indian peoples also hunted larger game such as mastodons, but smaller game and fish were also important dietary contributors; Peter I. Stork, "Recent Excavations at the Udora Site: A Gainey/Clovis Occupation Site in Southern Ontario," Current Research in the Pleistocene 5(1988), 23-24. For more information on the archaeology of the Paleo-Indian period (9,000 BCE to 7,000 BCE) see Chris J. Ellis and D. Brian Deller, "Paleo-Indians," in The Archaeology of Southern Ontario to A.D. 1650, ed. Chris J. Ellis and Neal Ferris, Occasional Publication 5 (London: London Chapter, Ontario Archaeological Society, 1990), 37-63. 6
replaced by more temperate forest and water levels in the Great Lakes fluctuated until they reached current levels around 5,000 years ago. Small nomadic bands continued to travel large distances exploiting moose, deer, and other animals, as well as a variety of fish and plant resources. By around 2,500 BCE to 1,000 BCE, people were occupying two major types of sites during their annual seasonal rounds of travel. During the fall and winter, small groups of related families lived in small inland camps where they harvested nuts, hunted moose and deer, and trapped smaller fur-bearing mammals. In the spring and summer, many groups of families came together at river mouths along the north shore of
*7 Lake Ontario to exploit the rich aquatic resources of the estuaries.
The seasonal rounds of aggregation and dispersal continued for the next two thousand years or so. Base camps were now occupied for longer periods and the seasonally-occupied campsites were located within smaller and more well-defined territories. Mortuary ceremonialism became more elaborate during this time period and included the long-term use of formalized burial places and the construction of artificial
Q mounds, reflecting an increased sense of social or community identity. Furthermore, grave offerings of 'exotic' objects reflecting considerable investment of time and skill
7 ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," 8; for more information on the archaeology of the Archaic period (7,000 BCE to 1,000 BCE) see Chris J. Ellis et al„ "The Archaic," in The Archaeology of Southern Ontario to A.D. 1650, ed. Chris J. Ellis and Neal Ferris, Occasional Publication 5 (London: London Chapter, Ontario Archaeological Society, 1990), 65-124. 8 Neal Ferris and Michael W. Spence, "The Woodland Traditions in Southern Ontario," Revista de Archeologia Americana 9 (1995), 98; Michael W. Spence et al., "Cultural Complexes of the Early and Middle Woodland Periods," in The Archaeology of Southern Ontario to A.D. 1650, ed. Chris J. Ellis and Neal Ferris, Occasional Publication 5 (London: London Chapter, Ontario Archaeological Society, 1990), 165-168; Michael W. Spence et al., "Hunter-Gatherer Social Group Identification: A Case Study from Middle Woodland Southern Ontario," in Exploring the Limits: Frontiers and Boundaries in Prehistory, eds. S. DeAtley and F. Findlow (Oxford: British Archaeological Report, International Series 223, 1984), 117- 142. 7
indicate that local bands were increasingly interacting with distant groups.9 Where documented, burial mounds are prominently situated on high points along the shores of major lakes and rivers and are associated with the very large, warm-weather base camps described above, where people congregated to exploit the rich estuarine resources, but also to establish and reaffirm kinship ties, to trade, and to bury their dead.10
The introduction of maize into southern Ontario around 500 CE altered the lives of Aboriginal peoples in the region in various ways. For example, the group mobility that had characterised the Aboriginal way of life for millennia was drastically altered once a commitment to producing food through agriculture was made. Base settlements were established around which land was cleared to grow crops of maize, beans, and squash.
Regional satellite camps were also established where the exploitation of abundant natural resources continued. During the first centuries of maize agriculture, these sites occur as geographically discrete, regional clusters along the lower reaches of rivers and streams on
9 ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," 8. For a map of Early and Middle Woodland trade networks see Ronald F. Williamson, "Before the Visitors," in Toronto: A Short illustrated History of its First 12,000 Years, ed. Ronald F. Williamson (Toronto: James Lorimer & Company Ltd, 2008), 36. For example, native copper originated from the western end of Lake Superior, silver from the Cobalt area in northern Ontario, shell from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast, and exotic lithics and metal artifacts from the Mid-West. 10 Well-documented burial mounds are located in the Rice Lake area. See Richard B. Johnston, Archaeology of Rice Lake, Ontario, Anthropology Papers No. 19, (Ottawa: National Museum of Canada, 1968) and Jeffery Bryan Dillane, "Visibility Analysis of the Rice Lake Burial Mounds and Related Sites," (PhD diss., Trent University, 2009). In addition, an elaborate three-thousand-year-old burial site was located near Grenadier Pond in High Park and another at Baby Point, near the intersection of Jane and Annette Streets in Toronto. Both were situated near the terminus of the Humber Carrying Place; Archaeological Services Inc. et al., "A Master Plan of Archaeological Resources for the City of Toronto - Interim Report," (Prepared for Heritage Preservation Services Culture Division, City of Toronto, 2004), 16, electronic document accessed November 24,2010, http://www.toronto.ca/heritage- preservation/pdf/masterplan_arc.resources.pdf 8
the Iroquois Plain.11 This time period also saw the emergence of the Iroquoian language in the lower Great Lakes area.12
While the shift from the traditional reliance on naturally occurring plant resources to agriculture was gradual, maize comprised approximately half the diet of some
11 generations of Iroquoians by the late fourteenth century. Iroquoian communities, which were increasing in size, expanded northward out of the sandy Iroquois Plain and onto the drought-resistant soils of the South Slope till plain, progressively moving upstream into the middle and upper reaches of the watersheds.14 This period also saw the first Iroquoian expansion north of the Oak Ridges Moraine and into the uplands west of Lake Simcoe.15
By this time, there was a well-established enclave of Iroquoian-speaking groups in the
"MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 258-262; ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," 11-13. These sites also occur around Rice Lake; see Ronald F. Williamson, "The Early Iroquoian Period of Southern Ontario," in The Archaeology of Southern Ontario to A.D. 1650, ed. Chris J. Ellis and Neal Ferris, Occasional Publication 5 (London: London Chapter, Ontario Archaeological Society, 1990), 291-320. 12 See Jennifer Birch, "Coalescent Communities in Iroquoian Ontario," (PhD diss., McMaster University, 2010), 13, for a discussion on the debate surrounding the origins of Iroquoian-speaking peoples in the Lower Great Lakes 13 Henry P. Schwarz et al., "Stable Isotopes in Human Skeletons of Southern Ontario: Reconstructing Paleodiet," Journal of Archaeological Science 12 (1985), 187-206; M. Anne Katzenberg et al., "Stable Isotope Evidence for Maize Horticulture and Paleodiet in Southern Ontario," American Antiquity 60 (1995), 335-350; Nikolaas J. van der Merwe et al., "The Moatfield Ossuary: isotopic dietary analysis of an Iroquoian community, using dental tissue," Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22 (2003), 245-261. Research has shown that maize comprised 70% of the diet of some of the individuals who were interred in the 1300 CE Moatfield ossuary located on a tributary of the Don River; Nikolass J. van der Merwe et al., "The Diet of the Moatfield People," in Bones of the Ancestors: The Archaeology and Osteobiography of the Moatfield Ossuary, ed. Ronald F. Williamson and Susan Pfeiffer (Gatineau: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2003), 205-222. 14 MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 17,94,294-295. The increase in size of Middle Iroquoian communities has been attributed to the amalgamation of smaller village communities, supplemented by natural population increases; see Christine F. Dodd et al„ "The Middle Ontario Iroquoian Stage," in The Archaeology of Southern Ontario toA.D. 1650, ed. Chris J. Ellis and Neal Ferris, Occasional Publication 5 (London: London Chapter, Ontario Archaeological Society, 1990), 321-360. 15 Rick E. Sutton, "The Middle Iroquoian Colonization of Huronia," PhD diss., McMaster University, 1996; Rick E. Sutton, "The Barrie Site: A Pioneering Iroquoian Village Located in Simcoe County, Ontario," Ontario Archaeology 67 (1999), 40-86. 9
lower Great Lakes region surrounded by Algonquian-speaking populations. The
Iroquoian-speaking people living on the central north shore of Lake Ontario were the ancestors of the Wendat and Tionnontate (Petun) confederacies, while those to the south of the lake, in what is now central New York State, became known as the Five Nations
Iroquois. Also known as the Iroquoian League, Haudenosaunee, or People of the
Longhouse, this confederacy was composed of five separate tribes: Seneca, Cayuga,
Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk. A sixth tribe, the Tuscarora, joined in 1722 and the confederacy became known as the Six Nations.16
Around 1450 CE, a number of previously distinct communities on the north shore of Lake Ontario came together to form larger villages.17 This period of coalescence was accompanied by an increase in small-scale conflict between local communities.18
Archaeological evidence points to a decrease in the reliance of lakeshore estuary sites for
16 Elizabeth Tooker, "The Five (Later Six) Nations Confederacy, 1550-1784," in Aboriginal Ontario: historical perspectives on the First Nations, eds. Edward S. Rogers and Donald B. Smith (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1984), 79-91. l7Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 2; MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 305. Possible reasons for such coalescence include a desire of contemporary communities sharing the same site catchment to pool their resources by amalgamating [MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 296]; and the need for communal defence against increasing warfare and feuding, and competition over hunting territories [Bruce G. Trigger, Natives and Newcomers: Canada's Heroic Age Reconsidered (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1985), 99; Gary Warrick, "The Precontact Occupation of Southern Ontario," Journal of World Prehistory 14 (2000), 450], 18 Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 58-59, 94-95, 144-145; Jennifer Birch, "Coalescence and Conflict in Iroquoian Ontario," Archaeological Review from Cambridge 25 (2010), 29-47; Robert D. Kuhn, "Reconstructing Patterns of Interaction and Warfare between the Mohawk and Northern Iroquoians during the A.D. 1400-1700 Period," in Passion for the Past: Papers in Honour of James F. Pendergast, ed. James V. Wright and Jean-Luc Pilon. Mercury Series Archaeology Paper 164 (Gatineau: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2004), 145-166; David A. Roberston and Ronald F. Williamson, "The Archaeology of the Parsons Site: Summary and Conclusions," Ontario Archaeology 65/66 (1998), 148; Bruce G. Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Wendat People to 1660 (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1987), 159. 10
resources and an increased reliance on deer during this period.19 Hostilities seem to have abated by the sixteenth century which meant that travel through the landscape north of
Lake Ontario was much safer. In fact, there is an increase in evidence of interregional interaction between both Iroquoian- and Algonquian-speaking groups on mid-sixteenth century sites.20 After 1550 CE, the only settlements remaining on the north shore of Lake
Ontario are very large villages (two to four hectares) situated near the headwaters of their respective watersheds.
By the time the French first arrived in the area, however, the region north of Lake
Ontario was virtually abandoned. The remaining late-sixteenth-century communities had relocated and integrated into the Wendat Confederacy in the northern uplands of Simcoe
County and the Tionnontate Confederacy in the Nottawasaga Highlands and they now avoided their former homeland for fear of attack by the Iroquois League. Feuding with the Iroquois is touted as one of the reasons behind the final abandonment of the north shore though other factors, such as increasing trade with Europeans, might have also been at work. 21 The Wendat Confederacy consisted of five allied nations, which included
Attighawantan (Bear Nation), Atingeennniahak (People of the Cord), Arenharhonon
(Nation of the Rock), Tahontaenrat (People of the Deer), and Ataronchronon (People of the Marsh or Bog). Although culturally and linguistically Iroquoian, they were traditional enemies of the Iroquois League.22 Ultimately, this inter-tribal warfare with the Five
Nations Iroquois, exacerbated by the effects of European epidemic diseases resulted in
19 MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 293-294; van der Merwe et al„ "The Moatfield Ossuary," 205-222. 20 Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 97-148; 155-160. 21 Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 174. 22 For a discussion of Wendat socio-political organization, see Trigger, Children of Aataentsic. 11
the dispersal of not only the Wendat Confederacy, but of the Petun and Neutral
Confederacies as well as many of their Algonquian-speaking allies by around 1650.
While many of the Ontario refugees were dispersed to Quebec, Michigan, and Ohio (and ultimately Kansas and Oklahoma), many others were incorporated into the Five Nations
Iroquois populations.23
The years following the dispersal of the Wendat and their allies are filled with a combination of migrations, fission, and amalgamation of groups as people continued to be affected by periods of starvation, epidemic diseases, and warfare. A period of relative peace and stability around the late 1660s, however, enabled the Five Nations Iroquois to establish a series of villages on the north shore of Lake Ontario.24 These strategically situated settlements were located along the long-established trails leading inland from
Lake Ontario, including Teiaiagon near the mouth of the Humber River and
Ganatsekwyagon near the mouth of the Rouge River. While documentary evidence describes Teiaiagon and Ganatsekwyagon as Seneca villages, the inhabitants of all the north shore villages included people from throughout the Five Nations as well as Wendat
23 Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 826-828. 24 Heidi R. Bohaker, "Nindoodemag: Anishnaabe Identities in the Eastern Great Lakes Region, 1600 to 1900," (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2006), 80; Victor Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier: the north shore of Lake Ontario during the late seventeenth century," Journal of Historical Geography 7 (1981), 129-144. 25 From east to west, the villages consisted of: Ganneious, on Napanee Bay which is part of the Bay of Quinte; Quinte, near the isthmus of the Quinte Peninsula; Ganaraske, at the mouth of the Ganaraska River; Quintio, at the mouth of the Trent River on the north shore of Rice Lake; Ganatsekwyagon; Teiaiagon; and Quinaouatoua, on the portage between the western end of Lake Ontario and the Grand River. Konrad argues that the number and distribution of villages across the landscape maximized the ease and control of the flow of furs from the northern hunting and trading territory to the Iroquois homeland. Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier," 135-136. Various theories as to why these villages were established have been put forward. Daniel K. Richter asserts that the Iroquois were probably led by Wendat adoptees familiar with the old Wendat hunting territories while James S. Pritchard argues that the north shore settlements represent villages of Cayuga and Seneca refugees fleeing attacks from the Andastes. Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 120; James S. Pritchard, "For the Glory of God: The Quinte Mission, 1668-1680," Ontario Historical Society 65 (1973), 133-148. 12
adoptees.26 By the 1680s, the Beaver Wars were renewed as the Five Nations, with the
support of the English and Dutch allies, increased their trading and raiding activities in
the Upper Great Lakes.27 The north shore villages were abandoned by the late 1680s.28
In the late seventeenth century, the Anishinaabe, a collective term for
Algonquian-speaking groups such as the Mississauga, Ojibwa, and Odawa, began
expanding southward from their homelands in the upper Great Lakes. These relatively
small individual bands were politically autonomous and highly mobile, with a subsistence
economy based on hunting, fishing, gathering of wild plants, and garden farming.29 While
they came into occasional conflict with the Five Nations Iroquois, alliances between the
two were established as well. From this point on, Mississauga communities had a
presence at both the north and south termini of the Toronto Carrying Place and were
intermittently trading with both the French and the English.
The first official French trading post at Toronto was established in 1720 but was
abandoned by 1730.30 A new post was constructed in 1750. Like its predecessor, this post
was constructed at the mouth of the Humber River with the purpose of intercepting
Anishinaabe traders on the Toronto Carrying Place before they could cross the lake to
26 Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier," 136; Richter, "The Ordeal of the Longhouse," 121. 27 Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier," 140; Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse, 134-161. 28Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier," 140. 29 E.S. Rogers, "Southeastern Ojibwa," in Northeast, ed. Bruce Trigger, vol. 15 of Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant, (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1978), 760. 30 "Mr. Durant's Memorial relative to French Post at Niagara," in Edmund O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, (Albany: Weed, Parsons & Company, 1856-1887), 5:589. Operated by Sieur Douville, this fort is also known as the Magasin Royal, see Percy J. Robinson, Toronto During the French Regime: A History of the Toronto Region from Brule to Simcoe, 1615-1793 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2nd edition, 1965), 61-92. 13
trade with the English at Fort Oswego.31 A larger more secure fort, known as Fort
Toronto or Fort Rouille, was soon built on what are now the grounds of the Canadian
National Exhibition (CNE) by order of the Governor of New France. The French burned and abandoned Fort Toronto in 1759 following a series of defeats at the hands of the British during the Seven Years War (1756-1763).33 After French withdrawal, the
Mississauga continued to inhabit and trade on and around the Toronto Carrying Place.34
Perhaps the best known trader in the late eighteenth century was Jean-Baptiste Rousseau dit Saint-Jean who built a house and trading post at the southern terminus of the Humber trail in the 1770s or 1780s.35
At the end of the American War of Independence (1774-1783), the British entered into negotiations for lands in order to facilitate European and Loyalist settlement. In 1787 the Crown purchased Toronto from the Mississaugas for £1,700 in cash and goods.36 In
August 1793, Lieutenant John Graves Simcoe founded the Town of York.
31 Benn, Carl. "Colonial Transformation," in Toronto: A Short Illustrated History of Its First 12,000 Years, ed. Ronald F. Williamson (Toronto: James Lorimer & Company Ltd., 2008), 55-56. 32 Donald A. Brown, Fort Rouille Excavation, Summer 1982: A Toronto Sesquicentennial Project (Toronto: Learnxs Press, 1982), 7. 33 "M. de Vaudreuil to M. de Massiac, 2 September 1758," in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 10:824; J.M.S. Careless, Toronto to 1918: An Illustrated History (Toronto: James Lorimer & Co., 1984), 9. 34 Benn, "Colonial Transformation," 58; Robert Rogers, Reminiscences of the French War (Concord: Luther Roby, 1831), 116-117. On his way to Detroit, Major Robert Rogers and a small British force stopped at Toronto where he learned from the Mississaugas of the shortcut to the Upper Great Lakes via the Humber River trail. 35 Robinson, Toronto During the French Regime, 154, 209-218. 36 Benn, "Colonial Transformations," 59. The boundaries and details of purchase were clarified in a subsequent treaty in 1805. 14
INVESTIGATING CULTURAL LANDSCAPES
Landscape Studies as a Scholarly Pursuit
The following section reviews and discusses some of the major figures and schools of thought within landscape studies, focusing on contributions made by scholars of geography, history, anthropology, and archaeology. As John Wylie points out, the lack of formal structure, in terms of university departments or courses, of 'landscape studies' necessitates a focus on key individuals for a historiography of the subject rather than a review of major intellectual movements and paradigms as is possible for other, more traditional, academic fields.
Cultural geographers have been discussing 'cultural landscapes' since Carl Sauer coined the term in 1925.38 A leading figure in the 'Berkeley School' of landscape studies,
Sauer presented a morphological approach to landscape and cultural studies whereby distinctive characteristics of a landscape could be viewed as expressions of different cultures at different time periods. For Sauer, landscape was a product of the interaction between human cultures, with their shared beliefs and behaviours, and the natural, physical environment.39
This "commonsensical" view of landscape as an objective world of physical features to be empirically assessed and described was shared by two other major practitioners of landscape studies in the mid-twentieth century: English historian W.G.
37 John Wylie, Landscape (New York: Routledge, 2007), 53. 38 Carl O. Sauer, "The Morphology of Landscape," in Land and Life: A Selection from the Writings of Carl Ortwin Sauer, ed. John Leighly (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), 315-350. 39 Brian S. Osborne, "Some Thoughts on Landscape: Is it a Noun, a Metaphor, or a Verb?" Canadian Social Studies 32 (1998): 93; Graeme Wynn, "Putting Things in Their Place," foreword to The Archive of Place: Unearthing the Past of the Chilcotin Plateau, by William J. Turkel (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007), xvi. 15
Hoskins and American geographer J.B. Jackson.40 Hoskins considered landscape interpretation as a distinctive form of historical practice and the material traces left in the landscape by humans as important a text as other written or non-written sources.41
Landscapes were to be informed by and read alongside other, more traditional texts, through meticulous work in field and archive.42 While Hoskins sought to understand and organize the individual features of local rural landscapes, Jackson applied similar approaches on a broader scale, focusing on patterns of features and settlement plans of an entirely distinct range of representative but overlooked vernacular landscapes, such as industrial areas, highways, and working class neighbourhoods.43 While committed to an external, artifactual conception of landscape, Jackson recognized that landscapes were also repositories of cultural meaning, symbolic value, memories, and myth, and was thus able to reconcile the everyday vernacular and the symbolic.44
The mid-1980s to the mid-1990s saw a "cultural turn" in human geography which influenced how landscapes were being defined and studied.45 Moving away from landscape as an external, physical manifestation of cultural and natural elements, scholars saw landscape as a culturally specific way of seeing or representing the world. In this new cultural geography, the physical environment no longer mattered as much as its
40 Wylie, Landscape, 12-13. 41 William G. Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape (Harmondworth: Penguin Books, 1970). 42 Donald W. Meinig, "Reading the Landscape: An Appreciation of W.G. Hoskins and J.B. Jackson," in The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes, ed. Donald W. Meinig (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 196-210. 43 John B. Jackson, Landscapes: Selected Writings ofJ.B. Jackson, ed. Ervin H. Zube (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1970); Meinig, "Reading the Landscape," 210-232. 44 Wylie, Landscape, 40-46; Denis Cosgrove, Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), xi; Donald W. Meinig, introduction to The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes, ed. D.W. Meinig (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 6. 45 Wylie, Landscape, 13. 16
culturally-constructed representations in texts and images.46 Interpretation now took precedence over description, and these cultural images of landscape could be understood and analysed as expressions of cultural, political, and economic power. Various metaphors have been used to examine landscape within this paradigm, including landscape as veil, landscape as text, and landscape as gaze.47 While each approach is based on varying primary theoretical frameworks and has distinctive interpretative techniques and concerns, they all share similarities in terms of method and definition regarding the concept of landscape as a visual representation of cultural meaning and power.
Historical ecologists, however, concerned with changing occupation patterns over time, continued to embrace traditional humanistic geography by interpreting vernacular and formal landscapes in terms of communities' values and beliefs. Landscape, they argued, is determined by the combination of physical structures, such as topography and geology, and socio-historical structures, such as class and kin 48
46 For example in cartography, photography, poetry, literature, landscape art, paintings, travel narratives, etc.; Wylie, Landscape, 55-93. 47 Wylie, Landscape, 55-93. For arguments for and examples of landscape as veil, see for example: Denis Cosgrove, "Prospect, perspective and the evolution of the landscape idea," Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 10 (1985):45-62; Stephen Daniels, "Arguments for a humanistic geography," in The Future of Geography, ed. Ronald J. Johnston (London: Methuen, 1985), 143-158; and Daniel Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels, eds., The Iconography of Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). For arguments for and examples of landscape as text, see for example: James Duncan and Nancy Duncan, "(Re)reading the landscape," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 6 (1988): 117-126; James Duncan, The City as Text: The Politics of Landscape Interpretation in the Kandyan Kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and James Duncan and David Ley, eds., Place/Culture/Representation (London: Routledge, 1993). For arguments for and examples of landscape as gaze see for example: Gillian Rose, Feminism and Geography (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), and Catherine Nash, "Reclaiming vision: looking at landscape and the body," Gender, Place, and Culture 3 (1996): 149-169. 48 Kurt F. Anschuetz et al„ "An Archaeology of Landscapes: Perspectives and Directions," Journal of Archaeological Research 9 (2001), 166-167. See for example Carole L. Crumley, ed. Historical Ecology: Cultural Knowledge and Changing Landscapes (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1994), and 17
The mid-1990s witnessed the definition and problematization of landscape in
anthropology and archaeology with the publication of various anthologies on the topic.49
The concept of landscape from an anthropological perspective was frequently broached
but had, until then, only generally been used to describe particular ethnographic
settings.50 Similarly, while the term 'landscape' was increasingly present in
archaeological studies through the 1990s, there was no common definition or
understanding of what landscape was and what exactly a 'landscape approach' should
be.51 In his introduction to The Anthropology of Landscape, Eric Hirsh adapts an art historian's approach to landscape to provide two definitions of the concept from an
anthropological perspective: the first as the framing device or a "background" in which to
put people into view, and the other as the socially-constructed "foreground" of everyday
life. He argues that landscape, which can be conceived as a cultural process, requires a relationship between both "background" and "foreground."52 Senses of Place, edited by
Steven Feld and Keith Basso, has a strong focus on indigenous perceptions and experiences of place. It examines "the complex ways in which places anchor lives in
Carole L. Crumley and William H. Marquardt, Regional Dynamics: Burgundian Landscapes in Historical Perspective (San Diego: Academic Press, 1987). 49 Eric Hirsh and Michael O'Hanlon, eds. The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso, eds., Senses of Place (Santa Fe: School of American Research, 1996); Barbara Bender, ed. Landscape: Politics and Perspectives (Oxford: Berg, 1993); Christopher Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths, and Monuments (Oxford: Berg, 1994); and Wendy Ashmore and A. Bernard Knapp, eds. Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives. Maiden: Blackwell Publishers, 1999). 50 Setha M. Low and Denise Lawrence Zuiiiga, "Locating Culture," in The Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating Culture, ed. Setha M. Low and Denise Lawrence Zuniga (Maiden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 16. 51 Kurt F. Anschuetz et al„ "An Archaeology of Landscapes," 157-158. 52 Eric Hirsh, "Landscape: Between Place and Space," introduction to The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space, ed. Eric Hirsh and Michael O'Hanlon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 2-5; Kurt F. Anschuetz et al., "An Archaeology of Landscapes," 167. 18
social formations ranging widely in geographical location, in economic and political
scale, and in the accompanying realms of gender, race, class, and ethnicity."53
Since the 1990s, a new generation of cultural geographers has extended and
developed, as well as critiqued, the concept of landscape as a way of seeing. Inspired by
various forms of post-structural theory and critical cultural theory, the focus on specific
places, texts, and images shifted to what David Matless terms 'cultures of landscapes.'54
Studies on identity, planning, citizenship, labour, and other cultural movements and everyday practices in which landscape figures physically and symbolically were added to
the ideas of representation, power, and ideology espoused by writers such as Denis
Cosgrove, Stephen Daniels, and James Duncan.55 Instead of examining how landscapes
are consumed as an outcome and reflection of cultural values, scholars such as Don
Mitchell, with his extensive work on systems of agricultural production in California,
consider how landscapes are made and produced.56
The emergence of post-colonial studies has enabled scholars to explore cultures of
landscape within histories of travel, exploration, colonialism, and imperialism.57 This
avenue of research has also seen the definition of landscape change from a noun to a
verb, now understood in terms of process and movement.58 No longer was landscape
53 Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso, introduction to Senses of Place (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1996), 7. 54 David Matless, Landscape and Englishness (London: Reaktion, 1998). 55 Wylie, Landscape, 94-120. 56 See for example Don Mitchell, "California living, California dying: dead labour and the political economy of landscape," in Handbook of Cultural Geography, ed. Kay Anderson et al. (London: Sage, 2003), 233-248; and The Lie of the Land: Migrant Workers and the California Landscape (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996) among others. 57 Wylie, Landscape, 120-136. 58 WJ.Thomas Mitchell, introduction to Landscape and Power, ed. W.J.Thomas Mitchell (London: Routledge, 1994), 1; Osborne, "Some Thoughts on Landscape," 94-95; Wylie, Landscape, 122. 19
merely a symbol of power. It was in fact, in the words of W.J. Thomas Mitchell, "an instrument of cultural power, perhaps even an agent of power."59 Wylie has identified three broad avenues of post-colonial writings on landscape: the role of European aesthetics in representations of non-European landscapes; landscape and the objective, scientific, and imperial gaze; and the relationships between landscape, movement/travel, and perception/identity.60
Quite distinct from the generally empirical, interpretative, and discursive approaches discussed so far is landscape phenomenology. Proponents of phenomenology argue that concepts of landscape as image, representation or gaze composed of culturally- constructed values and meanings enforce oppositions between subject and object, mind and body, and culture and nature.61 One of the goals of phenomenological writings is to faithfully capture everyday lived experience, and for landscape studies, this understanding is generally based on direct corporeal contact with, and associative experience of, landscape, wherein self and landscape are very much intertwined.62 Key sources of inspiration for scholars of various disciplines writing about landscape from a
59 Mitchell, introduction, 1. All of the essays in Landscape and Power deal with this definition of landscape. 60 Wylie, Landscape, 126-136. For writings on landscape aesthetics see for example Terry G. Birtles, "First contact: colonial European preconceptions of tropical Queensland rainforest and its people," Journal of Historical Geography 23 (1997), 393-417; and Roxanne Wheeler, "Limited visions of Africa: geographies of savagery and civility in early 18th century narratives," in Writes of Passage: Reading Travel Writing, ed. James Duncan and Derek Gregory (London: Routledge, 1999), 14-48. For writings on the imperial gaze, see for example Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Literature and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992); Simon Ryan, The Cartographic Eye: How Explorers Saw Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Richard Phillips, Mapping Men and Empire: A Geography of Adventure (London: Routledge, 1997). For writings on landscape, travel, and self see for example John Urry, The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies (Routledge: London, 1998), and Amanda Gilroy, ed., Romantic Geographies: Discourse of Travel, 1775-1844 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000). 61 Wylie, Landscape, 14. 62 Wylie, Landscape, 139-140. 20
phenomenological viewpoint include Maurice Merleau-Ponty and his work on perception and the body, and Martin Heidegger and his work on dwelling and 'being-in-the-world.'63
For example, cultural geographer John Wylie has explored some of Merleau-Ponty's ideas in the context of specific locales and bodily practices, and anthropologist Tim
Ingold has advanced Heidegger's dwelling perspective and has written extensively on notions of perception and embodiment.64 Other scholars within cultural geography, history, archaeology, and anthropology have followed a broadly phenomenological approach in their work exploring such concepts of non-representational theory, performance, embodiment, materiality, and movement.65
Cultural Landscapes in Heritage Conservation and Management
Since the 1980s, dialogue on cultural landscapes has emerged within the realm of heritage conservation and management where methodological advancements in the study
53 Wylie, Landscape, 147-162; Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (London: Routledge, 1962) and The Essential Writings of Merleau-Ponty, ed. Aldon L. Fisher (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969); Martin Heidegger, "Building dwelling thinking," in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings, ed. David F. Krell (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), 319-339. 64 See for example John Wylie, "A single day's walking: narrating self and landscape on the South West Coast Path," Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers NS 30 (2005): 234-247; Tim Ingold, The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling, and Skill (New York: Routledge, 2000); Tim Ingold "Culture on the Ground: The World Perceived Through the Feet," Journal of Material Culture 9(2004): 315-340. 65 Wylie, Landscape, 162-179. See for example Hayden Lorimer, "Cultural geography: the busyness of being 'more-than-representational'," Progress in Human Geography 29 (2005): 83-94; Paul Cloke and Owain Jones, "Dwelling, place and landscape: an orchard in Somerset," Environment and Planning A 33 (2001): 649-666; David Crouch, "Spacing, performing and becoming: tangles in the mundane," Environment and Planning A 35 (2003): 1,945-1,960; Daniel Miller, Materiality, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005); Christopher Tilley, The Materiality of Stone: Explorations in Landscape Phenomenology (Oxford: Berg, 2004); Michael Shanks and Mike Pearson, Theatre/Archaeology, (London: Routledge, 2001); and Joy Parr, Sensing Changes: Technologies, Environments, and the Everyday, 1953- 2003, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010). 21
of landscape have been made.66 The field was energized in the 1990s when the World
Heritage Convention became the first international legal instrument to recognise and
protect cultural heritage landscapes by adopting guidelines concerning their inclusion in
the World Heritage List.67 In addition to allowing the implementation of new approaches
to conservation, this development encouraged the exploration of different methods in the
identification of important landscape characteristics, combining analytical methods of
natural heritage with the study of cultural expressions on the landscape. Since then, the
International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) has recognized 'Cultural
Routes' as its own category of cultural heritage assets.68
There has been much dialogue between indigenous peoples and
anthropologists/archaeologists regarding the conservation and management of cultural
and natural heritage resources and landscapes. These conversations have brought to the
forefront the political dimensions of human relationships to landscape, revealing time and
again the ways in which landscapes are integral to community identity, memory, and
tradition.69 As in academia, heritage conservation dialogue on cultural landscapes has
moved beyond analysis of the tangible cultural manifestations of a people towards a focus on the intangible, perceived or cognitive landscape. According to Susan Buggey of
66 e.g., English Heritage (UK), Parks Canada (Canada), National Parks Service (USA), etc. 67 "Cultural Landscape," UNESCO World Heritage, accessed October 7, 2010, http://whc.unesco.org/en/culturallandscape. 68ICOMOS-CIIC, "The ICOMOS Charter on Cultural Routes", Ratified October 4, 2008. Accessed October 8, 2010, http://www.internationaI.icomos.org/charters/culturalroutes_e.pdf. A Canadian example of such a route is the Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site. See Guy Masson, "Cultural Route and the Heritage Management Challenge: The Klondike Gold Rush: A Case Study," ICOMOS 15th General Assembly Proceedings of the Scientific Symposium: Monuments and sites in their setting - conserving cultural heritage in changing townscapes and landscapes (17-21 October 2005), accessed October 8, 2010, http://www. international. icomos.org/xian2005/papers/4-17 .pdf 69 Anschuetz et al„ "Archaeology of Landscapes", 167. 22
Parks Canada, this shift facilitates the study of Aboriginal cultural landscapes since
indigenous peoples in many parts of the world tend to view landscapes in spiritual, as
well as in material terms.70 Cultural landscapes can be distinguished by their associations
with the natural environment and not necessarily by material cultural vestiges which may
or may not be present.
An advocate of this approach in Canada is architect Julian Smith, who describes
landscapes as "ideas embedded in a place."71 In order to fully understand a place, it is not enough to simply recognize the physical and tangible features of the landscape, or what
Smith terms 'the artifacts.' It is also imperative to experience the intangible practices of a
people surrounding these artifacts. A trail, for example, could be considered as one
artifact in a cultural landscape—one which has witnessed a variety of activities and
repeated experiences performed by numerous peoples along its route over time.
In Canada, trails have mainly been studied from an Aboriginal perspective and have often been part of larger landscape studies borne out of land contestation and
management issues. For example, Hugh Brody's extraordinary Maps and Dreams began as a mapping exercise in advance of a proposed oil pipeline through the traditional lands of the Dane-zaa. Extensive Dogrib place name and trail research was also undertaken as
70 Susan Buggey, An Approach to Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes. Accessed November 4, 2010, http://www.pc.gc.ca/docs/r/pca-acl/index.aspx. 71 Julian Smith, "The Marrying of the Old with the New in Historic Urban Landscapes," World Heritage Papers 27 (2010), 46. 72 Smith, "The Marrying of the Old with the New," 46. Smith terms the intangible practices of a people "rituals." 73 Hugh Brody, Maps and Dreams: Indians and the British Columbia Frontier (Vancouver: Douglas & Mclntyre, 1988). 23
part of background research for comprehensive land claim negotiations.74 The latter has
developed into an interactive, multimedia and multilingual web exhibit based on the
traditional travel routes of the Aboriginal peoples of the Northwest Territories.75 Lessons
from the Land features the |daa Trail, a traditional route of the Dogrib, and there are plans
to add other trails in the future.
METHODOLOGY: MAKING SENSE OF THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE
The literature review presented above, though biased towards the social sciences
and hardly touching on landscape studies in the natural sciences or humanities, confirms
that there are almost as many definitions, concepts, and approaches to study of
landscapes as there are landscapes to study. The various disciplines have each developed
their own traditional concepts and applications on the subject, and while they have been
successful in presenting their findings within their own specialisations, collaboration and
the transfer of knowledge across disciplinary boundaries has been lacking.76 In the past decade, however, some scholars have been advocating and presenting models for an
interdisciplinary (or transdisciplinary) approach to the study of landscapes.77
74 Thomas D. Andrews and John B. Zoe, "The Jdaa Trail: Archaeology and the Dogrib Cultural Landscape, Northwest Territories, Canada," in At a Crossroads: Archaeology and First Peoples in Canada, eds. George P. Nicholas and Thomas D. Andrews (Burnaby: Archaeology Press, Archaeology Dept., Simon Fraser University, 1997), 160-177; Thomas D. Andrews et al„ "On Yamozah's Trail: Sacred Sites and the Anthropology of Travel," in Sacred Lands: Aboriginal World Views, Claims, and Conflicts, eds. Jill Oaks et al„ (Edmonton: Canadian Circumpolar Institute, 1998), 305-320. 75 "Lesson from the Land: A Cultural Journey Through the Northwest Territories," Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, accessed October 7, 2010, http://www.lessonsfromtheland.ca 76 Barbel Tress and Gunter Tress, "Capitalising on multiciplicity: a transdisciplinary systems approach to landscape research," Landscape and Urban Planning 57 (2001): 143-144. 77 Tress and Tress, "Capitalising on multiciplicity," 143-157; James McGlade, "Archaeology and the evolution of cultural landscapes: towards an interdisciplinary research agenda," in The Archaeology of 24
I believe that each approach, whether empirical, interpretative, discursive, or phenomenological in nature, has something different to offer to our overall understanding of how people make sense of a particular landscape. For example, investigating place through corporeal embodiment, a topic that will be broached in Chapter Two, is indispensible when examining landscape from a local perspective. In the case of the
Toronto Carrying Place, investigating how the myriad of peoples who have walked the trails knew the landscape north of Lake Ontario through their senses will provide a rich and interesting perspective on the topic. Bodily knowledge, however, is perhaps not as useful when studying the trails from a contemporary cultural heritage management perspective (e.g., through issues of commemoration and bureaucratic decision-making), especially since little of these trails physically exists today. It is only through multiple approaches that we can better understand the overlapping narratives of the Toronto
Carrying Place and perhaps shed light on what these trails have meant to the many people who have used them and imagined them, from their earliest inception to today.
In his ethnolinguistic study of landscape, Keith Basso argues that Western Apache community members engage with their geographical landscape in three different ways: they may observe the landscape, use the landscape, and communicate about the landscape.781 propose that this statement can be expanded and slightly altered to provide a broader perspective on landscape which allows for a deeper time scale and a variety of insider and outsider viewpoints. I suggest that landscape and place, past and present, can
Landscape: Shaping your Landscape, eds. Peter J. Ucko and Robert Layton (London: Routledge, 1999), 458-482. 78 Keith Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places (Alburquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996), 73. 25
be known in three ways, whether by local peoples or outsiders: people come to know and
make sense of landscape by living it, by discussing it, and by imagining it. Knowing
landscape by living it is defined by on-the-ground physicality, and the intimate sensuous
knowledge that is acquired through work and play, or in the case of the Toronto Carrying
Place, through walking. Knowing landscape by discussing it or communicating about it
incorporates, among other avenues, oral and written narratives, toponyms, and maps
concerning the particular landscape. Knowing landscape by imagining it is rooted in the
realm of social memory and historical consciousness, and concerns issues of power and
representation and questions about who gets to decide which stories are told. There is no
doubt that these three ways of knowing are inextricably intertwined and more than one
can be at play at any one time. Separating them will hopefully provide a richer
understanding of the Toronto Carrying Place, providing a "thick description."79
Smith argues that cultural landscapes must be experienced, rather than observed,
and they must be experienced within the cultural framework of those who create(d) and
on sustain(ed) them. The following research will explore the meaningful interactions
between the Toronto Carrying Place and the myriad peoples who have lived it, discussed
it, and imagined it, "in order to discover the meanings to that time and place which actors
attributed to their own and others' behaviour."81 Towards that end, my thesis is organized
around the three ways people come to know landscape. Chapter Two presents an embodied history of the Toronto Carrying Place and concentrates on the experiences of
79 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 3-32. 80 Smith, "The Marrying of the Old with the New", 46. 81 Robert Layton and Peter J. Ucko, "Introduction: gazing on the landscape and encountering the environment," in The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscapes: Shaping Your Landscape, eds. Peter J. Ucko and Robert Layton (London: Routledge, 1999), 2. 26
those who may have walked its trails, including Aboriginal peoples before and after the
arrival of Europeans, early explorers, missionaries, and fur traders, eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century surveyors and settlers, as well as the experiences of early- to mid-
twentieth-century Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal residents and travellers (especially in
areas beyond the developed core of the City of Toronto). Chapter Three presents a
discursive history of the Toronto Carrying Place and deals with the various ways people have discussed and communicated about the trails while they were still in use. It will
include an exploration of recorded oral traditions, histories, and narratives; toponyms;
and various types of written historical documents, including maps, that deal directly or
indirectly with the Toronto Carrying Place. Finally, Chapter Four presents an imagined
history of the Toronto Carrying Place and explores the possible ways the trails have been
imagined since the turn of the twentieth century. It focuses on existing research on the
Toronto Carrying Place and explores issues of public representation and commemoration,
which greatly influence how people perceive the past. The fifth and final chapter comes full-circle and provides a discussion of the usefulness of the proposed approach to the study of cultural landscapes. It also presents some future avenues for research. The exploration of how people have come to know the Toronto Carrying Place necessitates the use of a number of disparate primary and secondary sources, a discussion of which will be included in each chapter.82
82 Due to the already broad scope of the project, I had to rely on previously recorded texts, and eschew any fieldwork, interviews, or ethnographic research of my own. Similarly, the scope of the project only allows for a cursory exploration of the various types of sources used in the study. 27
Exploring how people have lived, discussed, and imagined the Toronto Carrying
Place throughout its history provides an enriched narrative for this unique cultural landscape—one that encompasses the various historically specific, individually experienced, and culturally constructed ways that people have come to know and ascribe meaning to it. 28
CHAPTER TWO: LIVING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE
LIVING LANDSCAPES
This chapter presents an examination of the embodied experiences that were lived along the Toronto Carrying Place throughout its history, starting approximately 11,000 years ago with the arrival of the earliest peoples in southern Ontario. Our first trail of enquiry will lead us to a better understanding of how people came to know and ascribe meaning to this cultural landscape through sights, sounds, and smells, through varying weather and seasons, and through socio-political changes and cultural upheaval. A brief examination of the phenomenological tradition and the idea of embodiment in landscape studies will be followed by an introduction of methodology and sources. Chapter Two will conclude with a discussion of possible embodied experiences that were lived along the Toronto Carrying Place over the millennia which fall into four broad categories.
These experiences were lived in an ancestral landscape, a new landscape, a landscape of fear, and a landscape of encounters.
David Seamon describes phenomenology as "the exploration and description of phenomena, where phenomena refers to things or experiences as human beings experience them" which can include any "object, event, situation or experience that a person can see, hear, touch, smell, taste, feel, intuit, know, understand, or live through."1
The aim of phenomenological research is not to simply describe the phenomenon, but rather "to use these descriptions as a groundstone from which to discover underlying
1 David Seamon, "Phenomenology, Place, Environment, and Architecture: a review of the literature," Phenomenology Online: Phenomenologies of Environment and Place, accessed February 4, 2010, http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/articles/seamonl.html. 29
commonalities that mark the essential core of the phenomenon," which in this case is the
Toronto Carrying Place.2
A phenomenological approach rejects the notion that landscape exists solely in the realm of mental representation and cognition. One of the goals of phenomenological writings is to faithfully capture everyday lived experience. For landscape studies, this is generally based on direct corporeal contact with, and associated experience of, landscape, keeping in mind that this experience through the senses is inseparable from the social and psychological context of the experience.4 For Joy Parr, a leading scholar of corporeal embodiment as a historical process, every body is an archive and she explores the ways people understand their world directly through sensing and doing. What Parr calls
"embodied knowledge" is also known as "tacit knowledge" by Michael Polanyi,
"habitus" by Pierre Bourdieu, "experiential excess" by Mark Hansen, and "working knowledge" by Douglas Harper.5 Through his discussions of work and labour, Richard
White also describes instances where the Columbia River was "tactilely known."6 While some scholars have been urging for more research on the senses as a way of knowing, the
2 Seamon, "Phenomenology." 3 Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape, 25. 4 Wylie, Landscape, 139-140; David E. Sopher, "The Landscape of Home: Myth, Experience, Social Meaning," The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays, ed. D.W. Meinig (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 138. 5 Cited in Parr, Sensing Changes, 9-13: Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 3-24; Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 78-87; Mark Hansen, Embodying Technesis: Technology beyond Writing (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 27; Douglas Harper, Working Knowledge: Skill and Community in a Small Shop (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). 6 Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995): 60. 30
historical study of embodiment is still relatively new, and Parr laments how the leading minds on corporeal embodiment have yet to explore its historical manifestations.7
While place-making for some scholars is very much symbolic and best understood through discourse analysis, Parr argues that, in order to get to the "gritty specificity" of place, research about environments, technologies, and the everyday should move away from the "issues of representation, the symbolic, the linguistic, the discursive and the textual." It should instead focus on the "materiality and sensuality of direct encounters with the world beyond our skin," through sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and touch.8 In fact, Parr argues that people experience the world through their sensing bodies even before they can construct any kind of symbolic meaning of it through thought or language.9 This sentiment is echoed by Tim Ingold for who "(m)eanings are not attached to the world, by a subjugation of the body to the semantic, but gathered and continually worked out anew in activity and interactivity. The history of these actions is held in 'the muscular consciousness' of the body as it is in the traces this physical presence leaves in the landscape and taskscape."10
In Sensing Changes, Parr addresses how people cope and adapt to changes in their worlds. As we shall see in Chapter Three, many scholars argue that people know place through narratives that are rooted in particular locations. Thus, when new geographical
7 Parr, Sensing Changes, 13-14. 8 Parr, Sensing Changes, 2. 9 Graeme Wynn, "Now I am Ready to Tell How Bodies are Changed Into Different Bodies," foreword to Sensing Changes: Technologies, Environments, and the Everyday, 1953-2003, by Joy Parr (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), xiii. 10 Joy Parr, review of The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling, and Skill by Tim Ingold, Technology and Culture 43 (2002), 401-402; emphasis in original. 31
areas become 'home', stories, narratives, and memories are created by dwelling." Parr, however, is interested in the moments before these stories and memories are emplaced on the landscape: when people's habits and reflexes that had been second-nature in their old familiar world are adapted and re-tuned to their new reality; when "habituation" becomes
"habitat" once again.12 While embodied understandings of the world are typically taken for granted and might not be obvious in normal circumstances, they are sharply brought into focus when people's everyday lives are drastically changed. This phenomenon is clearly demonstrated by Parr in Sensing Changes through a series of case studies pertaining to twentieth-century megaprojects. Parr shows that when their everyday lives and work places were altered by the construction of dams, power plants, canals, and military bases, local peoples throughout the country were forced to encounter their environment in a new way - they had to relearn a new normal.
Similar feelings of disconnect are in evidence in studies of migration and resettlement where newcomers struggle to make sense of a place that has yet to be viscerally embodied, where their familiar habits cannot be reproduced.13 Changes in the political and social landscape can also have a similar effect on people's relationship with their surroundings. When Europeans began arriving in North America, there is no doubt that conflict, the spread of disease, or the arrival of newcomers with new worldviews and technologies would have affected the way original inhabitants went about their everyday
11 Leslie Main Johnson, Trail of Story, Traveller's Path: Reflections on Ethnoecology and Landscape, (Edmonton: AU Press, 2010), 148-149. 12 Parr, Sensing Changes, 2. 13 Parr, Sensing Changes, 18-19. See Thomas R. Dunlap, "Australian Nature, European Culture: Anglo Settlers in Australia," in Out of the Woods: Essays in Environmental History, ed. Char Miller and Hal Rothman (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1997), 273-289. 32
lives and by extension how they made sense of their seemingly familiar surroundings, even if these surroundings remained physically unchanged. Like the newcomers, original
inhabitants must have experienced feelings of disconnect between their accumulated tacit
knowledge and their ever-changing world.
In her studies on the colonial subject, Jessica Dubow argues for an approach that emphasizes the lived qualities of the colonial visual experience as opposed to interpreting
the visual in colonial discourse analysis as an automatic agent of power, where "vision
amounts to colonization." By distinguishing between the embodied being and the abstract
subject, Dubow argues that we can separate the "structural or systemic view on the
world" (the discursive construct) and "the situated point of view in it" (the embodied experience). As Dubow points out, this entails a methodological separation between the
external determinants which structured colonial space and the internal realities of those
who lived it. As Parr is interested in what comes before the narrative, Dubow is interested
in ' what precedes the mapV Looking at South African colonial travel journals, Dubow
recognizes that seemingly unremarkable details of the quotidian or topographic
descriptions contain many insights on how the colonial subject tries to make sense of
drastically new surroundings "by way of the body."14
But what of the lived experiences of those who did not leave a written record,
most particularly past Aboriginal peoples, but also coureurs de bois, and women and
children? Scholars have demonstrated that it is necessary and possible to "read beyond"
14 Jessica Dubow, "From A View On The World To A Point Of View In It': Rethinking Sight, Space and the Colonial Subject," Interventions 2 (2000), 89-101; emphasis in original. See also Jessica Dubow, "Rites of Passage: Travel and the Materiality of Vision at the Cape of Good Hope," in Contested Landscapes: Movement, Exile, and Place, ed. Barbara Bender and Margot Winer (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 241-255. 33
the words of historical texts to capture the experiences and perspectives of those whose presence is lacking, or limited by the interpretation of others, in the historical record.15
For example, in his analysis of the travel journals of English explorers of the arctic in the
1570s, Paul DePasquale identifies moments of hesitation and anxiety, of uncertainty and alarm, through which readers can catch a glimpse of the Inuit as more than just the
'other.'16 Ambivalence in early travel writings, DePasquale suggests, allows for the consideration of Aboriginal agency during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.17
The Embodiment of Trails and Travelling
"And what a dynamic, handsome object is a path! How precise the familiar hill paths remain for our muscular consciousness!"18 With this quote, Gaston Bachelard eloquently captures how we come to know landscape through our sensing bodies. For
Christopher Tilley, walking is "simultaneously an art of consciousness, habit and practice, that is both constrained by place and landscape and constitutive of them."19 Not only is the movement along a well-worn path embodied by a traveller, it is also embodied in the landscape itself, as every path constitutes the accumulated imprints of countless journeys. As the path is followed through the landscape, sights, sounds, and smells, at
15 See Jennifer S.H. Brown and Elizabeth Vibert, eds., Reading Beyond Words: Contexts for Native History (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2003). 16 Jennifer S.H. Brown and Elizabeth Vibert, introduction to Reading Beyond Words, xiii-xiv; Paul DePasquale, "Worth the Noting": European Ambivalence and Aboriginal Agency in Meta Incognita, 1576- 1578," in Reading Beyond Words, 11. 17 DePasquale, "Worth the Noting," 31. 18 Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space: The Classic Look at How We Experience Intimate Places, trans. Maria Jolas (Boston: Beacon Press Books, 1994), 11. 19 Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape, 29. 20 Tim Ingold, "The Temporality of Landscape," in Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (Routledge: London, 2000), 204. 34
once familiar to the local inhabitant and strange to the outsider, are constantly slipping
away only to be quickly replaced by a myriad of other sensuous impressions as the
"71 landscape unfolds before the traveller. Thus, step by step, the outsider makes sense of a
new landscape while the inhabitant reaffirms his or her accumulated knowledge of it.22
Every journey along a path or trail starts and ends from somewhere. Tim Ingold
argues that "there can be no places without paths, along which people arrive and depart;
and no paths without places, that constitute their destinations and points of departure."23
The act of moving between places may be just as important as the act of arriving at a
destination.24 Exploring the act of moving along the Toronto Carrying Place presents a
particular set of challenges. As Lee and Ingold have noted, ethnographers, while carrying
much of their work on foot, hardly ever reflect on the act of walking itself.25 Their results
invariably deal with particular sites and the conversations that happened on route.
Similarly, archaeological work is generally site-specific, and early travel writings are
replete with information on departures and arrivals, while lacking in en-route
experiences. According to Ingold and Vergunst, it is "as though life were lived at a
scatter of fixed locales rather than along the highways and byways" - and, if I might add,
21 Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape, 31. 22 Jessica Dubow, "Rites of Passage," 254. 23 Tim Ingold, "The Temporality of the Landscape," 204. 24 Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape, 31. 25 Jo Lee and Tim Ingold, "Fieldwork on Foot: Perceiving, Routing, Socializing," in Locating the Field: Space, Place, and Context in Anthropology, eds. Simon Coleman and Peter Collins (Oxford: Berg, 2006), 67-85. 35
trails - "upon which they lie."26 As forest footpaths tend to be relatively ephemeral, so
too are their traces in the ethno-historical and archaeological record.
METHODOLOGY AND SOURCES
To write a history of the embodied experiences of the Toronto Carrying Place, it
is imperative to first determine who potentially walked its trails. It is important to keep in mind that, as Barbara Bender and Christopher Tilley remind us, the way people experience and make sense of their world "depends upon the specific time and place and historical conditions" and is "invested with power relating to age, gender, social position and relationships with others."27 According to Tilley, a phenomenological approach to landscape has no clear-cut methodology, but it requires a continuous going back and forth between ideas and empirical data. As the main ideas have been presented above, this section will elaborate on the data sources that were used in writing this embodied history.
The history of the Toronto Carrying Place starts with early Aboriginal peoples who inhabited and visited the north shore of Lake Ontario before recorded history. For over ten millennia, encampments and villages of various sizes and length of occupation dotted the landscape. The Aboriginal occupants of these sites, which were situated along river valleys and lakeshores, left no written record of their lived experiences. Clues concerning these experiences, however, can be gathered from the traces of their
26 Tim Ingold and Jo Lee Vergunst, Introduction to Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot, eds. Tim Ingold and Jo Lee Vergunst, (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2008), 3. 27 Barbara Bender, "Theorizing landscape and the prehistoric landscape of Stonehenge," Man 27 (1992):735; Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape, 11. 28 Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape, 11. 36
settlements that still exist today.29 A review of the archaeological record north of Lake
Ontario will provide insight as to who potentially used the trails, when they were used, and for what purposes. As this study relies on existing research, there will be an inherent bias towards the kinds of data that have been published. Of relevance to this study is information regarding settlement archaeology and, in particular, the way in which communities were distributed throughout the landscape.30 Also relevant are the historically and geographically situated social and political realities that might have influenced travel through the same landscape.
The writings of early explorers, missionaries, and fur traders, such as French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, Jesuit Father Jean de Brebeuf, and fur trader James Morrison, provide information on the use of the Toronto Carrying Place before large-scale European settlement. In addition to descriptions of topography, flora and fauna, and climatic conditions, these newcomers included details of the various routes they took (or did not take) on their journeys to and from indigenous settlements, missions, fur trade posts, and military forts. They also included information on
29 Their legacy also lives on in the oral histories and traditions that were passed down from generation to generation. This topic will be broached in Chapter Three. 0 Settlement pattern analysis can also be at the level of the single structure or how structures are arranged in a single community; Bruce G. Trigger, Time and Traditions: Essays in Archaeological Interpretation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978); Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 20. 31 Research on settlement patterns of the Late Woodland period in south-central Ontario is especially well- developed. Regional and local analyses of this period that inform the present study include Jennifer Birch's work on the coalescence of ancestral Wendat (Huron) populations on the north shore of Lake Ontario and Robert I. MacDonald's research on Iroquoian cultural ecology in south-central Ontario. Birch, "Coalescent Communities"; MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario." 37
Aboriginal individuals and groups that they encountered, interacted with, and heard about.32
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, land surveyors such as
Augustus Jones and Alexander Aitken criss-crossed the landscape of southern Ontario.
These men were the first to systematically record observations on the Ontario landscape.
In addition to laying out lots and concessions for future settlement, surveyors were instructed to record the quality of soils for agriculture, vegetation cover, the location of water sources, topography, the suitability of land for settlement, and the availability of large trees fit for masting for the British Navy.33 It was not unusual for early land surveyors to encounter Aboriginal trails and footpaths, mentioning them in their notes and illustrating them on their survey plans.34
32 The early contact period prior to the abandonment of Wendake (Huronia) in 1649 is informed by the historical ethnography of the Wendat by Trigger; The Children of Aataentsic. Published collections of archival documents, such as those published by the Champlain Society, provided many of the sources for this chapter. Additionally, the research files of historian Percy James Robinson (1873-1953) provided invaluable guidance in terms of possible sources of information concerning the Toronto Carrying Place. Percy James Robinson was a teacher, historian, and scholar of indigenous languages in Ontario. He is the author of Toronto During the French Regime: A History of the Toronto Region from Brule to Simcoe, 1615-1793, first published in 1933 with a second edition in 1965, and did extensive research on the Toronto Carrying Place. The Percy James Robinson fonds, which are located at the Archives of Ontario (AO) (F 1080), contain transcriptions of original documents housed at the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) in Ottawa and other repositories. While there are many inherent problems in using transcriptions rather than original documents, it was determined that the transcribed sources would suffice for this particular MA- level research project given its scope, as well as financial and scheduling limitations. 33 Louis Gentilcore and Kate Donkin, "Land Surveys of Southern Ontario: An Introduction and Index to the Field Notebooks of the Ontario Land Surveyors 1784-1859," Cartographica Monograph No.8, Supplement No. 2 to Canadian Geographer, 10 (1973): 2-3. 34 While the majority of early surveyor records of Ontario, including journals, letters, instructions, are found in the Survey Records Office at the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources' main office in Peterborough, Ontario, some items of interest have been transferred to the Archives of Ontario in Toronto over the years. The research files of historian V.B. Blake provided guidance in terms of possible sources of information from this time period concerning the Toronto Carrying Place. V.B. Blake was the historian for the Department of Planning and Development (1945-1962), the Department of Lands and Forests (1962- 1963) and the Historical Branch of the Archives of Ontario (1963-1971). His historical research and correspondence files are located in the Ontario Government Record Series at the Archives of Ontario (AO) (RG 17-27). His research files contain transcriptions of original documents now housed in the Survey 38
As the Humber Carrying Place was the preferred route for early Europeans, it
became the best-documented trail and therefore became synonymous with the Toronto
Carrying Place. A look at disparate primary sources, however, including the location of
archaeological sites, early writings from the north shore, and nineteenth-century surveyor
notes and journals indicates that similar trails existed along the Rouge River and the Don
River, and most probably along other watercourses as well. These various sources offer
an opportunity to examine the potential embodied experiences that were lived along the
Toronto Carrying Place trails in the past.
LIVING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE
The way people have lived the Toronto Carrying Place is historically specific and culturally constructed, as well as individually experienced. Changes in the socio-political landscape have the potential to affect people's relationship with their physical surroundings. The following section presents a series of experiential themes concerning peoples' lived experiences on and of the Toronto Carrying Place system of trails.
Although sometimes difficult to demonstrate with certainty, the cultural geography, archaeology, and ethnohistory of and in the landscape north of Lake Ontario can provide a wide set of logical probabilities as to who might have walked the trails in the past and why. Life was lived along the trails for thousands of years by people of all ages and different cultural backgrounds, and so it is impossible to address every potential kind of
Records Office. While there are many inherent problems in using transcriptions rather than original documents, it was determined that the transcribed sources would suffice for this particular MA-level research project given its scope, as well as financial and scheduling limitations. 39
experience. Our path of enquiry will instead highlight the experiences of a few as they
walked through an ancestral landscape, a new landscape, a landscape of fear, and a
landscape of encounters.
"High Places and Low Places"
According to Christopher Tilley, a "fundamental part of daily experience in non-
industrial societies is the physical and biological experience of landscape - earth, water,
wood, stone, high places and low places, the wind, rain, sun, stars and sky."35 In order to
get a better understanding of the experiences of those who have walked the Toronto
Carrying Place trails in the past, it is imperative to become familiar with those "high
places and low places" found along the way.
The southern termini of the Toronto Carrying Place trails are found near the mouth of major rivers on the north shore of Lake Ontario. These areas feature prominent estuaries and wetlands, which prior to large-scale settlement, teemed with life providing
habitat and shelter for a variety of flora and fauna.36 Leaving the riverbank landing place,
travellers climbed to the top of the high, dry ridge to find the footpath that many had
walked before them. The soil in this area is sandy, having been deposited some 12,000
years ago as the waters of glacial Lake Iroquois retreated. As the waters receded, the creeks and rivers cut deep ravines into the sand creating V-shaped valleys. The dry sandy plains overlooking the river valleys were dotted with oak savannahs, pine barrens, and
35 Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape, 26. 36 Of interest to this study are the Mimico Creek/Humber River/Grenadier Pond wetland complex, the Don River/Toronto Islands wetland complex, and the Rouge River wetland complex; MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 93, 202. 40
tall-grass prairie, and were frequently subject to ground fires. Open woodland of oaks, in
association with hickory and pine, could be found on higher ground.37
The Carrying Places followed the top of the dry ridge until they reached a steep
bluff approximately fifteen metres high, a bluff that outlines the former shoreline of
glacial Lake Iroquois.38 North of the bluff, the trails crossed a relatively featureless till
plain which is bisected by a track of clay soil.39 While the topography near the Humber
River is quite subdued, drumlins dot the landscape near the Rouge River. In the fourteenth century, this area would have been predominantly covered by old-growth northern hardwood forest.40 The river valleys are still deep and the swamps and other wetlands along the floodplains would have been rich in plant and game resources. While numerous local trails would have diverged down to the rich floodplains or deeper into the interior at any point during the journey, the Carrying Places followed the natural contours of the landscape avoiding the low and wet valley lands and difficult water crossings.
Travelling northward, the forest foot paths sloped up steadily until they reached the Oak Ridges Moraine. This massive irregular feature trends in an east-west direction across the centre of south-central Ontario and creates the drainage divide between Lake
37 This area is known as the Iroquois Plain physiographic region. Lyman J. Chapman and Donald F. Putnam, The Physiography of Southern Ontario. Ontario Geological Survey, Special Volume 2, Third Edition (Toronto: Government of Ontario, 1984), 190-193; MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 113-114; Steve Varga, "The Savannahs of High Park," in Special Places: The Changing Ecosystems of the Toronto Region, ed. Betty I. Roots et al. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999), 260; Robert I. MacDonald, "Toronto's Natural History," in Toronto: A Short Illustrated History of its First 12,000 Years, ed. Ronald F. Williamson (Toronto: James Lorimer & Company Ltd., 2008), 20-21. 38 Chapman and Putnam, The Physiography of Southern Ontario, 172-174. In downtown Toronto today, the ancient shoreline overlooks Davenport Road and features Casa Loma, a famous Toronto landmark. In Scarborough, the glacial shoreline meets Lake Ontario, creating the well-known Scarborough Bluffs. 39 These are known respectively as the South Slope and the Peel Plain physiographic regions. Chapman and Putnam, The Physiography of Southern Ontario, 172-175. 40 The old-growth northern hardwood forest included maple, beech, basswood, elm, hemlock, and white pine. MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 233. 41
Ontario and Georgian Bay. Rising about 230 metres above Lake Ontario the moraine varies in width, reaching upwards of twenty-four kilometres in some places.41 The
Carrying Place trails, however, were routed to take advantage of the stretches where the moraine narrows to only one or two kilometres.42 The terrain is hummocky and porous, and while the top of the moraine is generally devoid of water, kettle lakes and wetlands can be found near the headwaters of the Rouge and the Don Rivers and the east branch of the Humber. Game and plant resources are abundant in these areas but the dry upland soils are not suitable for agriculture. As the name suggests, oak, as well as pine, can be found in abundance on the moraine.43
From the top of the moraine, the Carrying Places led travellers into the Lake
Simcoe drainage basin and the Holland River watershed. Here is located the Holland
Marsh, a twenty-five kilometre long, former embayment of glacial Lake Algonquin.
Before canals drained the marsh for agricultural purposes, the area was generally a vast, low-lying swamp. On reaching the east or west branch of the Holland River, the Toronto
Carrying Place became a water route. Canoes carried travellers through this wet plain which featured eastern white cedar, tamarack, and black spruce, as well as vegetation of sedges, cattails, and other reeds depending on the season, until they reached Lake
Simcoe.44
41 Chapman and Putnam, The Physiography of Southern Ontario, 166-168; David McQueen, "Oak Ridges Moraine," in Special Places: The Changing Ecosystems of the Toronto Region, ed. Betty I. Roots et al. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999), 266. 42 MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 285; The Rice Lake Portage and the Scugog Carrying Place were similarly advantageously routed. 43 MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 110-111, 234. 44 Chapman and Putnam, The Physiography of Southern Ontario, 181-182; MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 102, 199. 42
Ancestral Landscape
"...[T]hey are every where at home..."45 This quote from a letter by Sir William
Johnson, superintendant of northern Indians, is an apt description of the Aboriginal
peoples who lived, learned, hunted, played, performed rituals, tended crops, built homes,
camps, and villages, shared stories, gave birth to children, and buried their dead in the
land of their ancestors. While there is no doubt that Aboriginal peoples were the original
walkers of the Toronto Carrying Place, is it possible to determine when the trails were first created?
While not accurately dated, the arrival of the earliest peoples in southern Ontario
is thought to have occurred sometime between approximately 11,000 and 10,500 years
ago, as the large glacial lakes formed by retreating glaciers began to subside and the area
became inhabitable. Evidence concerning these earliest inhabitants is sparse as the only aspect of their material culture that survived the millennia consists of stone tools and the
by-products of their manufacture.46 They travelled in small groups over large distances through a landscape of relatively barren tundra interspersed with areas of open boreal forest, hunting herds of migratory caribou, their main prey.47 Archaeological sites of this time period are frequently found adjacent to the shorelines of large post-glacial lakes,
45 "Sir William Johnson to the Earl of Shelburne," in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 9:1000. 46 For more information on the archaeology of the Paleo-Indian period (9,000 BCE to 7,000 BCE) see Ellis and Deller, "Paleo-Indians," 37-63. 47 Williamson, "Before the Visitors," 26-29. 43
suggesting that campsites were situated in elevated areas where people could spot and
intercept migrating caribou.48
The physiographic and hydrographic realities of the landscape north of Lake
Ontario influenced the location and direction of major north-south routes. The Toronto
Carrying Place trails were routed to avoid as much as possible having to cross steep
ravines, swampy lowlands, and water crossings, and were advantageously routed to
minimize the work required in crossing the Oak Ridges Moraine.49 When travelling
through the landscape, animals choose the path of least resistance, following the easiest
route at their disposal. It is logical to suggest that the main travel routes between Lake
Ontario and Lake Simcoe used by humans for thousands of years began as post-glacial
migration routes for herds of caribou. It is quite possible that the earliest inhabitants and
visitors of the north shore of Lake Ontario simply availed themselves of the trails created
by the hooves of the animals they were hunting, mimicking their movements and routes
across the landscape.
The gradual climatic change that occurred over 9,000 years ago that transformed
the tundra-like environment of southern Ontario to one of more temperate forest would
have been all but imperceptible to local inhabitants.50 In the longer term, however, it did have an impact on the terminal points of the Toronto Carrying Place due to the fluctuating water levels of the Great Lakes. In fact, what would have been shoreline
48 Dozens of 10,000 to 11,000 year old artifacts have been found along the former shoreline of glacial Lake Iroquois in municipalities bordering the present City of Toronto. While the bluff above Davenport Road in Toronto has been heavily disturbed by twentieth-century development, it is possible that such early artifacts could be found the undisturbed residential backyards; Williamson, "Before the Visitors," 28. 49 MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 285. 50 MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 229. 44
campsites some 10,000 to 11,000 years ago are now situated more than a kilometre into
Lake Ontario.51
For the following millennia, the paths of the Toronto Carrying Place were but a small part of a much larger "meshwork of interwoven trails... along which life [was] lived."52 Families travelled together in their annual cycles of aggregation and dispersal, children learning from their elders as they walked. During the fall and winter, small groups of related families lived in small inland camps where they harvested nuts and other edibles, hunted moose and deer, and trapped smaller fur-bearing mammals. In the spring and summer, many groups of families came together at river mouths along the
CI north shore of Lake Ontario to exploit the rich aquatic resources of the estuaries.
The widespread adoption of maize as a food staple, however, likely meant a decrease in mobility for some members of the community. While the shift from the traditional reliance on naturally occurring plant resources to agriculture was gradual, maize comprised approximately half the diet of some generations of Iroquoians by the late fourteenth century.54 Historically-documented gender-based division of labour
5! Williamson, "Before the Visitors," 28. In the course of tunnelling in Toronto Bay in 1908, workers uncovered over one hundred human foot prints in a layer of blue clay at a depth of seventy feet below water level. The city inspector who was on site described it as follows: "It looked like a trail...you could follow one man the whole way. Some footprints were on top of the others, partly obliterating them. They were footsteps of all sizes, and a single print of a child's foot." Williamson suggests that the find may represent a family returning from their lakeshore camp between 10,500 and 11,000 years ago. 52 Tim Ingold, Lines: A Brief History (London: Routledge, 2007), 81; emphasis in original. 53 Williamson, "Before the Visitors," 29-34. For more information on the archaeology of the Archaic period (7,000 BCE to 1,000 BCE) see Ellis et al., "The Archaic," 65-124. For more information on the archaeology of the Early and Middle Woodland periods (ca. 1,000 BCE to 500 CE) see Spence et al., "Cultural Complexes of the Early and Middle Woodland Periods," 125-169. For more information on the archaeology of the Early Iroquoian Period (ca. 900 CE to 1300 CE), see Williamson "The Early Iroquoian Period of Southern Ontario," 291-320. 54 Schwarz et al., "Stable Isotopes in Human Skeletons of Southern Ontario," 187-206; M. Anne Katzenberg et al., "Stable Isotope Evidence for Maize Horticulture and Paleodiet in Southern Ontario," American Antiquity 60 (1995), 335-350; van der Merwe et al., "The Moatfield Ossuary," 245-261. 45
among the Wendat were likely in place by the Late Iroquoian period. Agriculture was the
women's domain and so were issues concerning household and village, while men were
responsible for issues beyond the village borders.55 This division likely means that while
women remained in or near their village for most of the year to plant, tend, and harvest
crops, men had more opportunities to travel to important resource areas at either termini
of their linear site catchments, following any one of the Toronto Carrying Place trails
depending on which watershed their village was located. As competition with
neighbouring groups would likely have discouraged lateral movements into adjacent
watersheds, site catchments would have assumed a north-south linear shape along the
watersheds. In this way, communities maintained access to, and continued to engage in,
the fishery and other resource extraction at the rich north shore estuaries, following in the
footsteps of their ancestors. As communities continued to gradually migrate up the
watersheds, site catchments would have likely expanded north of the Oak Ridges
Moraine into the rich wetlands of the Holland Marsh.56
After 1550 CE, the only settlements remaining on the north shore of Lake Ontario
were very large villages ranging from two to four hectares situated near the headwaters of
their respective watersheds. Birch suggests that these coalescent communities likely
formed the basis of two of the historically-recorded tribal nations that went on to become
members of the Wendat confederacy and the allied Petun nation in the early seventeenth
century.57 These large, early contact-period sites are all located more or less in the direct
55 Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic, 100; Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 10. 56 MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 295-296. 57 These include the Aurora site, an early contact period site located along the tributaries of the East Holland River on the north side of the Oak Ridges Moraine. The Aurora site used to be known as the "Old 46
path of the Humber and Rouge River trails as mapped by various researchers.58
Interestingly, settlement within the Don River watershed ceased after the early sixteenth
century and never reached the size of those documented to the east and west.59
The north shore of Lake Ontario was abandoned by the turn of the seventeenth century and soon became the hunting grounds of the Iroquois. In the late seventeenth century, the Iroquois established a series of villages at the southern termini of important transportation corridors, such as Teiaiagon at the mouth of the Humber and
Ganatsekwyagon at the mouth of the Rouge, which were abandoned by the late 1680s.
Over the next decades, the Mississauga had gained control of the north shore and surrounding hunting territory. From the early eighteenth century on, Mississauga communities had a presence at both the north and south termini of the Toronto Carrying
Place and were intermittently trading with both the French and the English, depending on which was more advantageous.60 A 1736 survey reported that "there are no more Iroquois settled" north of Lake Ontario and that "the Mississauges are dispersed along this lake, some at Kente, others at the River Toronto, and finally at the head of the Lake, to the number of one hundred and fifty in all, and at Matchedash. The principal tribe is that of
Fort" or the "Old Indian Fort." Nearby were two other large villages, the Radcliffe and VanNostrand- Wright sites, from which trade goods have been recovered. The latest, and by far the largest, site within the Humber River drainage is Skandatut, an early contact period village encompassing some 3.2 hectares. Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 83-86; John N. Emerson, "The Archaeology of the Ontario Iroquois," (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1954), 165-184. 58 Shaun J. Austin, "The Toronto Carrying-Place Trail Today," Profile 14 (1995), 12; for an illustration of the correlation between sixteenth-century settlements and the Rouge trail, see ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," Figure 34. 59 Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 71. 60 Partial transcription of letter, November 7, 1715, Mr. Ramezay & Begon, Archives des Colonies, Col A, vol. 35, pp.43-4,48-50, PAC (now LAC), in a letter, April 18, 1933, G. Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 47
the Crane."61 In the late 1750s, it was reported that there was 111 'Mississagues' in the
pays d'en haut, including 35 "de Toronto," 43 "de la Carpe," and 63 "de la Loutre."62 An
early-eighteenth-century map also places the Mississauga at Ganatsekwyagon at the
mouth of the Rouge River.63 It should be noted that, like the other Anishinaabe groups,
the north shore Mississauga continued their seasonal rounds of aggregation and dispersal,
spending the winters in their hunting territories north of Lake Ontario.64
Close to a century later, it would be a Mississauga man nicknamed 'Old Sail' who
would advise Upper Canada Governor John Graves Simcoe and his crew to venture down
the Don River trail, a route that he knew would be less difficult for the travellers who had
initially ventured north via the Humber trail.65 What 'Old Sail' did not know, however,
was that his recommendation would lead to the obliteration of a trail that had potentially
been used by Aboriginal peoples for millennia, as the Don River trail would ultimately
become the basis for Yonge Street.
The Humber and Rouge River branches of the Toronto Carrying Place, or parts
thereof, were still in use in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially in
61 "Enumeration of the Indian tribes connected with the Government of Canada; the Warriors and Armorial bearings of each Nation, 1736," in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 9:1056. That number most likely represents the number of men of fighting age, as was the custom in the day. 62 'Tableau des sauvages qui se trouvent a l'armee du marquis de Montcalm, le 28 juillet 1757, sous les orders de MM. de La Come et de Saint-Luc," in l'Abb6 H.R. Casgrain, ed., Journal du marquis de Montcalm durant ses campagnes en Canada de 1756 a 1759 (Quebec: Impr. de L.J. Demers & frere, 1895), 265. 63 ASI "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," 40. A copy of the map is found in the Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, Archives of Ontario, from a copy at the Public Archives of Ontario Map Division, Pile JJ75, Pee 155. 64 Extract from Collection de l'honorable L.-F.-G. Baby, n.d., Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, Archives of Ontario; of letter, May 18, 1756, Noyelle to L.-F.-G. Baby, Collection de l'honorable L.- F.-G. Baby, Bibliotheque Saint-Sulpice. 65 Elizabeth Simcoe, Mrs. Simcoe's Diary, ed. Mary Quayle Innis (Toronto: MacMillan of Canada [1791- 1796], 1965), 108.
k 48
the upper reaches of the watersheds. Hunters and trappers of both European and
Aboriginal descent used the trail to get to the rich grounds of the Holland Marsh and along the Oak Ridges Moraine.66 Once or twice a year Aboriginal families would set up camp near van Nostrand Lake located near the Rouge trail to sell and trade their wares.67
New Landscape
For European newcomers, the landscape north of Lake Ontario was entirely foreign, and those who ventured along the Toronto Carrying Place experienced their new surroundings step by step. It can never be stressed enough that "wherever Europeans went," including the Toronto Carrying Place, "they did so in the footsteps of others who went before."69 Early Europeans followed Aboriginal guides, mimicking their routes and movements across the landscape. As they followed the Toronto Carrying Place trails, sights, sounds, and smells, at once familiar to the Aboriginal guide and strange to the
European newcomer, were constantly slipping away only to be quickly replaced by a myriad of other sensuous impressions as the landscape unfolded before them. Thus, step by step, the newcomers made sense of the north shore of Lake Ontario, modifying their familiar habits until finally, mimicking became integrated into their own embodied
66 Robinson, Toronto During the French Regime, 207; 67 F.H. van Nostrand, "Vandorf: Prehistoric and Early Historic Times - Land, Water, Trees & People," manuscript excerpt on file at the Whitchurch-Stouffville Museum. 68 George Head presents a vivid and interesting account of his experiences of the landscape and trails between Lake Simcoe and Lake Huron that provides some indication of how people might have experienced the Toronto Carrying Place Trail; George Head, Forest Scenes and Incidents in the Wilds of North America: Being a Diary of a Winter's Route from Halifax to the Canadas and during Four Month's Residence in the Woods on the Borders of Lakes Huron and Simcoe (Toronto: J. Murray Coles, 1829). 69 Dubow, "Rites of Passage," 252. 49
knowledge of the forest landscape.70 It is unlikely that these early European explorers saw very much of the country through which they passed. The trails they followed mostly led through thick bush, providing only occasional opportunities for wider views over the
71 landscape.
Despite many reports of the communication between Lake Ontario and Lake
Simcoe being a shorter and easier route to the Upper Great Lakes from Quebec compared to the long line of communication with Detroit via the south shore of Lake Ontario and
Lake Erie or the portage-filled route of the Ottawa River, a number of early Europeans who actually experienced the Toronto Carrying Place commented on how difficult the route could in fact be. La Salle described the trail between Teiaiagon and Lake Toronto
(Simcoe) as being shorter but more difficult, "ou il faut porter son baggage par la cime de tres-haute montagnes."72 Trying to make the unfamiliar familiar, Captain Pierre Pouchot described these mountains as being "not as high as the Vauges [Vosges]" and "not cold like those near Carillon."73 Fur trader James Morrison attempted to traverse the Carrying
Place but only "went about seven leagues and found it unpracticable for me to pass with
70 In her examination of Batek walking practices (the Batek are hunter-gatherers of Pahang, Malaysia), Lye Tuck-Po gives an interesting account of her own experiences of learning to walk along jungle forest trails in an entirely foreign landscape, through "watching and doing." She accurately titles the chapter section "The year of walking clumsily." Lye Tuck-Po, "Before a Step Too Far: Walking with the Batek Hunter- Gatherers in the Forests of Pahang, Malaysia," in Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot, ed. Tim Ingold and Jo Lee Vergunst (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2008), 27-29. 71 Ontario Department of Planning and Development (ODPD), Humber Valley Conservation Report, (Toronto: King's Printer, 1948), 22 72 "Cavelier de La Salle de 1679 a 1681," in Pierre Margry, ed., Voyages des Frangais sur les grands lacs et decouverte de I'Ohio etdu Mississippi, 1614-1684 (Paris: Itnprimerie D. Jouaust, 1876), 514; "Relation du Voyage de Cavelier de La Salle du 22 aout 1680 a Fautomne de 1681in Pierre Margry, ed., Decouvertes et ttablissements des Frqngais dans I'Ouest et dans le Sud de I'Amerique Septentrionale, 6 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie D. Jouast, [1614-1754], 1876-1886), 2:125-126. The mountains correspond to the Oak Ridges Moraine. La Salle made at least three journeys in 1680 and 1681 across the Humber branch of the Toronto Carrying Place on his way to and from Michilimackinac. 73 Pierre Pouchot, Memoir upon the Late War in North America between the French and English 1755-60, 2 vols., ed. Franklin B. Hough (Roxbury: W. Elliot Woodward, 1866) 2:121. 50
my goods and canoe" and so returned to "Toranto" the next day.74 He was obviously
unaware of, or perhaps decided not to heed, the centuries-old practice of leaving canoes behind when crossing the overland trail.
For Alexander Henry the Elder, who was captured by the Mississauga in 1763, the landscape north of Lake Ontario was a "thick forest, through which our only road was a footpath." He commented on the heat, the abundance of mosquitoes in the woods and marshes, of being obliged to carry over one hundred pounds of weight, and of the quick pace of his captors. Despite being a prisoner, and having almost been sacrificed to appease an angry manito a few days before, Henry was afraid to be left behind.75
Alexander MacDonnell, who was part of Simcoe's exploration party, mentioned the difficulty they had in crossing the swamp, where the Humber trail met with the Holland
River, "it being a quagmire, the skin or surface of which was very thin."76 Presumably based on conversations with her husband, Mrs. Simcoe described it as "a terrible bog of liquid mud."77
Travelling the Don River trail also seems to have been difficult for Simcoe and his crew. Following the advice of 'Old Sail,' Simcoe chose to return to York by the eastern branch of the Holland River and the trail following the Don River in order to
74 Journal entry, May 19, 1767, "Journal of a voyage from Montreal to Michilimackinac, 13 Apr to 1 Aug. 1767," R 5436-0-5-E, James Morrison fonds, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. 75 Alexander Henry, Alexander Henry's Travels and Adventures in the Years 1760-1776, ed. Milo Milton Quaife (Chicago: The Lakeside Press, 1921), 172. Henry was an English trader who was made prisoner by the Mississaugas during the capture of Mackinac in 1763 during the 1763-64 uprising known as the Pontiac War; Robinson, Toronto During the French Regime, 149. Henry's journal provides an account of his experience travelling with his captors to Niagara along the route long familiar to the Mississaugas, via Lake Simcoe and the Toronto Carrying Place. 76 Alexander MacDonnell, "Diary of Gov. Simcoe's Journey from Humber Bay to Matchedash Bay, 1793," in Extract from Transactions of the Canadian Institute, 1 (1889-90): 3. The swamp corresponds to the Holland marsh. 77 Simcoe, Mrs. Simcoe's Diary, 108. 51
avoid the swamps already mentioned. This branch of the Toronto Carrying Place must not have been as clearly marked as the busy Humber trail as the inexperienced crew lost track of the path several times during their trip.78 For Simcoe, finally seeing Lake Ontario
"was the most delightful sight at a time [we] were in danger of starving & about 3 miles from York [we] breakfasted on the remaining Provisions."79 Despite these few moments of trouble, Col. Pilkington, who also made the trek, told Mrs. Simcoe that "the scenery
8n was fit for pictures the whole way."
Surveyors working in the vicinity of the Toronto Carrying Place trails only intermittently experienced the foot paths. While the trails were shaped by the landscape they crossed, meandering around wetlands, high ridges, and extensive tangles of underbrush, surveyors were tasked with creating straight lines regardless of these obstacles.81 They recorded wherever survey lines intersected the trails.82 Although surveyors were required to record such details as the quality of soils for agriculture, the location of water sources, and the suitability of land for settlement, in addition to laying out lots and concessions, harsh conditions in the field often made writing impossible. As
78 Transcription of diary entry, October 11 to 14, 1793, "Aitken's Diary, York, Road to Lake Simcoe, 1793," Field Notes, Vol. I, pages 251-254, Survey Records, Lands & Forests (SRLF), in a typed manuscript, May 4, 1955, RML, V.B. Blake's historical research and correspondence files, RG 17-27, AO. As Conrad Heidenreich discovered through research of early missionary documents, forest trails were always difficult to negotiate and unless one knew exactly where a trail led by experience, it was easy to get lost on many forks and branches. Conrad Heidenreich, Huronia: A History and Geography of the Huron Indians 1600-1650 (Toronto: McLelland and Stewart Ltd, 1971), 155. 79 Simcoe, Mrs. Simcoe's Diary, 109. 80 Simcoe, Mrs. Simcoe's Diary, 108. 81 John L. Ladell, They Left Their Mark: Surveyors and Their Role in the Settlement of Ontario, (Toronto & Oxford: Dundurn Press, 1993), 10. 82Transcription of Survey Diary, Augustus Jones, Feb.24-Mar.25, 1794, ONB #361, Microfilm 366, SRLF, in typed manuscript, n.d., W. McBride, V.B. Blake's historical research and correspondence files, RG 17- 27, AO; Transcription of A. Jones Survey Field Notes, July 1793, Original Note Book 294, p.91-96, SRLF, in typed manuscript, n.d., V.B. Blake's historical research and correspondence files, RG 17-27, AO. 52
Augustus Jones relayed to D.W. Smith, acting Surveyor General, concerning the lack of
detail in his survey notes in 1797,
...everything in regard to the survey were truly laid down, but that they had been wrote as short as possible, by me as the majority of it being done in the wood, and that at many times with cold fingers, and frozen ink; and at other seasons of the year where there were swarms of mosketoes about me.83
While survey lines created straight lines on a map, the construction of Yonge Street
created a straight line through the landscape north of Lake Ontario. According to
Augustus Jones' survey notes, the line of Yonge Street in East Gwillimbury ran straight
through the meandering path of one branch of the Toronto Carrying Place.84 While
Yonge Street opened up land for colonization, allowing for easier transport of people and
resources to and from the north, it also essentially closed off access to a millennia-old
path to its local inhabitants.
Yonge Street was opened to the north in 1796 and from that moment on it eclipsed the Humber branch of the Toronto Carrying Place as the main route to the
interior. There was subsequently a shift away from a fur trade economy at the mouth of
the Humber River in favour of one centered on settlement and commercial growth
focused on the port facility of the sheltered Toronto Harbour.85 By this time, many of the townships in south-central Ontario had been surveyed and land patents had been given to
European settlers and United Empire Loyalists. These newcomers began to transform the north shore landscape, clearing large tracts of land for agricultural purposes, establishing
83 Letter from Augustus Jones to D.W. Smith, October 23, 1797. Correspondence and Memoranda received by the Surveyor General's Office, RG 1-2-1, Volume 32, MS 7433, p. 167-168, Archives of Ontario. 84 Transcription of A. Jones Survey Field Notes, July 1793, Original Note Book 294, p.91-96, SRLF, typed manuscript, V.B. Blake's historical research and correspondence files, RG 17-27, AO. 85 Benn, "Colonial Transformation," 62. 53
local industries, and developing communities. It is reasonable to assume that a number of
early settlers used sections of the Toronto Carrying Places to reach their holdings, leading
to an increase in use and familiarity of parts of the trails rather than the communication as
a whole.
The establishment of Yonge Street as the main route to the interior did not mean
that the Toronto Carrying Place system of trails immediately became obsolete. People
travelling on foot to and from Lake Simcoe would likely have preferred using the trails
that followed the natural contours of the landscape rather than the often impassable
concession roads. Locally, while settlers were required to clear the concession road along the frontage of their lot, many used by-roads, or "temporary roads or paths from one neighbour to another accrost their lots for their own convenience."86 Early settlers also travelled forest paths, sometimes over long distances, to grist mills in order to turn their grain into flour.87 As these mills were all located along major waterways, it is possible that parts of their journeys were along the long-used Toronto Carrying Place trails.
Landscape of Fear
As argued by Lye Tuck-Po, fear can have an effect on walking practices as it can transform "the familiar forest of pathways" into a "dangerous other-place."88 The
86Transcription of report, April 26, 1817, James Miles to Colonel Chewett, Crown Land Papers (uncatalogued), Ontario Department of Public Records and Archives, in typed manuscript, V.B. Blake's historical research and correspondence files, RG 17-27, Container #7, Folder: Ont. Archives Various Collections of Mss., AO. See for example the notice to settlers on Yonge Street written by John Small in 1798 reproduced in F.R. Berchem, The Yonge Street Story 1793-1860: An Account from Letters, Diaries and Newspapers (Toronto: Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc., 1977), 28. 87 Berchem, The Yonge Street Story, 41-42. 88 Tuck-Po, "Before a Step Too Far," 30. 54
potential for fears and anxieties is boundless, and while some can be individually experienced, such as specific phobias, others can be shared by all members of a community, such as the fear of drought, famine, or disease. This is why attention shall be paid to fears related to blood feuds, raids, and warfare and how these fears might have influenced the way people used or avoided the Toronto Carrying Place. It concentrates on three particular types of potential conflict that occurred on the north shore of Lake
Ontario: the Late Iroquoian local 'blood feuds' of the fifteenth century, the inter-tribal warfare between the Five Nations Iroquois and the Wendat and their allies prior to their dispersal around 1650, and the raids on fur traders in the mid-eighteenth century.
Around 1450 CE, a wave of coalescence can be observed on the north shore of
Lake Ontario, whereby a number of previously distinct communities came together to create new villages that were much larger in size, but fewer in number.89 This period of coalescence was accompanied by an increase in conflict which, Jennifer Birch argues, was directly related to the changing socio-political landscape.90 Scholars agree that fifteenth-century warfare in south-central Ontario generally consisted of small-scale ambushes and raids where the killing or capture of isolated victims found outside of
89 Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 2; MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 305. 90 Birch, "Coalescence and Conflict in Iroquoian Ontario," 42-44.. For a list of excavated sites dating to the period of community coalescence potentially correlating with an escalation in violent see Table 2.2 in Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 208. Evidence of conflict include villages with heavy fortifications in the form of multi-row palisades and the presence of significant numbers of scattered and modified human bone. Artifacts manufactured from modified human bone have included skull rattle components, skull cap gorgets, other modified skull fragments, and drilled and modified mandibles. These have generally been interpreted as evidence of prisoner sacrifice. Evidence of polishing and perforating on some cranial elements suggest their use for personal or ceremonial use. Ronald F. Williamson, "Ontinontsiskiaj ondaon" (The House of Cut-off Heads) The History and Archaeology of Northern Iroquoian Trophy Taking," in The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies, ed. Richard J. Chacon and David H. Dye (New York: Springer Books, 2007), 190-221; Trigger, The Children ofAataentsic, 144. 55
village palisades was the norm.91 The fear of capture and/or death by raiders most likely had an impact on the level of mobility for a great number of people within the community during this time of increased conflict. As a defensive measure, mid- to late fifteenth- century communities constructed villages on defensible hilltops away from major waterways. As a consequence, or perhaps even as a cause, villages were located away from major transportation routes such as the Toronto Carrying Place trails.
Archaeological evidence points to a decrease in the reliance of lakeshore estuary sites for resources during the Late Iroquoian period. Not only is there a decrease in the number of fish and waterfowl bone in the faunal assemblage, but stable isotope studies of human bone have suggested a decline in the intake of lake fish across the South Slope for Late
Iroquoian populations, and thus a decline in travel to these estuaries.93
Larger village populations reduced the need for men and women to go outside the community to find marriage partners. A drop in the number of marriage bonds outside of the village undoubtedly led to an increase in tensions between communities as, historically, northern Iroquoian groups were mistrustful of others with whom they did not
91 It has been theorized that the main motivation for this type of conflict was to avenge the killing of members of one's own group by killing or capturing members of the group responsible, leading to self- perpetuating "blood-feuds" that persisted for generations. Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 94-95, 144- 145; Kuhn, "Reconstructing Patterns of Interaction and Warfare," 145-166; Roberston and Williamson, "The Archaeology of the Parsons Site," 148; Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic, 159. 92Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 44. 93 MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 293; van der Merwe et al., "The Moatfield Ossuary," 245-261. As the number of fish bone decreases, the number of mammal bones, especially deer, increases. MacDonald argues that this reduced reliance on estuary sites might be a result of a scheduling conflict with the fall deer hunt. In addition to being an important food resource, a community of 1500 would have needed approximately 2652 deer hides per year for clothing needs alone. MacDonald, "Late Woodland Settlement Trends in South-Central Ontario," 294; Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 154; Richard M. Gramly, "Deerskins and Hunting Territories: Competition for a Scarce Resource of the Northeastern Woodlands," American Antiquity 42 (1977), 601-605. 56
share kinship or trade ties.94 Archaeological evidence points to the probability that the raids, which were conducted by groups of young men who sought prestige within their own communities, occurred between watersheds.95 As travel east or west across the landscape north of Lake Ontario would have meant negotiating a series of steep ravines, swampy lowlands, and difficult water crossings, it is not unreasonable to suggest that warriors might have used parts of the Toronto Carrying Place trails in the course of their raids. Possible routes could have included travelling north or south along their particular trail and cutting across the landscape along the Oak Ridges Moraine or along the trail that followed the base of the glacial Lake Iroquois shoreline, in the vicinity of present-day
Davenport Road.96 During this tumultuous time, the Toronto Carrying Place was a path to be avoided by most people in the community, and strangers encountered along the trails were regarded with distrust. For young warriors, however, these same trails represented a path to potential glory and prestige. As with most other areas of Aboriginal life, warfare was also constricted by the seasons and raids were generally not conducted from late autumn through early spring.07
In the century prior to the dispersal of the Wendat and their allies around 1650, not only was the Toronto Carrying Place avoided, the north shore of Lake Ontario was in fact virtually abandoned. During this time, the Toronto Carrying Place was the route
94 Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic, 68. 95 A craniometric analysis of two intact adult crania found in a midden deposit at the Parsons site, which is located within the Humber River watershed, revealed that the skulls resembled those from the Uxbridge site, an ossuary located within the Don River drainage; Tosha L. Dupras and David G. Pratte, "Craniometric Study of the Parsons Crania from Midden 4/Feature 245," Ontario Archaeology 65/66 (1998), 140-145. 96 This trail generally followed the route of present-day Davenport Road. For information on this trail, see Mima Kapches, "Back to the Beaten Paths," Royal Ontario Museum Archaeological Newsletter 47 (1992), 4. The trail was mapped circa 1793 by Alexander Aitken on his survey of the Township of York. 97 Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 69. 57
between opposing camps: the Five Nations south of Lake Ontario and the Wendat in
Wendake, between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay. While Samuel de Champlain and the
Jesuit missionaries cited the fear of the Iroquois as a reason for avoidance of the Toronto
Carrying Place and the surrounding landscape, the majority of the Wendat people had no
real need to access the trails or the north shore.98 They had easy access to the rich
fisheries of Lake Simcoe, suitable land to grow their crops, and had access to furs from the Anishinaabeg and their own hunting grounds, and a reliable trade route to Quebec and
Montreal. Life continued despite a lack of access to the north shore.
The threat of attack, however, was very real. The Jesuits' writings of their time in
Wendake are filled with references to raiding between the Wendat and the Five Nations
Iroquois." Although they were at war with the entire Five Nations, the Wendats' main adversaries were the Seneca, the westernmost nation of the Iroquois.100 Due to their geographical isolation from the rest of the Wendat confederacy, the Arendarhonon, who occupied the area immediately northwest of Lake Simcoe, seem to have suffered the brunt of the Iroquois raids.101 The destruction of one of the Arendarhonon villages in
1642 was a turning point in the type of warfare between the Wendat and the western
98 Samuel de Champlain, The Works of Samuel de Champlain, ed. Henry P. Biggar, 6 vols. (Toronto: Champlain Society, [1599-1632], 1922-36), 3:59; Le Jeune's Relation, 1635, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610-1791, 73 volumes, (Cleveland: Burrow Brothers, 1901), 8:75; Relation of 1647-48, in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations, 33:65. 99 See for example Le Jeune's Relation, 1634, in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations, 7:213-215; Relation of 1642, in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations, 23:25-27, 195-197; Relation of what occurred in the Wendat Country, a country of New France, in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations, 26:203-205; Relation of 1644-45, in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations, 28:45; Relations of 1645-46, in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations, 29: 247, 253-255, etc. 100 Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 159. The Five Nations Iroquois of what is now New York State included, from east to west, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. 101 Relation of 1642, in Thwaites, ed. Jesuit Relations, 23:33; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 660. 58
tribes of the Iroquois League.102 According to Trigger, warfare prior to this escalation had largely been a matter of traditional blood feud, with plundering of furs and trade goods of
|rvo secondary importance. Both the Wendat and the Iroquois had lost considerable numbers of their populations due to epidemic diseases and these raids were an opportunity to acquire captives and to enact revenge against the unknown agents of that loss.104 An increasing need for European trade goods, however, encouraged the Iroquois to attack Wendat villages and houses in which furs and trade goods were stored.105
Surprise attacks at dawn increased, followed by pillaging, burning, as well as the continued taking of captives to replace lost family members.106 As recorded by Jesuit
Father Jerome Lalement, in their retreat the enemy would "driv(e) forth in haste a part of their captives, who were burdened above their strength, like packhorses, with the spoils which the victorious were carrying off, - their captors reserving for some other occasion the matter of their death."107
In both types of warfare, women and children were not spared.108 At times, the
Wendat were able to give chase and attempt to rescue the captives. For example, in the spring of 1645, a group of Iroquois concealed themselves in the forest near Contarea, an
Arendarhonon village located near the narrows between Lake Simcoe and Lake
Couchiching, "surrounded a company of women who were just going out for work in the
102 Relation of what occurred in the Wendat Country, a country of New France, in Thwaites, ed„ Jesuit Relations, 26:175. 103 Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 661. 104 Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse, 60-61. 105 While the Mohawk and the Oneida raided trading convoys and hunting parties, the Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga concentrated on plundering the Wendat in their homeland; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 661. 106 Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 661. 107 Relation of 1648-49, in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations, 34:135. 108 See for example Relation of 1643-44, in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations, 27:65. 59
fields, and so quickly carried them off in their canoes, that two hundred men in arms, who ran up at their first cries, could not arrive soon enough to save one of them, but were only in time to witness the sad tears of their wives, their mothers, and their children, who were taken captive."109 On very rare occasions, rescue attempts were more successful. In late summer of 1647, a group of Iroquois, led by a Wendat captive, attacked a Wendat fishing cabin on an island in Lake Simcoe, killing four or five and taking seven prisoners.
One man managed to escape and make his way back to Contarea where a rescue party was organized. The Wendat managed to overtake the enemy "eight or ten leagues out of the country" and recover all the captives.110 Realising the increasing vulnerability of their location, the Arendarhonon living near Lake Simcoe soon after abandoned their villages and found refuge with communities further west. As a result of this retreat, the Wendat gave up their control over the rich fisheries of Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching, including the fish weirs at the Narrows.111
The Senecas potentially utilised the Toronto Carrying Place in their journeys to and from battle as it was the quickest and easiest route. For captured Wendat individuals, the trek back to Seneca country might have been their only experience walking the Toronto
109 Relation of 1645-46, in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations, 29:249; Trigger, Children ofAataentsic, 662. 110 Trigger, Children ofAataentsic, 736; Relation of 1647-48, in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations, 33: 91-93. 111 Trigger, Children ofAataentsic, 736. The fish weirs at Atherly Narrows, between Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching were first constructed some 5,000 years ago, were noted by Champlain in his journals (4:246), and now form the Mnjikaning Fish Weirs National Historic site. For more information on the fish weirs, see Richard B. Johnston and Kenneth A. Cassavoy, "The Fishweirs at Atherley Narrows, Ontario," American Antiquity 43 (1978), 697-709; Kenneth A. Cassavoy, "Underwater Surveys - Atherley Narrows Firshweirs Project," Archaeological Report, Ontario, 4 (1993), 121-129; Janet Turner, "Building Bridges From a Mnjikaning Fish Fence Circle Perspective," Ontario Archaeology 73 (2002), 69-75; and James R. Ringer, "Atherley Narrows Fish Weirs," in Underwater Cultural Heritage at Risk: Managing Natural and Human Impact (Heritage at Risk. - Special Edition), eds. Robert Grenier, David Nutley, and Ian Cochran (Paris: ICOMOS, 2006), 44-45. 60
Carrying Place, if in fact this route was taken. Daniel K. Richter describes what this experience might have been like:
When the captors had safely eluded pursuit, they stripped a male prisoner of his clothes and moccasins and thus of the outward signs of his former life. Then they gave him a few blows with cudgels, pulled out several fingernails, and perhaps cut off a finger or two; among other things, the last two acts prevented him from wielding a weapon and marked him thereafter as a captive. Before he could recover from these assaults, the warriors burdened him with plunder and began the trip to Iroquoia. If the prisoner tried to escape or was unable to carry the burden placed on his back his captors would, as one European wrote, "give him a Blow to the Head with their Ax, and there leave him after they have pulled off all the Skin with the Hair of his Head." To those who survived the first day's journey, night brought little rest: naked to the chills of winter snow or the torments of summer mosquitoes, prisoners lay fitfully with their legs secured by stakes placed in the ground. 12
Ultimately, this inter-tribal warfare with the Five Nations Iroquois, exacerbated by the deleterious effects of European epidemic diseases, resulted in the dispersal of not only the Wendat Confederacy, but of the Petun and Neutral Confederacies, as well as many of their Algonquian-speaking allies by around 1650.113
Even in times of relative peace, the fear of potential raiding was on the minds of many. Letters from Fort Toronto in the 1750s indicate that French occupants of the fort were worried about the fate of one of their own because of the presence of "mauvais
112 Richter, Ordeal of the Longhouse, 66; citing Louis Hennepin, A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America... 1stEnglished. London, 1698. 113 While many of the Ontario refugees were dispersed, many others were incorporated into the New York Iroquois populations. For example, approximately 500 to 1000 Tahontaenrat, one of the five Wendat nations, were incorporated as a group by the Seneca. While they would eventually fully merge with the Seneca, the refugees established the town of Gandougarac in Seneca country and were allowed to retain their own customs. A few short years after the dispersal, Jesuits commented on the "good feeling and friendship" between the two groups. Refugees were incorporated into other Iroquois communities as well, including a group of 400 Wendats who left their temporary home in Quebec to join the Mohawk at Onondaga. Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 826-828; Relation of 1656-57, in Thwaites, ed„ Jesuit Relations, 44:19. 61
homme" lurking in the woods north of Lake Ontario. According to a letter sent by trader
Lefebvre Duchouquet from the fort, these same "bad men" had killed Frenchmen near
Lake Huron.114 A few months later, a French soldier carrying dispatches between posts
was feared to have been killed by local Aboriginals, and the dispatches were carried to
the English. According to Charles Le Moyne de Longueuil, acting administrator of New
France, the English were responsible for enticing the "Saulteux" (probably Anishinaabeg
from the Upper Great Lakes) to travel south and destroy Fort Toronto.115 Similar fears of
the unknown dangers lurking in the forest were expressed by the British over a decade
later. In 1797, William Johnson wrote, "every step our Traders take beyond the Posts is
attended at least with some risque, and a very heavy expence."116
Landscape of Encounters
Part of living the Toronto Carrying Place was the interactions with individuals
and groups living it as well. The types of interactions can be divided into two groups:
interactions that occurred along the trails and interactions that occurred at the places they connected. The latter also provided, at least in part, the reason for actually travelling the
Toronto Carrying Place. As we shall see, not all interactions were violent or fraught with fear.
114 Extract from Collection de I'honorable L.-F.-G. Baby, n.d., Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, Archives of Ontario; including letter, 27 fevrier, 1752, Lefebvre Duchouquet to L.-F.-G. Baby, Collection de I'honorable L.-F.-G. Baby, Bibliotheque Saint-Sulpice. 115 "M. de Longueuil to M. de Rouille, 21 April 1752," in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 10:246-248. 116 "Sir William Johnson to the Earl of Shelburne," in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 7:1000. 62
For thousands of years small groups of related families walked the Toronto
Carrying Place to reach river estuaries where they gathered with other similar groups to exploit the rich aquatic resources. These gatherings allowed them to establish and reaffirm various kinship ties, visit with family members that were now part of other
groups, socialize, trade, bury their dead, and many other activities that were part of daily
life. At the end of the summer and early fall, farewells were said and people returned to
their smaller inland camps, secure in the knowledge that they would see one another the
following year.
Kin relationships could be relied on in the course of long-distance journeys, and for those travelling across the north shore of Lake Ontario in times of peace, the Toronto
Carrying Place represented a path to friends, family, food, and shelter. Long-distance
trade and travel is evidenced in the archaeological and osteological remains unearthed at
1 17 the mid-sixteenth-century Mantle site. The Mantle community appears to have
117 For example, a number of Oneida and Onondaga ceramic castellation effigies, a type of artifact that has never before been recovered from an Ontario Iroquoian site and is typically found on archaeological sites in New York State, were recovered from the Mantle site. Preliminary analysis has determined that one of the effigy castellations was produced from a non-local clay source, suggesting an introduced product. Other ceramic vessels considered to be 'exotic' to south-central Ontario were found to have been manufactured locally, suggesting that 'outsiders' were living amongst the Mantle community and manufacturing these pots. The lithic assemblage at Mantle suggests that the community likely had trading relationships with the Neutral of the Niagara Peninsula, the Odawa of the south shore of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, and potentially with northern Algonquian-speaking groups as well. The presence of an iron axe from what is believed to be a secure context could also indicate links to Aboriginal groups who were interacting with some of the earliest Europeans on the east coast. Interaction with non-local populations is also evidenced by the cemetery located immediately southwest of the village proper. As the burial practices for ancestral Wendat villages at this time period involved the creation of an ossuary, it is likely that the thirty-one individuals buried in the Mantle cemetery were intentionally excluded from burial with the majority of the community. This could have included Wendat individuals who died an unusual or violent death, or Algonquian, Neutral, or Iroquois individuals who were at the site at the time of their death. At the request of relevant First Nations, one tooth per burial was retained for DNA and isotopic testing in order to shed light on the cosmopolitan nature of the community. Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 155-160; Jennifer Birch et al„ "Aggregation and Integration in Iroquoian Ontario: Recent Insights from the Mantle Site," (paper presented at the 75th Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, St. Louis, 2010). 63
relocated more or less as a whole from the Draper site, one of the mid-fifteenth-century
1| Q coalescent societies exhibiting evidence of violence and conflict. Birch suggests that
by the time the community relocated, leadership or internal ranking was possibly already
established resulting in a decline in the need for warfare-related competitive displays.119
As Birch points out, the Mantle site likely represents a short-lived period of relative
peace before feuding developed between the nations of the Wendat Confederacy and members of the Iroquois League in what is now New York State.120 This relative peace meant that travel through the landscape was much safer and, as Birch suggests, the relative isolation and size of the Mantle site in the early sixteenth-century landscape may have made it a collecting point or way station for those living in and travelling through south-central Ontario.121
During the fur trade, reasons for travelling the trails changed for some Aboriginal groups. While they still undoubtedly continued their seasonal rounds of group aggregation and dispersal using the Toronto Carrying Place trails or parts thereof, some
Anishinaabe groups now traveled the trails with the specific goal of transporting loads of furs for trade. This type of travel led them to the north shore Seneca villages of Teiaiagon and Ganatsekwyagon, and later to the various trading posts established at the mouth of
118 Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 97-148. These sites are located within the Duffins Creek drainage, immediately east of the Rouge River. 119 Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 145. She also suggests that the decrease in conflict between communities in the early sixteenth century may be related to alliance-building and the further consolidation of the Wendat Confederacy. 120 Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 145-146. 121 Only four Iroquoian village sites have been recorded for this time period in south-central Ontario. The Mantle site, located on the Duffins Creek watershed was 4.2 hectares in size. Three other sites of approximately 1 hectare were located on the Humber River and the Don River drainages. A few other sites were located in the Kawartha Lakes region further to the east. Birch, "Coalescent Communities," 160 (see also Table 2.1, 270, and Figure 2.8, 220). 64
the Humber River and beyond. There, they interacted with other Aboriginal and
European individuals and groups. This new specific goal meant a change in the load they carried and perhaps even a change in the pace at which they walked. It meant hyper- vigilance in the face of potential raiders and anticipation for the types of trade goods they would be able to get once they reached their destination. Annual variations in the climate had an impact on the timing of these trips. For example, on May 18, 1756, Noyelles, head trader at Fort Rouille, related that the Mississaugas were later than usual for spring trading that year due to the fact that there was still snow and ice in their hunting
1OO grounds. Once trading was done, the Toronto Carrying Place was the route home where people returned with the items they had traded for. Some returned empty-handed however, having lost their furs or trade goods to raiders. Others returned empty-handed having traded their possessions for alcohol. Still others returned home with the furs they had intended to trade, the fort having run out of trade goods for the season.
Though smaller than the main Iroquois villages on the south side of Lake Ontario, the late seventeenth-century north shore settlements looked and functioned in the same way. Inhabited by every facet of Iroquoian society, the settlements were self-sufficient and served as bases during the annual seasonal rounds of harvesting, hunting, and fishing.
The north shore villages also served as shelter for the south shore Iroquois on their way to and from the extensive winter beaver hunt.123 As the traditional beaver hunting grounds south of Lake Ontario had been exhausted, south shore Iroquois had no choice but to go
122 Extract from Collection de I'honorable L.-F.-G. Baby, n.d., Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, Archives of Ontario; including letter, 18 may, 1756, Noyelle to L.-F.-G. Baby, Collection de I'honorable L.-F.-G. Baby, Biblioth&que Saint-Sulpice. 123 Konrad, "An Iroquois frontier," 137. 65
north for furs.124 Their bark canoes were not suitable for lake crossing, so south shore
Iroquois would paddle around the eastern or western shores of the lake on their way north.125 They would then abandon their canoes at the north shore villages, perhaps socialize and stock up on food and supplies, then continue inland on foot. Hunters would scatter in small groups throughout their hunting territory and travel back in small bands laden with furs that would ultimately be traded with the Dutch at the Hudson or the
English at Albany.126
During times of Anishinaabe-Iroquois peace, Anishinaabe groups would travel down the Toronto Carrying Place to trade their furs at villages such as Teiaiagon and
Ganatsekwyagon.127 Peace with the Iroquois also meant that French traders, licensed or not, could also use the trails to reach the Anishinaabe and the rich hunting grounds to the
198 north. The north shore villages themselves were also the site of much trade between the Iroquois and the French, Dutch, and English traders.129 In the late summer or early fall of 1681, French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was at Teiaiagon waiting to embark on one of his journeys to Michilimackinac and beyond.130 He stayed in
124 "Remy de Courcelles au Lac Ontario," in Margry, ed., Decouvertes et Etablissements, 1:188. 125 "Memorandum by a Missionary, 1671," in Richard A. Preston, ed., Royal Fort Frontenac (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1958), 103-104; Armand Yon has made the case that "Memorandum from a Missionary" was written by Sulpicien Francis de Salignac-Fenelon; Armand Yon, "Francis de Salignac- F6nelon, sulpicien: son Memoire sur le Canada [1670]," Les Cahiers des Dix, 35 (1970), 141-190. 126 "Memorandum by a Missionary, 1671," in Preston, ed., Royal Fort Frontenac, 103-104; "Remy de Courcelles au Lac Ontario," in Margry, ed., Voyages des Frangais, 180-181. 127 "Memoir touching the expenses incurred by Sieur de Lasalle at Fort Frontenac, 1684," in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 9:218; "Extrait d'une lettre du Comte Frontenac a Colbert, en date du 12 novembre 1674," in Margry, ed., Decouvertes et Etablissements, 1:274; "Remy de Courcelles au Lac Ontario," in Margry, ed., Voyages des Frangais, 191. 128 "Depenses faites par La Salle de 1675 a 1684," in Margry, ed., Decouvertes et Etablissements, 2:14; Copy of Galinee's second map of 1670 in ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," 29. 129 Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier," 137. 130 "Relation du Voyage de Cavelier de La Salle," in Margry, ed., Decouvertes et Etablissements, 2:158 66
the village for fifteen days while he had his goods carried over the portage having offered a few iron axes to the head of the village in exchange for the help of some of the villagers.131 La Salle hid powder and shot in fabrics in order to conceal them from the
Iroquois who did not want any supplied to their enemies.132 In his report to Jean-Baptiste
Colbert, a senior French Minister of Marine, La Salle expressed his frustrations in his dealings with the Iroquois hired to portage his goods and that a sickness at Teiaiagon which afflicted many of his men as well as the Aboriginal population was delaying his progress.133
Historical records from the first half of the eighteenth century are filled with accounts of Anishinaabeg, or "les nations du nord," using the Toronto Carrying Place in order to trade with the English at Albany and later at Oswego.134 The fur trade, however, was just one part of the life they lived along the trails. They spent their summers in settlements near the mouths of rivers and creeks along the north shore and in the fall and winter would venture north into their hinterland to hunt for food as well as for furs. In addition, the Mississauga brought their sick to the long peninsula east of the Humber,
131 "Relation du Voyage de Cavelier de La Salle," in Margry, ed., Decouvertes et ttablissements, 2:158; "Minet's journal of La Salle's expedition, 1682," in Cornelius J. Jaenen, ed., The French Regime in the Upper Country of Canada During the Seventeenth Century (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1996), 180. 13 "Minet's journal of La Salle's expedition, 1682," in Jaenen, ed„ The French Regime, 180. "Recit de Nicolas de La Salle 1682," in Margry, ed., Decouvertes et £tablissements, 1:548. 133 "Relation du Voyage de Cavelier de La Salle," in Margry, ed., Decouvertes et Etablissements, 2:159 134 See for example, "M. de Pontchartrain to M. de Vaudreuil, 6th June 1708" in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 9:813; "Abstract of Despatches from Canada," in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 10:201; Transcription of Conseil, October 26, 1719, M. Begon, Arch, des Colonies, Coll A, vol. 41, pp. 156-157, PAC (now LAC), in letter, January 26, 1933, Gustave Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO; Transcription of letter, Novembre 7, 1715, Ramezay & Begon, Arch, des Colonies, Coll A, vol. 35, pp. 43-4, 48-50, and letter, 24 aoust, 1750, M. de Lajonquiere, Arch, des Colonies., Cll.A, vol. 95, pp. 178-9, PAC (now LAC), in letter, April 18, 1933, Gustave Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO; Transcription of letter, 9 octobre 1749, Lajonquiere, Arch, des Colonies, Cll.A, vol. 93, pp. 46-7, PAC (now LAC), in letter, March 20, 1933, Gustave Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 67
which are today the Toronto Islands, which was known to have a "health-giving atmosphere."135
French coureurs de bois were also known to travel the trails to carry out illicit trading. I If* Furthermore, there is evidence that the English from the south of the lake were trading along the north shore and had their sights on increasing their trade with the
Mississauga by establishing their own post on that side of the lake.137 To intercept this unwanted trading and to strengthen their relationship with the Mississaugas and northern
Anishinaabeg, the French constructed a series of fortified buildings at the southern terminus of the Humber trail where trade could be conducted. They established other posts as well, including one on the Niagara River. I " The first official trading post at
Toronto was established in 1720 and operated by Sieur Alexandre Dagneau Douville.139
Reports indicate that the trade at the 'Poste de Toronto' was detrimental to the trade at
Niagara and Fort Frontenac.140 Competition from the British in Oswego after 1726 also
135 Donald B. Smith, "The Dispossession of the Mississauga Indians: a Missing Chapter in the Early History of Upper Canada," Ontario History, 73 (1981), 71. 136 Transcription of letter, 7 novembre 1715, Ramezay & Begon, Arch, des Col. C11A, vol. 35, pp. 43-4, 48- 50, PAC (now LAC), in letter, April 18,1933, G. Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 137 "Abstract of Despatches relating to Oswego and Niagara," in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 9:976; Transcription of letter 7 novembre 1715, Ramezay & Begon, Arch, des Col. C11A, vol. 35, pp. 43-4,48-50, PAC (now LAC), in letter, April 18, 1933, G. Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO; Transcription of Observations by Philippe de Rocheblave, Simcoe Papers, Packet A. 18, PAC (now LAC), in letter, Letter, April 25, 1935, F. Harwood to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 138 Robinson, Toronto During the French Regime, 80-81. 139 "Mr. Durant's Memorial relative to French Post at Niagara," in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 5:589; Transcription of letter, 20 octobre 1726, Dupuy au ministre, C11A, vol. 48, pp.243-248, PAC (now LAC), in letter, January 26, 1933, Gustave Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. This fort is also known as the Magasin Royal; see Robinson, Toronto During the French Regime, 61-92; Benn, "Colonial Transformation," 55-56. 140 Transcription of letter, 15 octobre 1728, Daigremont, Arch, des Col. CI1 A., vol. 50, p. 131, and transcription of letter April 19, 1729, Arch, des Col., Serie B, vol. 53-2, pp. 338-9, PAC (now LAC), in 68
seems to have affected the financial viability of the fort.141 Additionally, illicit trading by coureurs de bois continued to be a problem despite the severe penalties they could face if caught.142 The fort was abandoned by 1730.
Construction of a new post, which was approved in 1749, was undertaken in the spring of 1750 by Chevalier Pierre Robineau de Portneuf.143 Again, this post was constructed at the mouth of the Humber River with the purpose of intercepting
Anishinaabe traders on the Toronto Carrying Place before they could cross the lake to trade with the English at Fort Oswego. That first year, over 79 packs of furs were traded with most of the trading groups that passed by. According to the "commis," they would have traded even more had they had more cloth, liquor, and bread.144 The Anishinaabe traders promised to come back in greater numbers the next year and that they would stop trading with the Five Nations and the English.145 A larger more secure fort, known as
Fort Toronto or Fort Rouille, was soon built on what are now the grounds of the
letter, February 2, 1933, Gustave Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 141 Benn, "Colonial Transformations," 55. 142 Transcription of letter, 20 octobre 1726, Dupuy au ministre, C1I A, vol. 48, pp. 243-248, PAC (now LAC), in letter, January 26, 1933, Gustave Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. On September 14, 1726, Intendant Begon ordered that any persons trading illegally would be confiscated of their canoes, trade goods, and furs as well as charged 1,500 pounds in fines. The fines were to be applied to the trader as well as those who financed him. He also ordered that all traders passing by any French post had to show their trading license or else face the same penalty; Transcription of letter, Bigot, Ord. des Intend., 1726-1727, pp. 1-2, PAC (now LAC), in letter, February 2, 1933, Gustave Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO; Robinson, Toronto During the French Regime, 78-79. 143 Transcription of letter, 9 octobre 1749, Lajonquiere Bigot, Arch, des Col., C11A, vol. 93, pp. 46-7, PAC (now LAC), in letter, March 20, 1933, Gustave Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 144 Transcription of letter, 20 Aoust 1750, La Jonquiere, Arch, des Col., C11A, vol. 95, pp. 171-77, PAC (now LAC), in letter, March 20, 1933, Gustave Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 145 Transcription of letter, 20 Aoust 1750, La Jonquiere, Arch, des Col., C11A, vol. 95, pp. 171-77, PAC (now LAC), in letter, March 20, 1933, Gustave Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 69
Canadian National Exhibition (CNE).146 Under the instructions of New France governor,
Pierre Francois de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal, the French burned and abandoned Fort Toronto in 1759 following a series of defeats at the hands of the British during the Seven Years War (1756-1763).147
Trade continued at Toronto despite the lack of an official fort in the 1760s. This trade was conducted by independent traders who were granted passes by Military
Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in North America, Thomas
Gage.148 Complaints were made concerning Toronto traders "taking upon them to Send
Belts of Wampum to the Indians at Michillimackinac" to entice them come down to
Toronto to trade. Many returned to Michillimackinac "Naked & Destitute of Everything, having Sold their Skins at Toronto for Rum."149 In the 1770s and 1780s, French trader
Jean-Baptiste Rousseau dit Saint- Jean built a house and trading post at the southern terminus of the Humber trail.150
Many Europeans experienced the generosity of Aboriginal peoples they encountered. On their travels north on the Humber trail, Simcoe and his crew were presented with "a pair of ducks, some beaver's meat, and a beaver's tail" from the Great
146 Brown, Fort Rouille Excavation, Summer 1982. 147 "M. de Vaudreuil to M. de Massiac, 2 September 1758," in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 10:824; Careless, Toronto to 1918, 9. 148 "From Daniel Claus, Montreal, 29 May 1762," in James Sullivan, ed., Papers of Sir William Johnson, (Albany: The University of the State of New York, 1921), 747; "A Pass for Traders to Toronto, June 5, 1762," in Sullivan, ed., Papers of Sir William Johnson, 754-756. 149 "From Jeffrey Amherst, New York, 21 November, 1762," in Sullivan, ed., Papers of Sir William Johnson, 942-943; "To Jeffrey Amhurst, Johnson Hall, 7 December 1762," in Sullivan, ed., Papers of William Johnson, 962; "To John Tabor Kempe, Johnson Hall, December 18 1762," in Sullivan, ed., Papers of Sir William Johnson, 976-977. 150 Robinson, Toronto During the French Regime, 154, 209-218. 70
Tail and his family.151 Sometimes, these interactions could mean the difference between life and death, as was the case when the same Great Tail provided much needed corn and ducks to Simcoe's injured crew member and his companions as they awaited their rescue
party. 152
Alexander MacDonnell's diary indicates that the Humber trail saw heavy traffic in the late eighteenth century. His party encountered a few people on their journey north, including: "an Indian trader who was on his way to his wintering ground on Lake
LaClaie," and two men, each with a horse, transporting the goods of Mr. Cuthbertson, a trader, whom they later met at the northern end of the portage.153 It is not unreasonable to suggest that the number of en-route interactions would have been even greater when official trading posts were in operation at the mouth of the Humber. On reaching Lake
Simcoe, the men encountered a number of Mississauga paddlers and visited a few settlements. Whenever they approached a village, the "Indians fired a feu-de-joie," to which they "answered with three cheers."154 The sound of the gun salutes would have been formidable in an otherwise relatively quiet environment. In fact, gun salutes at Fort
Niagara could be heard across the Lake Ontario at Fort Toronto, letting the men at
Toronto know that the travelling party had safely reached their destination.155
151 MacDonnell, "Diary," 3. 152 MacDonnell, "Diary," 10-11. 153 MacDonnell, "Diary," 2. 154 MacDonnell, "Diary," 3, 5. 155 Extract from Collection de I'honorable L.-F.-G. Baby, n.d., Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, Archives of Ontario; including letter, 19 avril 1756, Noyelle to L.-F.-G. Baby, Collection de I'honorable L.-F.-G. Baby, Bibliotheque Saint-Sulpice. 71
SUMMARY
This chapter explores the Toronto Carrying Place through a series of experiential themes based on a phenomenological tradition and the idea of embodiment in landscape studies. It explores various embodied experiences lived along this unique cultural landscape, over time and across cultures, through a look at the archaeological record of the north shore, the historically and geographically situated social and political realities that might have influenced travel through the same landscape, and the writings of early
Europeans in the region. In so doing, it reveals a nuanced narrative of how people lived, came to know, and ultimately ascribed meaning to these trails.
While it is generally known that European explorers and fur traders travelled the
Aboriginal trails of the Toronto Carrying Place in the course of trade and exploration, an embodied history of the Toronto Carrying Place expands this basic narrative to include more personal lived experiences in addition to general practices or specific events. By investigating the Toronto Carrying Place as cultural landscape features within an ancestral landscape and a new landscape, as well as within a landscape of fear and a landscape of encounters, we see that various factors influenced how individuals and groups experienced the trails. These factors range from the time of year the trails were walked, to the political and social climate of the day, to the roles individuals played within and outside their communities.
Gaining insights into the embodied experiences of past peoples in regards to cultural landscapes is a complicated endeavour, and more so when it comes to ephemeral landscape features such as forest footpaths in the distant past. As noted above, ethno- 72
historical and archaeological evidence concerning the Toronto Carrying Place are few and far between and inferring historic manifestations of corporeal embodiment from these traces is challenging and fraught with uncertainties. Although sometimes difficult to demonstrate with certainty, the cultural geography, archaeology, and ethnohistory of and in the landscape north of Lake Ontario does provide a set of logical probabilities as to who might have walked the trails in the past, why these trails were walked, and how they were experienced. 73
CHAPTER THREE: DISCUSSING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE
DISCUSSING LANDSCAPE
Chapter Three examines the various ways people have discussed and communicated about the Toronto Carrying Place in the past. This second trail of enquiry will lead us to a better understanding of how people came to know, and ascribe meaning to, the Toronto Carrying Place through the stories they told, the places they named, the journals and letters they wrote, and the maps they created. It focuses on narratives of the
Toronto Carrying Place that were created when at least part of the trails were still in use.
While some of the discourses surrounding the Toronto Carrying Place involved people who were also living it, other discourses involved people who had never experienced it firsthand.
Yi-Fu Tuan has discussed the role of language in "the making of place" through an examination of what he calls a narrative-descriptive approach.1 Tuan argues that words, whether they are shared through written texts or informal conversations, through songs or stories, or through place-names, are an integral part of the construction of places. They can "direct attention, organize insignificant entities into significant
1 Yi-Fu Tuan, "Language and the Making of Place: A Narrative-Descriptive Approach," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 81 (1991), 684-696. Tuan also suggests a linguistic and socio- linguistic approach to speech and place, though he does not examine these in detail. John L. Steckley has examined how the Wendat language, a language that died midway through the twentieth century, can inform us about several aspects of the Wendat relationship to the environment. According to Steckley, it is difficult to use material from the Wendat language, which survives in the form of missionary and ethnographic observations and dictionaries, to understand the extent of knowledge and relationship the Wendat had with their environment. Steckley investigates linguistic evidence concerning the Wendat relationship to various animals and plants. He also demonstrate how Wendat calendar terms reflect the importance of various seasonal activities and resources among the Wendat, and how the meaning of certain village names could be useful in both locating these villages on the ground and in understanding how the people saw the land around them. Steckley, Words of the Huron, ix-xvi, 113-148. 74
composite wholes, and in so doing, make things formerly overlooked - and hence
invisible and nonexistent - visible and real." The primary goal in the narrative-
descriptive approach, says Tuan, is not the explicit formulation of theory, as theory has
the effect of rendering complex and ambiguous human experience "into something
schematic and etiolated." By contrast, this type of approach allows the focus to be
directly on the complex phenomena themselves - on the words and images that people
used to realize and bring meaning to the Toronto Carrying Place - while theory hovers
supportively in the background. As such, following a brief introduction to methodology
and sources, this chapter jumps right into an investigation of ways the Toronto Carrying
Place has been discussed in the past. While many forms of communication exist, the
chapter focuses on talking, writing, and mapping the Toronto Carrying Place.
METHODOLOGY AND SOURCES
A discursive history of the Toronto Carrying Place requires similar primary
sources as those detailed in Chapter Two, such as the writings of early explorers,
missionaries, fur traders, administrators, and surveyors. These sources provide a glimpse
into the different stories people told about the Toronto Carrying Place trails when they
were in use. Through both the written word and the documentary silences, they provide
interesting insights into how individuals with different roles (e.g. fur trader vs. colonial
administrator) knew the Toronto Carrying Place and how meanings ascribed to the trails could differ depending if one had actually walked its paths.
2 Tuan, "Language and the Making of Place," 685-686. 75
A discursive history, however, also necessitates a review of existing research in a
variety of fields. As already mentioned, the Toronto Carrying Place starts with early
Aboriginal peoples who inhabited and travelled the north shore of Lake Ontario for more
than 10,000 years and their legacy lives on in the traces of their settlements they left behind. Their legacy also lives on in the oral histories and traditions that were passed down from generation to generation. Given the scope of this project, it is impossible to explore the oral traditions and histories of every Aboriginal group that lived the Toronto
Carrying Place. This section, therefore, relies on previously published oral traditions and histories, focusing on the work of Heidi R. Bohaker on Anishinaabe identities in the
Eastern Great Lakes region.3 More specifically, it explores how these identities, and the oral traditions that sustain them, connected and continue to connect people to the Toronto
Carrying Place.
Another important source of information for a discursive history of the Toronto
Carrying Place consists of toponyms, the names given to places and landscapes in which people lived. This information can be gathered from the writings of curious individuals in the past, such as surveyor Augustus Jones, and the linguistic research of more recent scholars such as Percy James Robinson and Alan Rayburn. Finally, a cursory look at early exploration and survey maps of the north shore provides insights as to how knowledge concerning the Toronto Carrying Place developed and how this knowledge was disseminated to users of the trails as well as to the colonial powers who wished to control them.
3 Bohaker, "Nindoodemag 76
DISCUSSING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE
Talking
Storytelling is one of the most ancient art forms and has been part of humanity
since time immemorial. A critical way of acquiring knowledge, storytelling, as opposed
to the solitary act of reading, is very much a social affair - it can only be practiced with
an audience. It comes in various forms, including family histories, personal anecdotes of
specific events, historical accounts, formal speeches, songs, poems, elaborate legends,
myths, origin and creation stories, proverbs, and place names. For past Aboriginal
cultures, life was imbued with stories: stories were part of the land they travelled, the
animals they hunted, the crops they grew, the children they bore, and the dead they
buried.4 Despite the traditional role of storytelling as a way to pass on knowledge, it has
only been for the past twenty years or so that oral history has moved beyond the realm of
'supplementary material' in ethnographical, anthropological and historical research.5
Living oral traditions among First Nations groups are now regarded as a potential source
for historical data. According to Julie Cruikshank, there is still considerable controversy
4 The fact that storytelling is still strong in Aboriginal communities suggests that oral tradition is still central to an indigenous intellectual tradition and can still provide a way of teaching; Julie Cruikshank, Life Lived Like a Story: Life Stories of Three Native Elders (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1990), 340. 5 Cruikshank, Life Lived Like a Story, 1. 77
in both anthropology and history on how researchers can draw on oral histories to
reconstruct a more balanced picture of the past.6
Scholars of oral narratives tend to separate these stories into 'oral history' and
'oral tradition'. The former refers to what could be viewed as a more Westernized version
of history and would include personal reminiscences and descriptions of specific events
and people, while the latter refers to stories that have been passed down for generations,
and originate from a time where animals and humans were one and the same. These
stories have been called 'foundation stories' and 'epic stories.' For Aboriginal
storytellers, however, this distinction is not always evident as mythical or supernatural
elements are often intertwined in accounts of daily life. This distinction can thus be
viewed as more of a gradation than a dichotomy.7
Oral Traditions
Susan M. Preston has discussed how oral tradition might be regarded as a cultural
cognitive map, leading to insights as to the meanings and values people associate with
particular cultural landscapes.8 With an emphasis on individual and cultural experience of
landscape, cognitive mapping exercises usually involve informants drawing graphic
illustrations of their environments indicating on them areas of activities and places of
6 Cruikshank, Life Lived Like a Story, 3, 346. For discussions on this topic, see also Deborah Doxtator "Inclusive and Exclusive Perceptions of Difference: Native and European Based Concepts of Time, History, and Change" (33-47) and Toby Morantz, "Plunder or Harmony? On Merging European and Native Views of Early Contact" (48-67) both in Decentring the Renaissance: Canada and Europe in Multidisciplinary Perspectives 1500-1700, eds. Germaine Warkentin and Carolyn Prodruchny (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001). 7 Morantz, "Plunder or Harmony?" 52-57. 8 Susan M. Preston, "Exploring the Eastern Cree Landscape: Oral Tradition as Cognitive Landscape," in Papers of the Thirty-First Algonquian Conference, ed. John D. Nichols (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 2000), 310-332. 78
particular significance. Most often utilised by planners and geographers in urban environments, this type of research generally assumes a need for a built or modified landscape. Many landscapes that are culturally significant, however, are, or were historically unmodified by the groups inhabiting them. According to Preston, for cultures with "un-built landscapes," such as traditional, pre-modern Aboriginal groups, the symbolic representation of meaning was not expressed through the physical form. She argues that oral tradition, a cultural product "in which actions function as symbols or vehicles for expression of belief and values," is "the only extant cultural form in which a detailed representation of historical landscape meaning and experience can be found."9
In her research on Anishinaabe identities in the Eastern Great Lakes region, Heidi
R. Bohaker explores how nindoodem (or clan) identity was central to Anishinaabe political decision making.10 Assertions of nindoodem (plural nindoodemag) identity were inscribed by Anishinaabe peoples on treaty and other documents, and expressions of
Caribou, Eagle, Crane, Otter, Beaver, Bear, and Catfish nindoodem identities predominate in documents dating from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century." According to Bohaker, "[n]indoodem identity ties Anishinaabe cosmology to the land and waterscapes of the Great Lakes through origin stories or aadizookaanag.
From these narratives of origin, Anishinaabe peoples could locate themselves in both time and space, as the descendants of an ancestral First Being who had placed them in a particular country." The political geography of the Anishinaabe cannot be separated from
9 Preston, "Exploring the Eastern Cree Landscape," 311 -315, 331. 10 Bohaker, "Nindoodemag 11 Chapter 4 of Bohaker, "Nindoodemagcontains numerous images of nindoodem as they appeared on original documents. 79
the spiritual landscape and the aadizoohaanag are the key to understanding the connection between nindoodemag and the physical landscape. Specific sites where people gathered annually, such as the estuary sites at both ends of the Toronto Carrying
Place described in Chapter Two, were not important simply in economic or subsistence terms. For Anishinaabe peoples, "[t]hese were sites of origin, where humans emerged from the bodies of the First Beings; in the graveyards of these places lay the bones of their relatives." For example, around 1600 the first council at Michilimackinac, the home of Michabous or the Great Hare, was the Hare family. Similarly, the Crane family was first council at Sault Sainte Marie and the Caribou congregated at the Narrows, between
Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching.12
By 1600, Anishinaabe families were spending part of the winter among the
Wendat and the Tionontate in what Bohaker calls a symbiotic relationship whereby agricultural products of the Iroquoian-speaking peoples were traded for the meat and fish provided by the Anishinaabe. A number of Wendat and Tionontate families were adopted into the Iroquois Confederacy after the dispersal of 1649. Given that many Anishinaabe still had ties to those Wendat whose entire clan segments had been incorporated into the
Iroquois, Bohaker suggests that the desire to re-establish the symbiotic relationship between Anishinaabe hunters and Iroquoian agriculturalists might have been the impetus for the establishment of the north shore Iroquois villages in the late-1660s, such as
Teiaiagon and Ganatsekwyagon at the southern terminus of the Humber and Rouge trails.
Wendat and Tionnontate families would have been able to access their old Anishinaabe
12 Bohaker, "Nindoodemag60-61, 237, 240. Bohaker presents the distribution of the other nindoodemag around 1600. 80
allies and trading partners, the Haudenosaunee would have access to furs for trade, and for the Anishinaabe, the re-established trading partnerships would have "helped to
11 reshape the political landscape of this area along familiar lines."
This period of peace, however, broke down in the 1690s when Haudenosaunee
began to attack Anishinaabe parties once again. Anishinaabe oral traditions tell of a
council of war that was held in Sault Sainte Marie where Anishinaabe from all over the eastern Great Lakes decided to wage a large-scale coordinated counter attack against the
Haudenosaunee. Oral traditions also tell of great battles fought and won and how the
Anishinaabe finally drove the Haudenosaunee out of what is now Ontario.14 In at least one version, presented by "Paudash, son of Paudash, son of Cheneebeesh, son of
Gemoaghpenassee to the Ontario Historical Society," a war party potentially travelled along the Humber branch of the Toronto Carrying Place. Following an especially bloody battle on what was after known as Pequahkoondebaminis, or the Island of Skulls, in lower Georgian Bay, the war party travelled to Mjikaning, or the Narrows between Lakes
Simcoe and Couchiching to replenish their supplies. From there, the party divided into two groups: "[t]he main body proceeded along the portage, now called Portage Road, to
Balsam Lake; the other party went south to Toronto."15 According to Bohaker, the party who headed south to Toronto contained members of the Eagle nindoodem while the party
13 Bohaker, "Nindoodemag," 247. 14 See Peter D. MacLeod, "The Anishinabeg Point of View: The History of the Great Lakes Region to 1800 in Nineteenth-Century Mississauga, Odawa, and Ojibwa Historiography," Canadian Historical Review, 73 (1992), 194-210; and P.S. Schmalz, "The Role of the Ojibwa in the Conquest of Southern Ontario, 1650- 1701," Ontario History, 76 (1984), 326-352. Other scholars, however, believe that Anishinabeg oral traditions about warfare with Iroquoians likely occurred much earlier than the late 1600s and that the Iroquois were not forced out of southern Ontario; Benn, "Colonial Transformations," 54. l5"The Coming of the Mississauga," Chief Robt. Paudash to the Ontario Historical Society, May 28, 1904, in The Valley of the Trent, edited by Edwin C. Guillet, (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1957), 9-13. 81
who went east was led by the Crane nindoodem.16 After both groups agreed to a peace, the Haudenosaunee recognized the right of the Anishinaabeg to occupy southern Ontario and to pass through Haudenosaunee territory to trade with the English at Albany, and the
Anishinaabeg agreed to let the Haudenosaunee retain their hunting rights in the territory.
Accounts of these negotiations, which were independently conducted between First
Nations during the winter hunting season, were recounted to the English by representatives of the Five Nations:
They say, Wee are come to acquaint you that wee are settled on ye North side of Cadarachqui Lake near Tchojachiage [Teiaiagon] where wee plant a tree of peace and open a path for all people, quite to Corlaer's house [house of the English Governor], where wee desire to have free liberty of trade; wee make a firme league with ye Five Nations and Corlaer and desire to be united in ye Covenant Chain, our hunting places to be one, and to boile in one kettle, eat out of one dish, & with one spoon, and so be one; a because the path to Corlaers house may be open & clear, doe give a drest elke skin to cover ye path to walke upon.
The Five Nations answered them thus: — Wee are glad to see you in our country and doe accept of you to be our friends and allies and doe give you a Belt of Wampum as a token thereof that there may be perpetual peace and friendship between us and our young Indians to hunt together in all love and amity.17
According to Bohaker, "this peace ensured the re-establishment of old relationships of nindoodem to country" such as the families of Caribou who moved permanently to the
Narrows, "and the creation of new relationships between people and land, as was the case
16 Bohaker, "Nindoodemag," 251. 17 Propositions of the Five Nations to the Commissioners of Indian Affairs," in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 4:694-695; Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier," 142; Jonathan Hart and Joan Holmes, "We Have Never Parted with Such a Power" - Assertions of First Nations' Sovereignty and the Right to Trade and Travel in the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth Century Great Lakes Region," paper presented at 8th Annual Fur Trade Conference, Akwesasne, 2000,9, electronic copy accessed October 18, 2011, http://www.joanholmes.ca/FurTradeConfPaper.pdf. 82
1 8 of the Eagles on the Credit River" just west of Toronto. The Caribou at Mjikaning were
recognized as the keepers of the council fire and of the wampum that solemnized the
peace agreement.19 It was also recognized that the Eagles were the messengers for the
Caribou and were "charged with the responsibilities of both keeping a watchful eye on
the actions of the Haudenosaunee and also of notifying the Caribou if any party to the
agreement wished to hold a council on any related matter," most certainly travelling via
the Humber branch of the Toronto Carrying Place.
Oral Histories
Tuan argues that, at an affective level, "storytelling converts mere objects 'out
1 there' into real presences". One example specific to the Toronto Carrying Place
concerns the Jesuit missionaries who visited Wendake in the 1630s and 1640s. The north
shore of Lake Ontario was abandoned by the turn of the seventeenth century. As
mentioned above, large coalescent villages, such as the Seed-Barker and Skandatut sites
at the headwaters of the Humber River, and the Radcliffe and Aurora sites at the
headwaters of the Holland River, had likely relocated to subsequently become part of the
Wendat and Tionontate confederacies. The north shore and its trails were not forgotten,
however, and the missionaries learned about them from stories told by their Aboriginal
18 Bohaker, "Nindoodemag," 253. 19 Wampum are beads made from white and purple mollusc shells which were and are still used by various First Nations throughout northeastern North America for ornamental or ceremonial use. Wampum belts were created to "record" treaties and other agreements. The designs and colours of the beads used in the wampum belts had meaning and acted as mnemonic devices concerning the history, traditions, and laws associated with the belt. 20 Bohaker, "Nindoodemag," 151. 21 Tuan, "Language and the Making of Place," 686. 83
guides and hosts. This route was definitely "out there" for the missionaries, who had no knowledge of where it was located and through what kind of territory it traversed.
Through the stories they heard, however, this route became quite real, real enough for both Fathers Jean de Brebeuf and Paul Ragueneau to mention it in their relations more than fifteen years apart.22 For the Jesuits, this route promised to shorten the long and often arduous journey to and from Quebec, but it was also to be avoided at all costs for fear of attack by the enemy. In the following centuries, many more Europeans would learn of the Toronto Carrying Place through stories they heard from various Aboriginal groups and individuals, such as trader James Morrison in 1767 and Captain Walter Butler in 1779.23
A couple of centuries later, stories about the Toronto Carrying Place were still being told. In the 1930s, Percy J. Robinson recorded the recollections of Joseph Wilson, a lifelong resident of the Township of King, who had "known and used this path for more than fifty years, having hunted and trapped over the Holland Marsh all his life."24 Wilson described the northern part of the Humber trail, which had been destroyed by drainage canals, "as sunk about a foot below the surface and well defined like a cow path."25 Near the northern terminus of the trail leading to the landing place where travellers launched
22 Le Jeune's Relation, 1635, in Thwaites, ed„ Jesuit Relations, 8:75; Relation of 1647-48, in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations, 33:65. 23 "The Journal of Captain Walter Butler, on a Voyage along the North Shore of Lake Ontario, from the 9th to the 16th of March, 1779," in Transactions of the Canadian Institute, ed. Ernest Cruikshank, vol. 5 (Toronto: Canadian Institute, 1895), 9:280-281; James Morrison, "Journal of a voyage from Montreal to Michilimackinac, 13 Apr.-l Aug 1767," James Morrison fonds, R 5436-0-5-E, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. 24 "The Humber Holland Trail, Recollections of Joseph Wilson Lot 34 Concession V. King." Percy James Robinson fonds 1080, MU 2409, Archives of Ontario. Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 207- 209. 25 "The Humber Holland Trail, Recollections of Joseph Wilson Lot 34 Concession V. King." Percy James Robinson fonds 1080, MU 2409, Archives of Ontario. 84
their canoes on the west branch of the Holland River, "there once existed a causeway of
logs or poles laid down lengthways across the wet ground for the convenience of those
who wished to fish for lunge in the river. These poles are said to have been placed there
by the Indians before the coming of the white men." Locally known as "the poles," a
section of these tamarack logs, though very much decayed and hardly visible, was still extant in 1933. These poles, although almost gone, anchored an intangible oral history
into the landscape.
In the course of his research on Ganatsekwyagon and the Rouge trail, Percy J.
Robinson was directed to "the oldest inhabitant" in the area who led him to "Indian Point on the east bank of the river about half a mile from the mouth." The man informed
Robinson that he used to play on that spot as a boy and that it used to be filled with
"Indian arrow heads." According to the man's grandfather, Aboriginal people continued to visit this location long after the area was settled by Europeans. According to Robinson,
Indian Point, as it was known locally, corresponded to the location of the village shown on many historical maps and that "the path which leads to the point may even be a portion of the ancient trail."
Naming place
"Naming is power," says Tuan. It is the "creative power to call something into being, to render the invisible visible, to impart a certain character to things."28 In Wisdom
26 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 207-208. 27 Undated, typed manuscript, "Gandatsekiagon and the Rouge Trail," Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2409, IIIA, Archives of Ontario. 28 Tuan, "Language and the Making of Place," 688. 85
Sits in Places, Keith Basso approaches the significance of place in Apache thought and
practice through a study of place-names: how they are created, how they are talked about,
and what they mean. He demonstrates that a trove of information can be gleaned from
local talk of geographical landscape and features as these are filled with past and present
significance. His conversations might be with contemporary western Apache
individuals, but their stories about places and place-names are inextricably linked to the
deep past of their ancestors. According to Basso, it is only through ethnographic and
linguistic fieldwork that we can examine how people construct their understandings of
place. In fact, while Basso recognizes that people involve themselves with their
geographical landscape through observation and physical use, he argues that "the
communicative acts of topographic representations" are the "most revealing of the
conceptual instruments with which native people interpret their natural surroundings." He
further argues that words are the most instructive of the various semiotic materials that
can be used in such representations.30
In her collaborative work with Aboriginal elders in the Yukon, Julie Cruikshank realised that it was only through inquiries into named topographic features that she finally
began to hear accounts that approximated her original expectations of oral history. The
combination of the toponyms and actual travel to these specific landscape features, she
points out, acted as mnemonic devices linking segments of life experiences. Not only did
these familiar landscape features allow the women to talk about particular events in the past that occurred at these specific places, they also allowed them "to use points in space
29 Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places, 75-76. 10 Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places, 67-69, 73. 86
to talk about time, and symbols from nature to talk about culture."31 While Basso and
Cruikshank make an excellent case for ethnographic fieldwork in the investigation of
local conceptions of place, this approach is beyond the scope of this thesis, and we thus
have to rely on what was recorded in the past concerning place names in south-central
Ontario.
Most of the place-names of interest to this particular study that are found in the historical record are Anishinaabe or Iroquois words recorded in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.32 As the Jesuits did not venture down the Toronto Carrying
Place during their time in Wendake, their relations are silent regarding what the Wendat called the Humber, Don or Rouge Rivers and their associated trails. Understandably, we know even less about what these rivers and other landscape features were called in even earlier times. In 1796, Augustus Jones created a list of names of rivers and creeks found in southern Ontario "as they are called by the Mississagues."33 A prolific land surveyor throughout south-central Ontario, Jones employed Mohawk and Mississauga assistants in his survey parties, learning their languages along the way.34 He recorded that the Rouge
River was known as Che.Sippi, or "Large Creek," the Don River was called
Won.sco.ton.ack, or "Black Burnt Grounds," and Duffins Creek was called
31 Cruikshank, Life Lived Like a Story, 346-354. 32 According to J.N.B. Hewitt of the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institute, the probable meaning of the name Teiaiagon is "It crosses the stream," and the meaning of the name Ganatsekwyagon is "Among the birches." Cited in Robinson, Toronto During the French Regime, 243. 33 Transcription of "Names of the Rivers and Creeks, as they are Called by the Mississagues...," Surveyors' Letters, A. Jones, Vol. 28, pp.103-106, SRLF, in typed manuscript, V.B. Blake's historical research and correspondence files, RG 17-27, AO. 34 Donald B. Smith, "Jones, Augustus," Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, Volume VII, 1836- 1850, accessed February 6, 2011, http://www.biographi.ca/009004-l 19.01-e.php?&id_nbr=3468. In 1798, Jones married Sarah Tekarihogen, the daughter of a Mohawk chief. He also had a relationship with Tuhbenahneequay (Sarah Henry), the daughter of a Mississauga chief. Kahkewaquonaby (Peter) Jones of the Credit Mission was born from that relationship. 87
Sin.qua.trik.de.que.onk, or "Pine wood along side." These descriptive names provide a glimpse of what the rivers and their surrounding landscapes looked like prior to large scale development in the twentieth century.
The Mississauga name for the Humber River, however, described more than just
the landscape. Co.bec.ke.nonk, according to Augustus Jones, translates into English as
"leave their canoes and go back." This place name perfectly describes how people
travelled the Toronto Carrying Place. While often described as a portage, travellers did not actually carry their canoes through the landscape north of Lake Ontario. Rather, they would abandon or cache their canoes at either end, travel the trail by foot carrying their belongings and, during the fur trade, furs and trade goods on their backs, and build new canoes to continue their journey at the other end. According to Alexander Henry the
Elder who was captured by the Mississaugas in 1763, on reaching the northern terminus of the "carrying-place of Toronto," his Aboriginal captors abandoned their canoes and walked down to Lake Ontario. They then spent two days on the lake shore "making canoes out of the bark of the elm tree in which we were to transport ourselves to
Niagara."35 In 1681, having reached the west branch of the Holland River after following the Humber trail, La Salle and his men embarked in canoes that "he had left in the reeds" the last time he had passed by. In the mid-eighteenth century, northern Anishinaabe groups could purchase or borrow the canoes of those Anishinaabe settled near Fort
Toronto in order to go south to Oswego to trade. According to Marquis de La Jonquiere, sometimes this request was refused, as when
35 Henry, Travels and Adventures, 172. 36 "Minet's journal of La Salle's expedition, 1682," in Jaenen, ed., The French Regime, 180. 88
ces domicilies ont meme envoye des paroles a tous leur allies et aux autres nations pour les detourner de Chouaguen et les inviter a aller faire leur traitte au fort Rouille, ils ont fait plus, ils ont refuse leurs canots a plusieurs sauvages des pays d'Enhaut qui les leur vouloient echetter pour aller a Chouaguen ce qui nous a assure leurs pelleteries.37
Soon after their arrival, European newcomers started to make their own changes
to the names of places and features in the landscape north of Lake Ontario. Some of these
names were descriptive in nature. For a period of time, what is now known as Lake
Simcoe was called "Lac Aux Claies" by some of the French traders. "Claie" is a French
word for a trellis or latticework used in fencing and referred to the wooden fish weir, or
10 fish fence, located at the Narrows. Generally, the new names implied that the territory
was now an extension of Europe. Lakes and rivers were named after explorers or other similar features in the 'old country,' and, later, place names recorded settlers and their activities.39 The Humber and the Nen (pre-cursor to the Rouge) Rivers and York were so named after places in England, and John Graves Simcoe renamed Lac Aux Claies/Lac
Taronto in memory of his father.40 By imposing their own names to geographical
37 "...these inhabitants even sent word to their allies and other nations for them to avoid Chouaguen and to invite them to trade at Fort Rouilte, they did more, they refused their canoes to many savages from the interior who wanted to buy them to go to Chouaguen which ensures that we will get their furs" (translation mine). Transcription of letter, 6 octobre 1751, M. de Lajonquiere, Arch, des Col. C11A, vol. 97, pp. 107-11, PAC (now LAC), in letter, March 20, 1933, Gustave Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 38 Andrew F. Hunter, A History ofSimcoe County (Barrie: County Council, 1909), 1:10-12. With the arrival of the English, this name soon got corrupted to Lake LaClaie or Lake Le Clie, until it got changed to Lake Simcoe. 39 Barbara Bender, "Subverting the Western Gaze: mapping alternative worlds," in The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape: Shaping your Landscape, eds. Peter J. Ucko and Robert Layton (London: Routledge, 1999), 39. 40 Macdonell, "Diary," 3. 89
features, they were claiming them as their own. This new name had "the power to wipe
out the past and call forth the new."41
While European explorers presumed the right to displace Aboriginal place-names
by renaming the geographical features in the lands they "discovered," they sometimes
adapted existing ones. According to Tuan, explorers often introduced names that
encompassed larger entities than what they originally represented to local inhabitants. For
example, French explorers carried the word "Mississippi" from the source of the river in
Minnesota to its mouth on the Gulf of Mexico. On its way and over time, this Algonquian
word displaced all other Aboriginal and Spanish names that applied to specific locations
along the river. As Tuan explains, "[t]he name "Mississippi River," henceforth, evoked
an image of a vast hydrological system: the name can be said to have created the system
by making the entire river, and not just the parts visible to observers on the ground,
accessible to consciousness."42 Sometimes, Europeans carried a word with them,
changing the geographical feature it was originally supposed to represent.
No other name in the region has been more discussed than the word Toronto.
Many theories have been presented as to the origin of the word, one of which defines
Toronto as a "place of meeting." In Toronto: Past and Present, Henry Scadding suggests
that this tradition originated with Recollet missionary Gabriel Sagard's 1632 definition of
the Wendat word toronton as "il y en a beaucoup." Sagard suggests that "Toronton" was
used by Huron guides to describe to their homeland to the French, "la ou il y a beaucoup
41 Tuan, "Language and the Making of Place," 688. 42 Tuan, "Language and the Making of Place," 688-689; Warren Upham, Minnesota geographic names: Their origin and historic significance, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1969), 4-6. 90
de gens - a place where numerous allied and well-disposed tribes did congregate."43
From Sagard's translation of toronton, William Kilbourn stressed the idea of 'plenty,' suggesting that Toronto means 'abundance.'44 Another tradition defines Toronto as "trees rising out of water" or "where there are trees standing in the water," originating from the
Mohawk word tkaronto.45 While Scadding thought this translation referred to the trees growing on the Toronto peninsula (now Toronto Islands), scholars now agree that tkaronto referred to the fish weirs at The Narrows, between Lakes Simcoe and
Couchiching, that were used by Aboriginal peoples for thousands of years46
Over the last few centuries, the word Toronto has been associated with a variety of landscape features. Through historical, cartographic, and linguistic evidence, Alan
Rayburn traces the route Toronto followed to get where it is today.47 From the Narrows, the name migrated south by way of Lac de Taronto, as Lake Simcoe was labelled on
French maps from the 1670s to the 1760s. It then was associated with the Passage de
Taronto, the canoe and portage route that followed the Humber River, which in turn became known as the Riviere Taronto. The name reached the north shore of Lake Ontario with the construction of Fort Toronto in the 1720s.
Toronto, however, might have originated further west. As a place name, the word
Toronto does not occur on any maps prior to 1673 and it was first used in writing by
43 Gabriel Sagard, Dictionaire de la Langue Huronne (Paris: Denys Moreau, 1632); Henry Scadding, Toronto: Past and Present, Historical and Descriptive (Toronto: Hunter Rose, 1884), 4. Interestingly, Sagard's dictionary includes a separate entry for "il y a beaucoup de gens," which he translates in Huron as Onhouey houanne. 44 William Kilbourne, Toronto Remembered: A Celebration of the City (Toronto: Stoddart, 1984), 70. 45 Scadding, Toronto, 5; Alan Rayburn, "The real story of how Toronto got its name," Canadian Geographic 114 (1994), 69. 46 Scadding, Toronto, 5; Rayburn, "The real story," 69. 47 Rayburn, "The real story," 69-70. 91
French explorer La Salle, New France Governor Jacques-Rene de Brisay de Denonville, and military commander and Louis-Armand de Lorn d'Arce de Lahontan to refer to, in addition to Lake Simcoe, the Severn River and the southern part of Georgian Bay.
Percy J. Robinson has written extensively on the possible origin of the word "Toronto."49
He asserts that while the original meaning of the word might have been a descriptive name applicable to one location, Toronto was employed to indicate the Huron country as a whole after their dispersal.50 For example, in a French document dated to circa 1686,
"Torento" is described as "a mainland at the Foot of Lake Huron which ends at Lake
Ontario."51 Further, in a report of a council held with some of the dispersed Wendats in
1703 trying to convince them to settle at Detroit, the following was recorded:
Quarante-Sols, autrement Michipichy, parle. (...) Par un collier. - J'invite Sastaretsy a quitter son feu de Missilimakinak et a le porter au Detroit, afin de toute nostre nation soit reunie ensemble. - Onontio le desire ainsi. - II a les yeux bons; il a vu que la terre de Missilimakinak est une meshante terre. Autrefois, il est vray, nous avons este tues a Taronto; mais la raison en est qu'il n'y avoit point de Francis avec nous. II y en a au Detroit, un grand village. Cela nous a mis en seurete.52
48 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 46. 49 Robinson, "The Etymology of "Toronto," Appendix 1 in Toronto during the French Regime, 221-225; "The Name Toronto," Appendix to the Second Edition in Toronto During the French Regime, 255-256, (reprinted from Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 1944); "More about Toronto," Appendix to the Second Edition in Toronto during the French Regime, 257-262 (reprinted from Ontario History, 45:1953). 50 Robinson, "More about Toronto," 258. 51 "Account of Detroit Post," in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin (Madison: Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1902) 16:128. 52 "With a necklace -1 invite Sastaretsy to leave his fire at Missilimakinak and to bring it to Detroit, so that all of our nations be reunited. Onontio desires this to be so. He has good eyes; he saw that the land of Missilimakinak is a bad land. Before, it is true, we were killed at Taronto; but the reason was that there were no French people with us. There are some at Detroit, a big village. This made us feel secure." (translation mine). "Nations invitees a se reunir au Detroit - Conseil tenu par les Hurons, dans lequel se trouvoient les Outaouas, 12 Juin 1703," in Margry, ed., Memoires et documents, 5:292-293 (emphasis in original). 92
An undated manuscript found amongst Robinson's research papers at the Archives of Ontario presents still another theory as to the origins of the word Toronto. Robinson suggests that the original Passage de Toronto, where the name was first applied, was a portage and canoe route that led northwest from the Narrows, past Bass Lake to the
Coldwater River and so on to Matchedash Bay on Georgian Bay. This route was later known as the Coldwater Trail, which traversed the country of the Arendarhonon.54
Robinson suggests that "Le Passage de Taronto" could be a phonetic variant of "Le
Passage d'Atironta."55 Atironta was the respected member of the Arendarhonon, one of the five Wendat nations and the first to come in contact with the French.56 As they were the first to contact the French and open up a new trade route, Wendat law dictated that the
Arendarhonon were the masters of this trade. While Wendat trading customs granted the Arendarhonon the sole right to carry on trade with the French, the Arendarhonon recognized the importance of this trade and decided it was best to share it with the rest of the confederacy. It was agreed that all Wendat nations would have the right to engage in
53 "Huron Toronto," Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2410, Archives of Ontario. The typed manuscript with handwritten footnotes and references was written after the 1933 publication of Toronto during the French Regime (the book is cited a few times). 54 "Huron Toronto," Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2410, p. 5, Archives of Ontario.. Old Coldwater Road and now Highway 12 between Orillia and Coldwater, follows the general route of the Coldwater Trail; see Hunter, A History ofSimcoe County, 1:88-90. The general route corresponds with part of the trail that linked the Jesuit mission of St. Joachim and Contarea illustrated on Map 1 of Trigger's ethnography of the Huron. It also corresponds to the eastern part of the route that Champlain took through Wendake almost twenty years prior, illustrated on Trigger's Map 15; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 28- 29, 302. Mr. Cowan, the trader with whom Simcoe visited in 1793, had his post on the shores of Matchedash Bay, at the terminus of the Coldwater Trail. "Cowan's Trading House" is illustrated at that location on Lt. Pilkington's 1793 "Sketch of a Route from York Town on Lake Ontario to the Harbour of Penetangasheen on Lake Huron in Upper Canada," a copy of which is found in the Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, Archives of Ontario. 55 "Huron Toronto," Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2410, p.24, Archives of Ontario. 56 Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 246. Champlain identifies him as Darontal and Gabriel Sagard as Atironta. Champlain, Works, 3:81; Gabriel Sagard, The Long Journey to the Country of the Hurons, ed. by George M. Wong, trans. H.H. Langton, (Toronto: Champlain Society, [1632] 1939), 91. 57 Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 288; Relation of 1640, in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations, 20:19. 93
this trade and that it would be controlled by the traditional council chiefs. Atironta, the
principal headman of the Arendarhonon would continue to be recognized as the special
ally to the French. The Relations of 1642 recount a ceremony in which the name of
Atironta, who had died at the hands of the Iroquois, was revived in his brother
Aeoptahon. As the Jesuits relate, the Arendarhonon and other Wendat nations did not
"wish his name to be any longer Aeoptahon but Atironta, since he brings him back to
life."59 Thus, Atironta was chief of the Arendarhonon during the entire period of French contact in Wendake.
Whether the name emerged from The Narrows, from Le Passage d'Atironta, or
from the country of the Wendat as a whole, it is as if, as Amy Lavender Harris describes,
"Tkaronto," or Taronto, Toronton, or Torento, "emerged from the wilderness, migrated
toward present-day Toronto, forgot its name, adopted the new language and learned to fit
in."60 Understanding the displacement of this particular toponym over centuries and
cultures influences how we imagine the Toronto Carrying Place today.61
Writing
As learned men, missionaries were often tasked with exploring and mapping the
lands they visited and the routes they followed, all the while keeping a journal of their
experiences. Between 1668 and 1679 the north shore of Lake Ontario was the site of a
Sulpician mission, better known as the Kente or Quinte mission for where it was based.
58 Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 327. 59 Relation of 1642, in Thwaites, ed. Jesuit Relations, 23:168. 60 Amy Lavender Harris, Imagining Toronto (Toronto: Mansfield Press, 2010), 24. 61 Williamson, "It's Not the Trail." 94
Beginning with the Abbes Claude Trouve and Francois de Salignac de la Motte-Fenelon
at Kente in 1668, various Sulpicians visited the north shore villages over the next decade.62 Fenelon spent the winter of 1669-1670 with the Seneca at Ganatsekwyagon
and, according to Armand Yon, potentially went northward to Georgian Bay and what is
now Sault Sainte Marie before returning to Montreal, possibly under the orders of New
France intendant Jean Talon.63 In 1676, Abbe Mariet set up a subsidiary mission at
Teiaiagon.64
While the Jesuits were prolific writers, it seems that the Sulpicians were reluctant
to keep records of their missionary activities. As a result, little is known about the Kente
mission and their activities at the north shore Iroquois villages of Ganatsekwyagon and
Teiaiagon.65 The Jesuit Relations deal extensively with the settlements south of the lake,
where the Iroquois were being ministered to by the Jesuits themselves. They ignore the
north shore which was the responsibility of their rivals. As the Sulpician mission was
brief and unsuccessful, a comparatively small written record was produced.66 Sulpician
mentality on record-keeping potentially played a significant role in creating this paucity
of documents. In Abbe Claude Trouve's own words: "...jamais je ne me suis applique a en faire aucune remarque, sachant bien que Dieu est une grande lumiere et que quand il
veut qu'on connaisse les choses qui regardent la gloire, il ferait plutot parler les arbres et
62 Pritchard, "For the Glory of God," 133-148. 63 Yon, "Franfois de Salignac-Fenelon," 149, note 25. 64 Pritchard, "For the Glory of God," 142; Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier," 140. 65 We do know that the Sulpician missionaries often accompanied their hosts on their winter hunt; Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier," 144. 66 Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier," 144. 95
les pierres."67 Similarly, when the Sulpician bishop interrogated Abbe de Fenelon as to the Kente mission, he replied that "la plus grande grace qu'il nous pouvait faire etait de point faire parler de nous."68 Had the Jesuits also led the mission on the north shore of
Lake Ontario, perhaps we would today have more detailed information concerning
Ganatsekwyagon, Teiaiagon, and the Toronto Carrying Place.
There is also a paucity of documents written by individuals who actually lived and walked the trails. Numerous individuals potentially walked the Toronto Carrying
Place in the course of seasonal rounds, exploration, trade, survey, and settlement. Only a small number of these potential travellers, however, left any written record of their experiences with and of the trails. This paucity of written communications concerning direct experiences with the Toronto Carrying Place can be partly attributed to the fact that many of the people who did use the trails, such as Aboriginal peoples and coureurs de bois, are not generally represented in the historical record. We know that they travelled the trails through the writings of others, the stories they passed on to their descendants, and the material culture they left behind.
Europeans of this period who are known, through historical records, to have used the
Toronto Carrying Place include: Jean Pere, a coureurde bois commissioned by Intendant
Talon in the late 1660s to search for the great copper mine said to exist near Lake
Superior;69 as well as a large party of English and Dutch traders sent by New York
67 Claude Trouve, "Abrege de la Mission de Kente," in Dollier de Casson, A History of Montreal 1640- 1672, Ralph Flenley, ed. and trans. (London and Toronto: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1928), 350. 58 Trouv6, "Abrege de la Mission de Kente," 350. 69 Galinee's map of 1670 illustrates the location of "ganatsekiagon" with the following inscription: "C'est d'icy que Mr Perray et sa compagnie ont campe pour entrer dans le lac des Wendats quand j'aurray vu le passage je le donneray mais toujours dit-on que le chemin est fort beau et c'est icy que s'establiront les 96
7H Governor Thomas Dongan to attempt to trade at Michilimakinac in 1687. Numerous traders are known to have at least visited Teiaiagon or Ganatsekwyagon, such as those named Duplessis, Ptolemee, Dautru, Lamouche, Colin, and Cascaret who are accused of providing alcohol to the people of Teiaiagon sometime in the 1670s, and those named Le
Due, Abraham, and Lachapelle who are said to have been robbed of their goods at that same village in 1682.71
Of those individuals who did walk the Toronto Carrying Place and kept records, only a small number actually recounted what they experienced along the trails, such as
Alexander Henry the Elder, the English trader captured by the Mississaugas in 1763, and members of Simcoe's exploratory party thirty years later.72 In 1793, shortly after founding the Town of York, Lieutenant John Graves Simcoe left with a group of officers, soldiers, and aboriginal guides to visit Lake Huron by way of the Toronto Carrying Place and Lac aux Claies. Accounts of this expedition can be found in Mrs. Simcoe's diary, the journal of Alexander Macdonell, the diary of Alexander Aitken, Deputy Provincial
missionaries de St. Sulpice. Brehant de Galinde, 1670. "Carte du Lac Ontario Et des habitations qui l'environnent Ensemble le pays que MM Dolier et Galinee, missionnaires du Seminaire Saint Sulpice ont parcouru," in Ontario's History in Maps, ed. R. Louis Gentilcore and C. Grant Head eds, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 18. A letter from Patoulet to Colbert indicates that Talon also hired a Mr. Joliet for this endeavour; "Extraits d'une letter du sieur Patoulet a Colbert, 11 novembre, 1669," in Margry, ed., Decouvertes, 1:81. For further discussion on this topic, see ASI, "The East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," 28. 70 L'Abbe de Belmont, Histoire du Canada, d'apres un manuscript a la Bibliotheque du Roi a Paris (s.l.: s.n„ 1840) 19; the group was led by French coureurs de bois. 71 "Considerations sur 1'etat present du Canada," in Collection de Memoires et de Relations sur I'Histoire Ancienne du Canada, ed. Societe Litteraire et Historique de Quebec, (Quebec: Imprimerie William Cowan et Fils, 1840 [1927]), 14; "Histoire de l'eau-de-vie en Canada d'apres un manuscript recemment obtenu de France," in Collection de Memoires et de Relations sur I'Histoire Ancienne du Canada, ed. Society Litteraire et Historique de Quebec, (Quebec: Imprimerie William Cowan et Fils, 1840 [1927]), 19. 72 Henry, Alexander Henry's Travels and Adventures, 171-172; MacDonell, "Diary," 2-3. 97
Surveyor, and a map by Lieutenant Pilkington of the Royal Engineers.73 From these accounts we learn that the party travelled north via the Humber trail on foot leading pack horses.
For many, it sufficed to simply write that they had passed by it, concentrating on descriptions of their destinations, whether Teiaiagon, Fort Toronto, or Toronto Harbour to the south, or Lake Simcoe or Georgian Bay and Lake Huron and beyond to the north.
For example, after having described in detail the landscape and his travels between Lake
Simcoe and Georgian Bay, one eighteenth-century trader had the following to say about travelling the Toronto Carrying Place:
Saturday 7th Went about 20 miles from the Landing [northern terminus of the trail] Sunday 8th Went to the Lake [Lake Ontario]74
Others did not bother to describe neither the trail nor the destination. For example,
French soldier and explorer Daniel Greysolon Dulhut potentially travelled the Toronto
Carrying Place based on a letter he wrote in 1684 "au-dessous du Portage de Teiagon."75
His letter to Joseph-Antoine de La Barre, governor of New France, dealt with his efforts to stop the "Sauvages du Nord" from trading with the English at Hudson Bay.
73 Simcoe, Mrs. Simcoe's Diary.; MacDonnell, "Diary of Gov. Simcoe's Journey," 1-12; Transcription of of Aitken's Diary, 1793, Field Notes, Vol. 1, pp. 251-56, SRLF, in typed manuscript, May 5, 1955, RML, V.B. Blake's historical research and correspondence files, RG 17-27, Container #5, Binder: History, Younge Street, Notes and Excerpt, AO; Copy of "Sketch of a Route from York Town on Lake Ontario to the Harbour of Penetangasheen on Lake Huron in Upper Canada by Lt. Pilkington Rt. Eng. in the year 1793," Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 74 "Lake Simcoe - From a Memorandum Book borrowed of M. Hare." Field Note Books Vol. 1 p. 186, Office of the Surveyor General. 75 "Extrait d'une Lettre de Greyselon Du Lhut a M. De la Barre," in Margry, ed. Decouvertes, 6: 50-51. 98
Many of the direct and indirect references to the Toronto Carrying Place in the written historical record are found in letters to and from colonial administrators. Many of these men did not know the trails through walking them. They knew about them "par recit et par ecrit," through stories, narratives, and oral accounts and through letters, journals, and maps from those who had actually lived the trails.76 The meanings they ascribed to the trails were very much economical and political in nature, and for more than a century, these written records focused on the need to control the Toronto Carrying
Place.
Early on, colonial administrators might not have known where the trails started or where they ended, but they knew of their economic potential. In the late 1660s, Intendant
Jean Talon had one of the Sulpician missionaries penetrate deeper into the hinterland north of Lake Ontario in order to provide him with "information about a river which [he] was looking for to link lake Ontario with the lake of the Huron, where they say there is a copper mine."77 By the 1670s, the French had determined that they needed to establish a post "qui occuperoit le passage par ou ces peuples vont en traite en revenant de leur chasse, et, par ainsi, les Francis en seroient les maistres absolus."78 A letter written by
New France governor Louis de Buade de Frontenac to Colbert in 1674 supports the argument that Fort Frontenac was constructed to directly rival the trade at
76 "Extrait d'une letter de Jean Talon au Roy, 10 octobre 1670," in Magry, ed. Decouvertes, 1:82. 77 "Fenelon and Galinee's claims, 1669," in Jaenen, ed., The French Regime, 65-66. 78 "Remy de Courcelles au Lac Ontario," in Margry, ed. Voyages, 181. See also "Extrait d'une lettre de Jean Talon au Roy, 10 octobre 1670," in Margry, ed. Decouvertes, 1:82-83; "Memorandum by a Missionary," in Preston, ed., Royal Fort Frontenac, 103-104. 99
Ganatsekwyagon, the Seneca village established at the foot of the Rouge trail.79
Frontenac, however, had no intention of trying to control the Toronto Carrying Place. For villages and cities to develop in this country, he argued, the French had to establish designated places where trading could be conducted. Trading at individual camps in the interior had to be outlawed, along with the interception of trading parties by occupying portages and trails.
It was not until the mid-1680s that the idea of building a post at the "portage de
Toronto" was brought up by the Marquis de Denonville.80 According to Denonville, fortifying the passage at Toronto and Detroit would block the passage against the English attempting to go to Michilimackinac and would also serve as a safe passage for their
Aboriginal allies during their hunting trips or if at war against the Iroquois.81 Thirty some years later, there was still talk of establishing a post at Toronto. By this time it was thought that the post would stop the Mississaugas from travelling to the south side of
Lake Ontario to trade with the Iroquois, as well as help to put a stop to the illegal trading of the coureurs de bois. The first of a series of trading posts was built at the mouth of the Humber River in 1720, which was abandoned within a decade. Conversations
79 The northern Anishinaabeg would travel down to Ganatsekwyagon using the Rouge trail and trade their furs with the Seneca, who in turn would bring the peltries to the Dutch in New Holland. Toronto during the French Regime, 23; "Extrait d'une lettre du Comte de Frontenac a Colbert, en date du 12 novembre 1674," in Margry, ed., Decouvertes, 1:273-277. 80 Denonville suggested establishing another post at what is now Detroit. "Extrait d'une lettre du marquis de Denonville a M. de La Durantaye, commandant aux Outaouas, 6 juin 1686," in Margry, ed., Decouvertes, 5:22. 81 "M. de Denonville to M. Seignelay - Memoir on the Present state of affairs in Canada, and the Necessity of waging war, next year, against the Iroquois 8th 9ber, 1686," in O'Callaghan, ed., Colonial History of the State of New York, 9:200. 82 Transcription of letter, 7 novembre 1715, Ramezay & Begon, Arch, des Col. C11A, vol. 35, pp. 43-4,48- 50, PAC (now LAC), in letter, April 18, 1933, G. Lanctot to Percy Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 100
concerning the need to control the fur trade traffic on the Toronto Carrying Place
continued into the mid-eighteenth century and led to the construction of the second and
third fortified structures at Toronto. However, Anishinabe trade with the
Haudenosaunee and their English and Dutch contacts flourished despite French efforts to
constrain their movements and to direct their economic activity. Through both words and
actions, Aboriginal traders asserted their right to travel and trade where they chose and
actively resisted these attempts to hinder their trading on the south side of Lake Ontario.84
The last of the official posts at Toronto would be abandoned by 1759.
As the fur trade expanded into the northwest and far west, there was a shift away
from a fur trade economy to one centered on settlement and commercial growth in south-
central Ontario. Consequently, discussions concerning the Toronto Carrying Place in the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries concentrated on the desire to establish a
practical communication from Lake Ontario and Lake Huron to transport provisions to
traders in the northwest. In 1780, a British exploratory party was dispatched to the
"Toronto Passage," the shortcut between Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario via Lake
Simcoe and the Holland River.85 It is presumed that British military officials were concerned by the vulnerability of the long line of communication with Detroit via Lake
Erie, as well as the obstacle represented by Niagara Falls.86
83 Transcription of letters: 7 octobre 1749, Lajonquiere & Bigot, Arch, des Col. C11A, vol. 93, pp.46-7; and 20 Aoust 1750, La Jonquiere, C11A, vol. 95, pp. 171-77, PAC (now LAC), in letter, March 20, 1933, Gustave Lanctot to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 84 Hart and Holmes, "We Have Never Parted with Such a Power," 1-28. 85 "Lake Simcoe - From a Memorandum Book borrowed of M. Hare." Field Note Books Vol. I p. 186, Office of the Surveyor General. 86 Ladell, They Left Their Mark, 59-60. 101
Following the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the hostilities between
Great Britain and its former American colonies and established the boundary line through
the middle of the Great Lakes, the land north of Lake Ontario became increasingly
important, both militarily and as a destination for British Loyalists fleeing the United
States. The Toronto Carrying Place also increased in importance following the loss of
British territory to the south of the lakes. It provided a safe transportation route to the fur-
rich territories held by the British in the northwest interior. Thus, it was not long until
individuals began to petition the government for the right to control transportation along
its route.
In his 1785 letter to Lieutenant-Governor Henry Hamilton, Benjamin Frobisher, one of the partners of the North West Company (a Montreal-based fur trade company), stated that,
for the purpose of Establishing a sure and short Communication between the two Lakes, I am of opinion from the present knowledge we have of the Country, it can only be accomplished by the Carrying place of Torronto to Lake La Clie, and thence down the river to Lake Huron, and tho' the length of land Carriage will be very great, yet as it is a fine Country, and the Lands as I am told exceedingly good, it would require very little encouragement from Government to have it settled; and provided the lands on the Carrying place are granted in small lots and not in large Tracts to opulent Proprietors, we may expect in a high state of Cultivation, in which case, Carriages will not be wanting, under proper regulations to Insure at a moderate rate a speedy Transport.87
This communication, Frobisher explained, would allow provisions to be easily, economically, and safely transported to fur traders in the "Northern Countries."88 It
87 "Benjamin Frobisher to Hon. Henry Hamilton," in Douglas Brymner, ed., Report on Canadian Archives (Ottawa: Brown Chamberlain, Pinter to the Queen, 1890), 55. 88 At this time, the Ottawa River route was still the preferred route north and west. George P.T. Glazebrook, A History of Transportation in Canada (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1938), 40. 102
would also add "strength and Security to our Frontier," and along with British settlements, would "afford effectual Protection to the Natives between the Two Lakes."
As he was told that the best hunting grounds were located beyond the Toronto Carrying
Place, Frobisher concluded that it would not be difficult to purchase the needed tract of land from the local Aboriginal groups, which included "Mississagues and some Tribes of the Chippawas."89 Despite the recognition by the North West Company that the Toronto
Carrying Place could serve as an effective link in the transportation and communications network of the expanding fur trade, the "portage from Toronto to Lake La Clie" was only
"sometimes used" by 1788.90
Lower Canadian soldier, businessman, and politician Philippe-Fran5ois de Rastel de Rocheblave (known as Chevalier de Rocheblave), who also recognized the economic potential of a communication along the Humber River, petitioned both Lieutenant-
Governor Hamilton and Governor General of British North America and Governor of
Quebec Guy Carleton (also known as Lord Dorchester) for a grant of land at Toronto and along the line of the portage. He also petitioned for a monopoly to carry provisions and furs by the proposed road.91 Having been persuaded of the value of the Toronto Carrying
89 "Benjamin Frobisher to Hon. Henry Hamilton," in Brymner, ed., Report, 55. 90 Careless, Toronto to 1918, 10; "Deputy Surveyor General Collin's Report, Quebec, 6 December 1788, District of Nassau Papers, Book 9," in Alexander Fraser, ed., Third Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario, 1905 (Toronto: L.K. Cameron, 1906), 362-363. 91 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 164-165; Transcription of "Observations by Philippe de Rocheblave," Simcoe Papers, Packet A. 18, PAC (now LAC), in letter, April 25, 1935, F. Harwood to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO; Transcription of: letter, 20 may 1787, Philipe de Rocheblave to Lord Dorchester, S. Series; letter, 25 may 1787, Philipe de Rocheblave to Lord Dorchester, S. Series; and Meeting of the Land Committee, May 2, 1788, Quebec Land Book, p.23, PAC (now LAC), in letter, January 28, 1932, Francois J. Audet to Percy J. Robinson, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. A decade later, William Berczy would determine that the Rouge River could be entirely navigable if it was cleared of all its encumbrances and would suggest to Governor Simcoe that a canal could be built between the Rouge and Holland Rivers. This would have created an uninterrupted 103
Place, the British colonial administrators decided in 1787 to secure "such parts of the country as may be necessary on both sides of the proposed communication from Toronto
Q7 to Lake Huron," through what would become known as the Toronto Purchase. The idea of establishing a viable and practical communication between Lake Ontario and Lake
Huron would not come until 1793 and would become one of Governor Simcoe's lasting legacies.93 While the Toronto Purchase focused on the Humber trail, the line of communication which would become Yonge Street was established along the Don River.
Mapping94
In the late-1970s, geographer Conrad E. Heidenreich wrote that seventeenth- century maps were "a forgotten source of historical, ethnographic and geographic data."95
navigable line of communication between Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe and then on to the Upper Great Lakes. William Berczy was part of a German group that settled in Markham Township in 1794-95. Berczy and his men cleared over 24 miles of the river from the lake upwards, as well as part of the Rouge trail; J. Ross Robertson, Landmarks of Toronto: a collection of historical sketches of the old Town of York from 1792 until 1837 and of Toronto from 1834 to 1904 (Toronto: J. Ross Robertson, 1904) 18-21; Isabel Champion, ed„ Markham 1793-1900 (Markham: Markham Historical Society, 1979) 15. 92 Lord Dorchester, Captain General and Governor in Chief, to John Collins, Deputy Surveyor General, July 19, 1787, Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario, Third Report, 379; cited in Daniel J. Bellegarde, Commissioner Indian Claims Commission, "Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation Inquiry, Toronto Purchase Claim," June 2003, 17, accessed October 4, 2011, http://dsp- psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection/RC3 l-17-2003E.pdf. A copy of the "Toronto Purchase" map, clearly showing the route of the Humber trail, is published in Derek Hayes, Historical Atlas of Canada, (Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & Mclntyre, 2002), Map 253, 170. The 2003 Indian Claims Commission report presents an excellent overview of the problematics of the Toronto Purchase. In June 2010, members of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation agreed to a $145 milliom settlement for the Toronto Purchase of 1805. Ontario Heritage Connection, accessed August 23, 2011, http://www.ontarioheritageconnection.org/live/main.php?page=news.201002_u.html. 93 Glazebrook, History of Transportation, 41. 94 For an overview of historical mapping of the Great Lakes region and of the Toronto area, please consult the following useful sources: Conrad E. Heidenreich, "Seventeenth-Century Maps of the Great Lakes: An Overview and Procedures for Analysis," Archivaria 6 (1978):83-112; Conrad E. Heidenreich, "Seventeenth Century Maps of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Area as Ethnohistoric Material," in Western Canadian Journal of Anthropology 6 (1976), 12-27; the first few chapters in Gentilcore and Head, eds., Ontario's History in Maps-, Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier," Table 1, 130-131; Robinson, Appendix II: Cartography of the Toronto Region from 1600-1816, in Toronto During the French Regime, 226-232; and ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," (including Appendix B). 104
They are often dismissed as inaccurate compared to more modern maps and thus are more often used for their attractive illustrations rather than for their historical content.
Historical maps, he argued, can provide locational data for such features as trading posts, missions, indigenous groups and villages, canoes routes, and portages - data that can be difficult to obtain from traditional written sources alone. Early maps, as graphic renderings of travel accounts and routes explored, reflect the current state of European knowledge of an area at a given time. As many of these early maps were created during the fur-trade era, canoe routes are especially well depicted, often complete with detailed descriptions of the length and use of individual portages.96 The early representations of rivers and lakes were also "the embodiment of intention," indicating where explorers hoped the waters, and overland routes, would lead.97
For example, it is evident from his 1670 map of Lake Ontario that Rene de
Brehant de Galinee, a Sulpician priest educated in mathematics and astronomy, was well- acquainted with the south shore of Lake Ontario (which is actually found at the top of the inverted map), as well as with the Ottawa River-Lake Nipissing-French River Route.98
The southern shoreline contains finer detailing than the northern one, and individual portages are illustrated along the river route. In his journal, Galinee indicated that in creating his map,
95 Heidenreich, "Seventeenth-Century Maps of the Great Lakes," 83. 96 Heidenreich, "Seventeenth-Century Maps of the Great Lakes," 111. 97 Denis Cosgrove, "Introduction: Mapping Meaning," in Mappings, ed. Denis Cosgrove (London: Reaktion Books, 1999), 2; Claire Campbell, "'Behold Me a Sojourner in the Wilderness': Early Encounters with the Georgian Bay," Michigan Historical Review 28 (2002), 40-41. 98 Brehant de Galinee, "Carte du Lac Ontario...," in Gentilcore and Head eds., Ontario's History in Maps, 18. 105
I recognize rather serious faults in it still, which I will correct when I have time. (...) I have marked it with nothing but what I have saw. Thus you will find only one side of each lake, since their width is so great that one cannot see the other."
Even though he did not explore the north shore of Lake Ontario, Galinee's map
illustrates the location of "ganatsekiagon" and describes the path of what would become
known as the Rouge River branch of the Toronto Carrying Place with the following
inscription:
C'est d'icy que Mr Perray et sa compagnie ont campe pour entrer dans le lac des hurons quand j'aurray vu le passage je le donneray mais toujours dit-on que le chemin est fort beau et c'est icy que s'establiront les missionaires de St. Sulpice.100
It is assumed that the "Mr. Perray" mentioned on the map refers to Jean Pere, a
merchant, fur trader, and explorer who was commissioned by intendant Talon to search for the great copper mine said to exist near Lake Superior.101 As a fur trader, it is quite
possible that Pere was already acquainted with Gandatsekwyagon and the Rouge trail.
While this map is dated to 1670, as indicated above, documentary evidence indicates that
the Sulpicians had a short-lived mission at Ganatsekwyagon in 1669-1670.102 This discrepancy illustrates the lag that occurred between the time of exploration itself, and the time when the map was actually produced.
99 J.H. Coyne, trans, and ed., "Exploration of the Great Lakes: 1669-1670 by Dollier de Casson and de Brehant de Gallinee. Galinee's Narrative and Map," Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records 8 (1903):75. 100 Brehant de Galinee, "Carte du Lac Ontario...," in Gentilcore and Head eds., Ontario's History in Maps, 18. 101 Robinson, Toronto During the French Regime, 18-21; ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," 28. 102 Pritchard, "For the Glory of God," 138-139. 106
Over the next decades, European knowledge of the Great Lakes area increased dramatically. For example, the 1688 map created by the Jesuit Pierre Raffeix contains
information on rivers, portages, villages, forts, and Aboriginal peoples not found in
Galinee's earlier map.103 According to Raffeix's map, Ganatsekwyagon was located on
the west side of the Rouge River and the trail began at the first bend in the river, north of
the village, and ended on the east branch of the Holland River. Teiaiagon, on the other
hand, was located on the east side of the Humber River, and the trail ended on the west
branch of the Holland River. Raffaix indicated that the Rouge trail was 15 leagues,
making it slightly longer than the Humber trail at 12 leagues.
Maps, however, are more than ever-improving representations of the geographical
world. In the 1980s, the practice of treating historical maps primarily as diagrams, with
points representing historical events and lines showing travellers' routes, came under considerable criticism. Growing concerns about the limitations of the historical map form for expressing historical geographies argued that historical maps could not portray a sense of experience and place, nor could they convey multiple historical interpretations.104 Despite these reservations, the last few decades have seen the development of three general approaches to the study of maps: maps as cognitive system,
103 Pierre Raffeix, 1688, "Le Lac Ontario avec les lieux circonvoisins & particulierement les cinq nations Iroquoises," in Gentilcore and Head, eds., Ontario's History in Maps, 19. 104 Margaret Wickens Pearce and Michael James Hermann, "Mapping Champlain's Travels: Restorative Techniques for Historical Cartography," Cartographica 45 (2010), 32-33, Over the last few years, Pearce and Hermann have experimented with innovative techniques for expanding the cartographic language through a narrative approach in order to represent multiple experiences, emotional geographies, Indigenous geographies, and sense of place in the cartography of exploration. They have re-created the Thoreau- Wabanaki Trail, the map of the 1793 journey of North West Company Clerk John Macdonell, and a map of Samuel de Champlain's travels. 107
maps as material culture, and maps as social construction.105 Building on the work of J.B.
Harley, scholars have more recently been investigating the many ways that early modern maps of Europe and its colonies were first and foremost instruments of politics and power.106
According to Sara Stidstone Gronim, early colonial maps were used as instruments of political persuasion. Rather than being "static displays of hegemony," they were an active and visual means of asserting political arguments. Together with official reports, letters, and journals, maps were "efforts to extend power by persuading others of its political legitimacy."107 In addition to illustrating explored areas, maps were used to assert the territorial claims of imperial governments.108 Government and administrative institutions relied on maps to regulate and control their territories at home and in the colonies, and to aid in their mercantile and military expansions. As such, maps were created to aid in navigation, exploration, resource extraction, military planning, and cadastral record keeping. Maps were also created for "princely display."109 Louis XIV
105 David Woodward and G. Malcolm Lewis, "Introduction," in Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian and Pacific Societies, Volume 2, Book 3 of The History of Cartography, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 1. Woodward and Lewis suggest a number of sources for each approach (Footnote 1), of which only a few are listed here. For mapping as a cognitive system: David Stea, James M. Blaut and Jennifer Stephens, "Mapping as a Cultural Universal," in The Construction of Cognitive Maps, ed. Juval Portugali (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1996), 345-60. For mapping as material culture: David Woodward, ed., Five Centuries of Map Printing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975). For mapping as a social construct: J.B. Harley, "Deconstructing the Map," in Writing Worlds: Discourse, Text and Metaphor in the Representation of Landscape, ed. Trevor Barnes and James S. Duncan (London: Routledge, 1992), 231 -247. 106 Sara Stidstone Gronim, "Geography and Persuasion: Maps In British Colonial New York," The William and Mary Quarterly 58 (2001), 374. See, among many examples, J.B. Harley, "Maps, Knowledge and Power," in The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design, and Use of Past Environments, ed. Denis E. Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 277-312. 107 Gronim, "Geography and Persuasion," 374. 108 Campbell, "'Behold Me a Sojourner in the Wilderness," 51-52. 109 Gronim, "Geography and Persuasion," 373-374. 108
had a great bronze globe, some four feet in diameter, that the geographer Coronelli constructed in 1690 on which was illustrated "the small lake north of Lake Ontario - here called Frontenac - between it and Lake Huron, is styled Lake Taronto, and the track there called Portage is distinctly marked from the lesser lake to the large one on the south, where its terminus is marked by the word Toiouegon."110
Colonial officials sent maps back to their 'home country' for various reasons: to argue for more resources or intervention; to communicate the distribution of land and social power in the colony; or to illustrate potential threats as well as competition from other colonial as well as Aboriginal groups. As Gronim explains, "officials sent maps to demonstrate the 'naturalness' of proposed solutions to local political problems."111 For example, a post-1673 map that has been ascribed to explorer and cartographer Louis
Jolliet clearly illustrates how the construction of Fort Frontenac was the logical and natural solution to rival the trade at Ganatsekwyagon between the Anishinaabeg and
Iroquois and the Dutch and the English."2 A trail is clearly marked between
"Ganatchekiagon" and "Lac de Taronto" with the following inscription:
Chemin par ou les Iroquois vont aus Outaouais qu'ils auroient mene trafiquer a la Nouvelle Hollande si le fort de Frontenac n'eut este basti sur leur route.
Similarly, in order to illustrate the 'naturalness' of his proposed military route along the Don River, Governor Simcoe sent "a very accurate Sketch of this
110 Katherine MacFarlane Lizars, The Valley of The Humber 1615-1913 (Toronto: Coles Publishing Company Ltd., 1974), 16-17; Robinson, Toronto During the French Regime, 73. 111 Gronim, "Geography and Persuasion," 373-375. 112 Robinson, Toronto During the French Regime, 21; reprinted from a copy in the Public Archives, Ottawa (now LAC); the original map is located in Service Hydrographique Bibliotheque, Paris, 4044 B: No. 43. 109
Communication" along with a personal letter describing the route to Henry Dundas in
October of 1793. He wrote,
I have ascertained by a Route hitherto unknown but to some Indian Hunters that there is an easy Portage between York and the Waters which fall into Lake Huron of not more than thirty miles in extent, and through a Country perfectly calculated for agricultural purposes. (...) The importance of this Communication is evident. The Merchants will probably supply by this Rout those heavy Commodities which are necessary in the North West trade (...) The Merchants & Traders have already turned their eyes to this communication, and obtained Lots in the Town of York upon speculation, this will be greatly increased when it shall be fully understood that it is much more easy of access than uniform Reports and frequents Inquiries have given room to imagine."3
While the written documents in both cases expressed personal views on the matter at hand, whether the establishment of forts or a military route, the maps would have provided geographical, and seemingly more objective, arguments. As Gronin explains, the relationship among various elements in a landscape can be clearly illustrated on maps, giving them, as instruments of persuasion, a legibility sometimes difficult to achieve in words."4
An exploration of maps as a form of discussion and knowledge would not be complete without a look at the role that Indigenous peoples played in the mapping of the north shore of Lake Ontario and the Toronto Carrying Place. Aboriginal peoples in North
America made and used maps to "communicate spatially arranged information about parts and aspects of the terrestrial world; those who knew by experience - travelers,
113 Typed manuscript, "Toronto Purchase," includes transcription of letter, October 19 1793, J.G. Simcoe to Henry Dundas, Perdy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, AO. 114 Gronin, "Geography and Persuasion," 373. 110
hunters, war chiefs, and guides - communicated with those who needed to know."115
Maps made by Aboriginal peoples for Europeans were commonly ephemeral and short lived, such as route diagrams inscribed in the sand. Others were made with more permanent materials, such as bark or paper, some which have survived, but many more which have not. Often, the sharing of geographical knowledge of lands beyond European exploration was through verbal accounts. As Lewis points out, however, in the study of early cartography, the circumstances, cultural contexts, processes, and techniques of mapmaking are just as important as the maps themselves.116
The most common type of maps was single path maps, generally created to illustrate specific routes.117 The selection and emphasis of natural physical features on the map depended on their significance within the context of the map's communication role.
The size of certain landmarks could be exaggerated due to their importance as routes or meeting places, as opposed to their actual physical size in the landscape. A map's scale could also be related to travel time rather than distance travelled, and the often odd orientation and shape of features can make it hard to interpret.118
115 G. Malcolm Lewis, "Maps, Mapmaking, and Map Use by Native North Americans," in Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian and Pacific Societies, Volume 2, Book 3 of The History of Cartography, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 182. Aboriginal peoples also made and used maps to make sense of the world beyond that of direct experience. Unlike Europeans, however, they did not make and use maps to divide land comparable to European's states, territories, townships, etc. In the introduction to this same volume, Lewis and Woodward present three types of traditional cartographies which include cognitive or mental cartography, performance or ritual cartography, and material or artifactual cartography. They also present an overview of various indigenous maps (broadly defined as forms and functions that define a people's world in a way that enhances spatial understanding) that might have existed during the pre-contact, contact, and post-contact periods. 116 Lewis, "First Nations Mapmaking in the Great Lakes Region," 4. 117 Lewis, "Maps, Mapmaking and Map Use by Native North Americans," 177. Lewis also describes single-branch network maps, multi-branch network maps, and circuit network maps. 118 Heidenreich, "Seventeenth-Century Maps of the Great Lakes," 111; Lewis, "Maps, Mapmaking and Map Use by Native North Americans," 177 Ill
At least one Aboriginal map survives of the Toronto Carrying Place. In 1767, a
Mississauga man created a "plan of the Country on the Back of Toranto," for James
Morrison, a fur trader based in Montreal. A transcript of the map is found in Morrison's
journal of a trading trip to Michilimackinac, by way of Niagara Falls and Detroit."9
According to his journal, Morrison and his partners spent around two weeks in the month
of May at Toranto in the hopes of trading with the local inhabitants, a task that proved to
be quite challenging. They arrived on the ninth, and on the twelfth they travelled to the
Credit River where they "found a lodge of Indians but they had not brought their peltrys out of the woods." On the thirteenth an Anishinabe family camped at Toranto with them, but they had no furs. On the sixteenth, they held council with individuals from the Credit
River, including a Chief who "gave us a belt of wampum but traded none though they gave us hope." On the seventeenth, six men from Matchedash stopped by their camp and despite all their efforts to convince them to trade at Toranto, they continued their journey with their packs of fur to Niagara the very next morning. On the twenty-second Morrison finally managed to trade with three men that had come over the Humber Carrying place.120
One of the men with whom he traded created a sketch map of the area north of
Taronto. Presumably meant to describe the route to Matchedash via the Carrying Place, the linear plan illustrates rivers, portages, lakes, and trading posts north of Lake Ontario.
Morrison's informant also provided him with an itinerary of travel times which Morrison
119 James Morrison, "Journal of a voyage from Montreal to Michilimackinac, 13 Apr to 1 Aug. 1767," R 5436-0-5-E, folio 123, James Morrison fonds, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. 120 Morrison "Journal of a voyage...," 119-123. 112
transcribed in his journal. While G. Malcolm Lewis wonders why Morrison chose not to
follow this alternate route to Michilimackinac, a further reading of Morrison's journal
reveals that his stay at Taronto ended on the twenty-third of May, when "arrived a party
from Niagara with Mr Decongue and some Indians who took us by force and ordered us
to load our canoe and set out as prisoners with them to Niagara."121
Despite a very cursory look at mapping of the north shore, it is evident that
mapping was at once a way to represent ever-improving knowledge of the Toronto
Carrying Place and its trails, a tool for colonial administrators to extend and assert their
power over the trails, and, as the last sketch illustrates, a simple way to give directions.
SUMMARY
Throughout history people have used words and maps to discuss the Toronto
Carrying Place, and in so doing, gave meaning to the trails and the places they connected.
At times, these words and maps were reflections on lived experiences. At other times, words and maps were created by individuals who had never set foot on the trails. This chapter explores the Toronto Carrying Place through a narrative-descriptive approach and looks at how people came to know the trails through the stories they told, the places they named, the journals and letter they wrote and the maps they created while the trails were still in use. The trails are explored through narratives and maps rooted in this particular cultural landscape.
121 G. Malcom Lewis, "First Nations Mapmaking in the Great Lakes Region in Intercultural Contexts: A Historical Review," Michigan Historical Review 30 (2004), 22-23; Morrison, "Journal of a voyage...," 124. Interestingly, the makeup of this group of captors speaks to the multicultural nature of late-eighteenth- century Great Lakes region, which consisted of "8 Dutchmen, 1 frenchman, 2 Negroes, 1 frenchman," as well as First Nations and British. 113
For example, the writings of Recollet and Jesuit missionaries indicate that they
learned that there was a shorter route to and from Quebec by way of Lake Ontario from
the oral history of the Wendat - they also learned that this route was to be avoided at all
cost for fear of the enemy. Oral tradition of the Anishinaabe informs us that individuals
from the Eagle nindoodem potentially travelled the Humber Carrying Place, following the
Anishinaabeg-Haudenosaunee peace, fulfilling their role as messengers for the Caribou at
Mjikaning. Stories told by a long-time resident of the Township of King reveals that logs
were used to improve the Humber trail in the vicinity of the Holland Marsh. Through
Co.bec.ke.nonk and the journal of Alexander Henry the Elder, we know that people
usually left their canoes behind when crossing the Toronto Carrying Place. Through
maps, letters, and journals, colonial administrators, many of whom only knew of the trails
"par recit and par ecrit," expressed their desire to extend and assert their power over the
Toronto Carrying Place trails.
As the narrative-descriptive approach utilises disparate types of sources, there is
the potential for tensions and incommensurabilities. Oral traditions and histories are fundamentally different from archival documents. Understanding and recording oral histories is a long-term commitment and one that is entirely collaborative. While the idea of recording oral traditions to store in archives for future analysis enables researchers to
more easily access the material (as I have done here), the whole concept goes against the fundamentals of storytelling. By separating a story from its context, its social meaning is forever lost. Isolating 'facts' from an oral account that corresponds to an established linear history, a practice that some researchers have referred to as picking "currants from 114
a cake," minimizes the value of that account that may lead to a misinterpretation of the
t 99 more complex messages in the narrative.
At times, oral histories are incompatible with historical research based on more
'traditional' documentary sources. Of relevance here is the thesis of an Anishinaabe conquest of southern Ontario. According to Peter S. Schmalz, traditional historians are reluctant to accept this version of events because the historical sources for battles between the Anishinaabeg and the Iroquois in the late seventeenth century are based
19*1 almost entirely on Anishinaabe oral traditions. In some cases, however, the oral tradition is also not compatible with the archaeological record. For example, according to
Paudash's account, after splitting with the Toronto-bound group at the Narrows, the warriors that continued down to Balsam Lake fought a number of skirmishes against the
Mohawks as they went down the valley of the Trent. At Rice Lake, a great battle was fought,
in which no less than one thousand [Mohawk] warriors were slain (...) Great quantities of bones and flint arrow-heads are found at the site of this battle, even to this day. At Roche's Point there was a Mohawk village, in front of the former site of which is a mound in the shape of a serpent, and having four smaller mounds about its head and body in the forms of turtles. These mounds are a pictorial representation of Mohawk totems placed there by the Mississagas in memory of the occurrence and of the Mohawks.124
Archaeological investigations however, have revealed that Serpent Mounds as well as other elaborate burial mounds found nearby were created during the Middle Woodland
122 Morantz, "Plunder or Harmony?" 65; Cruikshank, Life Lived Like a Story, 346. 123 Schmalz, "The Role of the Ojibway," 326. 124 Paudash,"The Coming of the Mississauga," 11. 115
period between 50 BCE and 300 CE. The elaborate mortuary ceremonialism associated
with the mounds is attributed to contact with Hopewellian peoples of the Ohio Valley.126
This discrepancy, however, does not mean that use of oral traditions in historical research should be abandoned outright. The work of scholars such as Heidi Bohaker and
Julie Cruikshank, to name just a few, has demonstrated how the use of oral traditions and histories, along with 'traditional' documentary sources, can add to a more balanced
understanding of the past.
125 Parks Canada, "Serpent Mounds National Historic Site of Canada," Directory of Designations of National Historic Significance of Canada, accessed October 23, 2011, http://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/lhn- nhs/det_E.asp?oqSID=0518&oqeName=Serpent+Mounds&oqfName=Tumulus+Serpent. 126 See Johnston, Archaeology of Rice Lake, and Dillane, "Visibility Analysis." 116
CHAPTER FOUR: IMAGINING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE
IMAGINING LANDSCAPE
This chapter examines how the Toronto Carrying Place has been imagined since
the late nineteenth century. As an investigation into how the Toronto Carrying Place has
been imagined since the creation of the trails could consist of its own dissertation, this
final trail of enquiry focuses on how it has been imagined by people who have never
physically walked the Toronto Carrying Place. It examines how popular and collective
imagination concerning the trails has developed over time and attempts to gain insights as to why the trails still hold meaning to people today. This chapter provides a historiography of the Toronto Carrying Place while simultaneously exploring public representations and commemorations of the trails recognizing that, while the former informs the latter, the latter has a greater influence as to how people perceive the past. A brief introduction to the works of various scholars that have informed this chapter is followed by an introduction of methodology and sources. Chapter Four concludes with a generally chronological discussion of how the Toronto Carrying Place has been studied, debated, celebrated, and commemorated since the late nineteenth century by people who have walked its trails, and continue to do so, in their imagination.
According to David Lowenthal, "the fact that the past is no longer present clouds knowledge of it with uncertainty" and despite the expertise of historians and archaeologists, the past arguably remains, says Rosemary Harris, "something of an odd, 117
semi-fictional subject, part fact, part myth, and guesswork."1 Our imagination, Susan
Herrington argues, helps us to understand how things work and to envision events and places that we are not always able to witness and experience first-hand. It helps us to interpret landscapes by allowing us to "gel meaning from the physical world around us."
Imagination also plays an important role in the formation of memories, personal as well as collective, enabling us to form mental images about things or people that are not
present. While is impossible for us to experience the Toronto Carrying Places as they
were lived in the past, our imagination enables us to construct and visualize various
scenarios and make linkages between things and events that we will never encounter.
Harrington reminds us that all narratives, even non-fictional ones, are imagined by both the author and the reader.3
This chapter is informed by the work of a number of different scholars: the work of French historian Pierre Nora on lieux de memoire\ Chris Healy and his research on social memory and colonialism in Australia; the recent writings of Laura Peers and
Robert Coutts on Aboriginal history and the commemoration of historic sites in Canada; as well as William J. Turkel's idea that "every place is an archive."4 Translated as 'sites'
1 David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 187; Rosemary Harris, "How to enjoy the first lessons in developing a sense of the past," The Times, 31 Jan. 1973, 10, quoted in Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, 211. 2 Susan Herrington, On Landscapes (New York: Routledge, 2009), 10-11,91. J Herrington, On Landscapes, 93. 4 Lieux de memoire, a seven-volume collaborative project led by Pierre Nora that explores the construction of the French past, was published between 1981 and 1992. A three-volume English-language edition, which was published between 1996 and 1998, presents 46 of the original 132 articles which have been translated by Arthur Goldhammer: Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, 3 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996-1998); Chris Healy, From the Ruins of Colonialism: History as Social Memory, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Laura Peers and Robert Coutts, "Aboriginal History and Historic Sites: The Shifting Grounds," in Gathering Places: Aboriginal and Fur Trade Histories, eds. 118
or 'realms' of memory or 'memory places', although the term has no precise English equivalent, "a lieu de memoire is any significant entity, whether material or non-material in nature, which by dint of human will or the work of time has become a symbolic element of the memorial heritage of any community."5 Lieux de memoire exist where milieux de memoire do not. Milieux de memoire are environments and settings in which memory is a fundamental part of everyday experience, where dwelling among memories negates the need to identify and celebrate sites that embody them.6 In other words, lieux de memoire can include: places such as archives, museums, palaces, cemeteries, and memorials; concepts and practices such as commemorations, mottos, and rituals; and objects such as inherited property, ancient monuments, commemorative monuments, emblems, texts, and symbols. For their part, Nora and his colleagues used the concept to discuss geographical places such as Paris and the Lascaux caves, historical figures such as Joan of Arc, and monuments and buildings such as the Eiffel Tower.8 According to
Nora, treating such disparate entities as lieux de memoire allowed for a reinterpretation of
Carolyn Podruchny and Laura Peers, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), 274-293; William J. Turkel, The Archive of Place: Unearthing the Pasts of the Chilcotin Plateau, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007). 5 Pierre Nora, "From lieux de memoire to realms of memory," preface to Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past. Vol. 1: Conflicts and Divisions, eds. Pierre Nora and Lawrence D. Kritzman, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), xvii. 6 Pierre Nora, "General Introduction: Between Memory and History," in Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past. Vol. 1: Conflicts and Divisions, eds. Pierre Nora and Lawrence D. Kritzman, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 1-2. 7 Cornelius Holtorf, "Sites of Memory," in Monumental Past: The Life-histories of Megalithic Monuments in Mecklenburg-Vopommern (Germany), electronic monograph, (University of Toronto: Centre for Instructional Technology Development, 2000-2008), accessed May 15, 2011, http://hdl.handle.net/1807/245. 8 Lawrence D. Kritzman, "In Remembrance of Things French," foreword to Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past. Vol. 1: Conflicts and Divisions, eds. Pierre Nora and Lawrence D. Kritzman, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), x. 119
the history of France in more symbolic terms. It allowed the writing of what Nora terms a
"history of the second degree." This kind of history is
less interested in actions remembered or even commemorated than in the traces left by those actions and in the interactions of those commemorations; less interested in events themselves than in the construction of events over time, in the disappearance and re-emergence of their significations; less interested in 'what actually happened' than in its perpetual reuse and misuse, its influence on successive presents; less interested in traditions than in the way in which traditions are constituted and passed on. (...) [It is] a history that is interested in memory not as remembrance but as the overall structure of the past within the present.9
Chris Healy advocates thinking historically about existing social memory, stressing
the fact that, in settler societies, social memory is a product of colonialism. For Healy, the
field of social memory incorporates the various ways that relationships between past and
present are performed, including, among a myriad of others, commemorations, museum
displays, monuments, historic houses, history books, images, and films.10 In From the
Ruins of Colonialism: History as Social Memory, Healy investigates "how [social
memory] functions; what representations it designates, what play of substitutions enables
it to accomplish its role of representation," by focusing on "those moments when social
memory has been acted out, performed, or demonstrated; in-between moments when we
cease to live in time and space in order to reflect on, or be trained in, or entertained by something of our historicity, our being-in-history."11 Investigating the past through the
lenses of social memory allows us to explore the relationships between history and
memory - how we remember, what we remember, who decides what should be
9 Nora, Preface, xxiv. 10 Healy, From the Ruins of Colonialism, 2-7. Healy argues that the term 'history' is too narrow and formal for a discussion about what makes the past meaningful. In addition to 'social memory,' Healy prefers terms such as 'historical imagination', 'historical consciousness', and 'popular memory'. " Healy, From the Ruins of Colonialism, 5. 120
remembered (keeping in mind that remembering also entails forgetting) - and the relationships that different groups of people construct between past and present.12
Peers and Coutts apply the concept of "contact zones" to the ways in which our understanding and commemoration of the past are produced. 13 As originally defined by
Mary Louise Pratt, contact zones are "social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination."14 Within recent theory on colonial history, the concept has been mostly applied to situations of historical contact between Aboriginal peoples and European newcomers (e.g., the fur trade), whereby a shared space existed "within which peoples of different cultural backgrounds interacted, pursued different agendas, and endeavoured to bring other parties within their own sphere of social and political influence."15 Through an investigation of the public history policies and practices of the Historic Sites and
Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC) since its foundation in 1919, Peers and Coutts argue that the negotiation and renegotiation of public representations of the Canadian past, especially regarding the representation of Aboriginal histories, have very much been a contact zone in the past decades.
Prior to the 1980s, Aboriginal peoples were hardly mentioned at historic sites (or in academic texts on Canadian history for that matter). When they were mentioned, they
12 Healy, From the Ruins of Colonialism, 3-5; David Lowenthal, "Authenticities Past and Present," CRM: The Journal of Heritage Stewardship, 5 (2008), 7. 13 Peers and Coutts, "Aboriginal History and Historic Sites," 274-293. 14 Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 4. 15 Peers and Coutts, "Aboriginal History and Historic Sites," 274. This shared, intercultural and dynamic space has also been described as a "middle ground" (Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991]) and as "borderlands" (Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands: La frontera, [San Francisco: Spinster/Aunt Lute, 1987]). 121
were but a small part of discussions that emphasized the colonial control of the 'New
World' and its peoples. Sites, figures and events chosen for commemoration emphasized great explorers and their discoveries, military forts as representations of European control, and technological innovations that advanced nation building such as the construction of canals and railways.16 This emphasis on nation-building narratives which downplayed the perspectives of Aboriginal peoples became part and parcel of public memory, the "official version of the past created by social and political leaders."17 As issues of Aboriginal agency became an increasingly dominant theme in academic history in the 1980s and 1990s, so too did the presence of Aboriginal peoples in national commemorations. Recognizing the cultural imbalance of the country's National Historic
Sites, in 1985 the HMBC recommended First Nations consultation to determine their interest in the national commemoration of their history. While public history representations became more inclusive, control over what was commemorated and how it was commemorated still remained under the control of mostly non-Aboriginal managers
I 8 of various heritage agencies.
More recently, the very purpose of historical commemoration, designation, and interpretation has been questioned.19 As Peers and Coutts point out, historical narratives as well as the assumptions and objectives concerning historic sites can differ greatly between Aboriginal communities and the dominant society. Contestation by Aboriginal
16 Peers and Coutts, "Aboriginal History and Historic Sites," 276. 17 Peers and Coutts, "Aboriginal History and Historic Sites," 275; see also John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). 18 Peers and Coutts, "Aboriginal History and Historic Sites," 279-280. 19 See for example David Neufeld, "The Commemoration of Northern Aboriginal Peoples by the Canadian Government," George Wright Forum 19 (2002), 31. 122
peoples and public historians who refused to accept the standard narratives of national history has led to much different stories being told, stories in which Aboriginal perspectives on historical events and processes are explored. While the following statement is focused on the national stage, Peers and Coutts argue that sites and issues of commemoration are contact zones, a statement that also rings true at the provincial and municipal levels.
At every historic site and commemorative plaque, at every meeting of national heritage managers in Ottawa and discussion by the HSMBC, the federal heritage system acts not only as a symbolic arena for national political and social structures, as an important mechanism constructed of imagined communities past and present, but also as a contact zone, a crossroards, a place where historical narratives intersect and collide, where power is demonstrated in the right to tell narratives, and where, possibly, we can consider one another's stories.20
Finally, this chapter is informed by William J. Turkel's The Archive of Place:
Unearthing the Pasts of the Chilcotin Plateau, an investigation of three late-twentieth- century conflicts located on the Chilcotin Plateau that are deeply rooted in its past. 91 As the title suggests, Turkel argues that "every place is an archive" filled with the material traces of past events, and it is the multiple interpretations of these material traces that infuse a place with multiple pasts. Following William Cronin, Turkel tells "not just stories about nature, but stories about stories about nature."22 Turkel historicizes the act of place making and investigates how the interpretation of usable pasts influences social memory. For Turkel, the present is the "binding of history and memory and landscape,"
20 Peers and Coutts, "Aboriginal History and Historic Sites," 289-290. 21 Turkel, The Archive of Place. 22 Wynn, "Putting Things in Their Place," xxvi; William Cronon, "A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative," The Journal of American History, 78 (1992), 1347-1376. 123
and his book illustrates how discussing, imagining, and re-membering place is more often than not closely intertwined.23
Through various case studies concerning the often contested past of the Chilcotin,
Turkel demonstrates how the different ways a place is imagined shape our understanding of past events as much as its physical traces. The variety of possible interpretations of the gathered tangible and intangible traces is what gives multi-vocality to places and landscapes. Turkel looks at the ways archaeologists, historians, geologists, First Nation peoples, and resource managers, among others, all seek in their own way, "to make the past usable for their particular present," often leading to very different narratives.24 These conflicting narratives, Turkel stresses, occur "in the field," where scientific results are not
"judged in a rarefied world of theory but, rather, in settings where, for example, people who want to dig mines come face to face with others who would rather cut trees, graze cattle, fish, or simply admire the beauty of nature." /JC
Of particular relevance to the present investigation on the Toronto Carrying Place,
Turkel's second case study deals with the creation of a heritage trail to commemorate the accomplishments of nineteenth-century explorer Alexander Mackenzie, the first non-
Aboriginal to traverse the continent north of Mexico in 1793. Turkel discovered that evidence for very different pasts can be found in the same place, and that the groundedness of history and memory sometimes results in contradictory and incommensurable interpretations by Aboriginal elders, archaeologists, local non-
23 Turkel, The Archive of Place, xxiv. 24 Wynn, "Putting Things In Their Place," xvii. 25 Turkel, The Archive of Place, xxiii-xxiv. 124
Aboriginal communities, and historians. Alexander Mackenzie's journey across Canada can simultaneously be viewed as a major accomplishment worth celebration, as a symbol of Canadian unity, or even to some First Nations peoples, as a "harbinger of genocide."26
While memory is everywhere anchored in place, "[pjlaces don't speak for themselves about their pasts; rather, their pasts emerge from the interpretive activities of many people."27
Investigating the Toronto Carrying Place as a lieu de memoire, a cultural landscape that needs to be identified, celebrated, imagined and re-membered in order to exist, allows us to think historically and critically about the narratives that have been told about the trails, which narratives have been allowed to become part of our collective memory, and how and why these narratives might have changed over time.
METHODOLOGY AND SOURCES
An exploration into how people have imagined, and continue to imagine, the
Toronto Carrying Place in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries entails an investigation of quite different types of data sources than what was presented in the previous two chapters. In order to tell "stories about stories" about the Toronto Carrying Place, this chapter will explore various narratives that have been presented on the trails by diverse groups and individuals such as academic and professional researchers, government and public agencies, and local historical and heritage organizations. These narratives take the form of published and unpublished articles, books, papers, and reports based on
26 Turkel, The Archive of Place, xxi, 102. 27 Turkel, The Archive of Place, 107. 125
historical, geographical, and archaeological research, heritage plaques and other
commemorative activities such as guided walks and interpretive trails, local histories
dating from the late-nineteenth to the twenty-first century, late-nineteenth century poetry,
mid-twentieth century sketches, book reviews, correspondence, heritage databases,
modern-day explorations, debates, and blogs.
When it comes to Canadian history, the public tends to follow the academic.
Changes in the way historians have thought about the past have often been reflected in
decisions about national commemoration and public history.29 It is for this reason that
'academic' historical research on the Toronto Carrying Place is presented beside 'public'
history, such as heritage plaques and commemorations, in an effort to recognize any
changes in the way people have imagined and re-imagined the Toronto Carrying Place
since it became a lieu de memoire.
IMAGINING THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE
Becoming a Lieu de Memoire
Undeveloped portions of the Toronto Carrying Places continued to be utilized
well into the first half of the twentieth century. Closer to the lakeshore, however, the
trails were already starting to become a lieu de memoire by the late nineteenth century.
Tomes like C.B. Robinson's History of Toronto and County of York (1885) and Henry
28 Research on the many heritage plaques commemorating the Toronto Carrying Place was conducted through a combination of fieldwork and a review of the following websites: Toronto's Historical Plaques (www.torontoplaques.com); Ontario's Historical Plaques (www.ontarioplaques.com); and Parks Canada Directory of Designations of National Significance of Canada (www.pc.gc.ca/apps/lhn-nhs/index_e.asp). 29 Peers and Coutts, "Aboriginal History and Historic Sites," 275. 126
Scadding's Toronto of Old (1875), as well as J. Ross Robertson's multi-volume work
Landmarks of Toronto (1894-1914), contain a number of passages on the Toronto
•jri Carrying Places. Generally, these early mentions of the trails focus on the Humber
branch and are either part of passages cited from earlier journals, or a small part of a
-5 1 larger discussion of the fur trade and early French and English forts. In 1887, the 'Old
French Fort at Toronto' (or Fort Rouille) and by association, the 'pass at Toronto,' were firmly ensconced as a lieu de memoire with the erection of a monument at the site.'¥)
According to Henry Scadding, several public bodies were involved in this undertaking, each with their own agendas.33 The Corporation of the City of Toronto provided a number of subsidies "in order that the starting point of trade and commerce in this region might be identified with precision in all future time." The Industrial Exhibition
Association encouraged the construction of the monument as they regarded Exhibition
Park as the appropriate location for a monument that would celebrate the history of the area in a bold and lasting way. The Associated Pioneers of the City of Toronto and old
County of York also contributed financially to the construction of the monument designed by Toronto architects Langley and Burke, to celebrate "the scene of the first dawn of civilized life on the shores of Toronto Bay" by early Europeans who lived in the
30 C. Blackett Robinson, History of Toronto and County of York Ontario (Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, Publisher, 1885); Henry Scadding, Toronto of Old: Collections and Recollections Illustrative of the Early Settlement and Social Life of the Capital of Ontario, (Toronto: Adam, Stevenson & Co., 1873); Robertson, Landmarks. 11 For example, Scadding, Toronto of Old, 12, 352; Robinson, History of Toronto, 1-11; Robertson, Landmarks, 1:58,2:718, 729 32 The monument replaced a stone cairn that was erected on the site of the fort in 1878. The latter was constructed when the last vestiges of Fort Rouille were obliterated during the construction of Exhibition Park. Henry Scadding, History of the Old French Fort at Toronto and its Monument, (Toronto: The Copp, Clark Company, Limited, 1887), 36-38. 13 Scadding, History of the Old French Fort, 39. A list of grants and donations received from these public bodies, as well as individual donations, appears on p.46. 127
fort and cleared the forest around its palisade, and to ensure that future generations would know their story. Finally, the Province of Ontario supported the undertaking, and ensured the completion of the project in the year 1887, as a memorial to a notable provincial historic site but also as a memento to the Queen's Jubilee. Scadding ventured that the monument to Fort Toronto would one day overshadow what it was created to commemorate:
a monumental object destined, when it shall itself have become a thing of antiquity, corroded, perhaps, by the tooth of time like on the ancient round towers of Ireland, destined even then to be still named among the "sights" of Toronto, and characterized by its inhabitants as one of their most valued heirlooms from the past.34
On September 6, 1887, the day of the unveiling, the Toronto Daily Mail published
"Fort Toronto," a poem by Mrs. S.A. Curzon.35 For Curzon, the Frenchmen were "light- hearted" and "wily craftsmen" who could "circumvent [t]he laws of Nature, and beguile her wealth [i]nto their packs." Champlain was wise; La Salle was brave and bold. The
Indians, on the other hand, traded their furs for "gew-gaws," and "anything, [e]ven their loves and wives, for eau-de-vie" Their trek to Fort Rouille is described as a simple one, filled with the beauty and bounty of nature:
And here they came - to Rouille, through the vales That skirt yon river with rich woods and deep From source to sea. How richer then than now!
34 Scadding, History of the Old French Fort, 42. In the late 1950s, the Ontario Heritage Foundation added a bronze plaque commemorating Fort Rouille on the existing monument; Ontario Heritage Foundation and Ministry of Citizenship and Culture, "Fort Rouilte" historical plaque, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.torontoplaques.com/Pages_DEF/Fort_Rouille.html. In 1986, the Toronto Sesquicentennial Board constructed concrete walkways delineating the wall of the Fort, reconstructed from archaeological excavations conducted in 1979 and 1980. A bilingual plaque was erected explaining and commemorating these investigative activities; Toronto Sesquicentennial Board, "Fort Rouille" historical plaque, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.torontoplaques.com/Pages_DEF/Fort_Rouille.html. "S.A. Curzon, "Fort Toronto," reprinted in Scadding, History of the Old French Fort, 43-45. 128
From lake to lake they came, by many a stream, Brilliant with finny life, where otters played, And beavers built their dams, and ospreys perched; Past lovely bays they brought their long canoes, Where roseate water lilies, delicate And spotless white, queened all the emerald plain; Past clear, cool depths, where the ranunculus And the shy bass lurked all a summer's day; Past pebbly beaches, where the water glowed And the deer bent to count his forty tines; O'er portages, all mossed with silken loops, Fragrant with ferns and skirted with morass, Where many a soft, sweet fruit hid luscious gifts To cheer the weary way; 'neath trees they came - The like in stateliness we ne'er may see, For they were the darlings of the centuries.
Curzon's description of the indigenous peoples of the north shore is consistent with the idea of the 'noble savage,' these "darlings of the centuries" who once lived as one with nature, uncorrupted by the trappings of civilization. With her poem, Curzon not only romanticizes Fort Rouille, the people who were associated with it, and the landscape of the north shore, but she also romanticizes the new monument itself, calling it "our
Gilgal," "[s]tones to the memorial of the grace of God" raised "to this proud memory of brave old times."36
Early Historians and Artists of the Toronto Carrying Place
As a scholar of the earliest era of the history of modern Toronto, Percy James
Robinson is perhaps the most prolific writer of books and articles that discuss the Toronto
36 Gilgal is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Joshua) as the place that the Israelites first encamped after crossing the Jordan River at the end of the exodus from Egypt. The Israelites took twelve stones from the river, one for each tribe, and placed them there as a memorial for the event. Other "Gilgals" are mentioned elsewhere in the bible; J. Maxwell Miller, "Gilgal," in Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, ed. Watson E. Mills, (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1991), 332. 129
Carrying Place. Better known for his Toronto during the French Regime 1615-1793, first published in 1933 with a second edition in 1965, Robinson also published a variety of significant papers in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian
Historical Review, and other publications. According to Robinson, the centenary of the
City of Toronto, which was incorporated in 1834, was the appropriate time to write the history of the region during the French regime. Robinson wanted to demonstrate that
Toronto's history did not begin in 1834, nor did it begin with the British, Lord Simcoe and the founding of York in 1793, but was in fact almost as old, and as exciting, as that of
Montreal and Quebec, those "older cities" that possess a "heritage of history and romance" and "traditions" that Toronto seemed to lack. Central in Robinson's quest was the Humber branch of the Toronto Carrying Places, a landscape feature that "possesses a
•JO history which, though little known, is always dramatic and picturesque."
Presenting various documents and discoveries hitherto unpublished, Robinson presents a continuous history of early Toronto from 1615 to 1793. With late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century maps and diaries in hand, Robinson was the first to attempt
1Q to retrace the course of the Humber trail. By 1933, all vestiges of the original trail had disappeared except perhaps at its northern terminus in the Holland Marsh. As very few families continued to occupy the farms "which their ancestors carved out of the wilderness, (...) no reliable tradition as to the course of the Carrying-Place has been
37 A chronological list of his publications is included in Gilbert de B. Robinson, Percy James Robinson 1873-1953: Classicist, Artist, Teacher, Historian (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 79-80. Robinson also wrote a number of newspaper articles on the subject, clippings of which survive in his research fonds at the Archives of Ontario (F 1080). 38 Robinson, Preface to Toronto during the French Regime, xi. 39 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 195-209. Robinson presents a list of the maps and documents used in the reconstruction on p. 196. 130
preserved": the trail had already passed from a milieu de memoire to a lieu de memoire. 40
An illustration of Robinson's interpretation of the trail's route is found in the preface, and
Chapter XI provides a step by step account of his research methods as well as a description of the trail's route through the landscape of the 1930s. The southern portion of the trail, between Lake Ontario and Eglinton Avenue, could be retraced with a relatively fair degree of precision thanks to survey measurements taken by Augustus
Jones in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Artist C.W. Jefferys, whom Robinson had gotten to know at the Arts and Letters
Club in Toronto, contributed two drawings to Toronto during the French Regime:
"Etienne Brule at the mouth of the Humber, 1615" and "La Salle crossing the Toronto
Portage, 1681, on his way to the Mississippi."41 In Jefferys' drawing, Brule stands in a grove of pine trees overlooking Lake Ontario. He is surrounded by his Aboriginal guides, some of whom carry loads on their backs in slings passing over their foreheads, and others whom carry bows. The focus, however, is definitely on Brule who stands taller than the rest, cradling a gun with one arm, leaning against a tree with the other. In contrast to the Aboriginal characters who are in the background or hidden by shadows,
40 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 195. 41 Robinson, Percy James Robinson, 57; Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, frontispiece, 14. Copies are located at Library Archives Canada: "Etienne Brule at the Mouth of the Humber, 1615," pen and black ink on wove paper, Imperial Oil Collection series, R4956-0-7-E, Acc. No. 1972-26-1395, LAC; "La Salle on His Way to the Mississippi Via The Toronto Portage," reproduction (photomechanical print of a pen and ink drawing), Imperial Oil Collection series, R4956-0-7-E, Jefferys box no.24, IA-17, LAC. Jefferys' iconic image of Brule was recreated in an oil painting by Canadian painter and educator Frederick Sproston Challener (1869-1959) in 1956; Frederick Sproston Challener,"Etienne Brule at the Mouth of the Humber," 1956, oil on canvas, 166.4 x 135.9 cm, Archives of Ontario, Government of Ontario Art Collection, accession no. 619849. Challener mostly made his career by creating murals for passenger boats, restaurants, hotels, and theatres. He created the Trading at Fort Rouille mural in the King Edward Hotel in Toronto; Amy Marshall, "Description and Finding Aid: Frederick S. Challener Collection, CA OTAG SC013," Art Gallery of Ontario, 2002, electronic document accessed October 21, 2011, http://www.ago.net/assets/files/pdf/special_collections/SC013.pdf. 131
Brule's clothes, features, and belongings are much more clearly defined and detailed.
"The first white man to see Lake Ontario" looks very much like a great European explorer and discoverer of 'new' lands. Jefferys' sketch of La Salle evokes some of the hardships endured while traversing the Toronto Carrying Place. The travellers are
walking into the wind, the rain beating down hard. Tree trunks block part of the path and
items seem to have been abandoned at the side of the trail. Again, the focus is on La Salle who, like Brule, is carrying a gun. The other individuals in the sketch are faceless as well as nameless, hidden by a large canoe and dark shadows.
A hand-written letter signed by Charles W. Jefferys found in the Percy James
Robinson fonds reveals that Jefferys not only contributed art work for the book but also provided comments on an earlier draft, which he "submitted with all deference to the author's judgement and better knowledge."42 At the end of the letter, Jefferys makes a few suggestions as to "subjects for imaginative drawings which might be included." In addition to the images of Brule and La Salle that were produced and published, Jefferys also suggested "The burning and evacuation of Ft. Toronto" and "Simcoe's canvas house" as possible subjects. As Jefferys notes, "there is no dearth of incident capable of pictorial expression" in the earliest history of modern Toronto.
Interestingly it seems that Robinson's working title for his volume on the French regime, the title of the draft reviewed by C.W. Jefferys, was "Toronto and the Carrying
Place of Toronto," emphasising once more the importance Robinson attributed to this route in the early modern history of the area. The Humber trail, which he describes "as
42 "Comments on Toronto and the Carrying Place of Toronto..," Charles W. Jefferys, Percy James Robinson Fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, Archives of Ontario. 132
old as human life in America" does in fact form the backdrop for the entire book.
Robinson starts his volume at "the foot of the Toronto Carrying-Place with memories of
Simcoe and Joliet, of La Salle and Denonville, of Brule and St. Jean de Brebeuf." He asks
his readers to imagine the "pageant of forgotten traffic along the old trail" starting with
Aboriginal peoples who inhabited and visited the region in "the long years before and
after the coming of the white man." In his often overblown and florid prose, Robinson describes Aboriginal peoples as "grotesque and terrible figures," as
war parties of painted braves; lugubrious trains of miserable prisoners destined to the stake; embassies from tribe to tribe on more peaceful errands; hunters wandering into the distant north in quest of furs; Hurons and Iroquois, Ottawas and Menominees, Shawanoes and Sacs and Foxes and last of all the debauched Missisaugas, spectators of the white man's progress and participating with him in cruel and dramatic events...43
Robinson continues by writing about French, Dutch, and English traders who "all knew the Carrying-Place, and with or without license robbed the poor Indian." He describes them as "rascals from the Hudson" and "lawless coureurs-de-bois from the St. Lawrence, wild hearts and children of the wilderness as truly as the aborigines whom they beguiled." Robinson writes of other men who witnessed the Carrying Place such as missionaries, explorers, and soldiers, "none of whom stand out so vividly as the great explorer of the Mississippi," La Salle. He writes of surveyors and soldiers, of the
Missisaugas and the Toronto Purchase, of "the white men strong in the destinies of their race, and the red men fated to disappear and relinquishing with reluctance the land of their fathers." Robinson writes of Jean Baptiste Rousseau, "the last citizen of the old
French Toronto," of "the Governor's gentle wife (...) seen taking her rides along the ridge
43 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 1-2. 133
where the trail ran," and of Governor Simcoe himself who explored the communications to the north and established "a great highway called Yonge Street." It is there that the book ends and, according to Robinson, "the trail vanishes from history."44
According to Percy's son Gilbert, Toronto during the French Regime received a number of enthusiastic reviews 45 The book certainly piqued the imagination of a reviewer for the Globe and Mail who commented on Robinson's ability to convey "the romance of the Toronto region's earliest recorded history." Because of Robinson's book, images of "the colourful ghosts of a bygone human activity that trudged and toiled over the long, long trail of the Toronto Carrying Place (...) across a primitive forest that is now a teeming, pulsating metropolis, over a vast countryside, to the shores of the Upper
Lakes" probably filled the imagination of the reviewer, and of other readers of book and review alike, for some time.46
It is possible that Katherine Hale, journalist, poet, and author of Toronto: Romance of a Great City, had those images in her head when she described the trail along what is now Riverside Drive as:
a trail of the Indians, a trade route, a path of life and of sudden death, of the march of prisoners and of traders towards the Iroquois village of Teiaiagon and its drunken revels, or to the Mississauga village whose people later welcomed the governing French, said good-bye to them, and sold their land to the British.
In Toronto during the French Regime, Robinson briefly talks of the carrying- place to and from Ganatsekwyagon at the mouth of the Rouge, and in 1939 he published
44 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 2-4. 45 Robinson, Percy James Robinson, 62. 46 "Carrying Place, That Ancient Trail That Begot a Great City at Its Base," Globe and Mail, Feb. 8, 1934; partly reprinted in Robinson, Percy James Robinson, 62-64. 7 Katherine Hale, Toronto: Romance of a Great City, (Toronto: Cassell, 1956), 9-10. 134
a paper titled "Gandatsekiagon and the Rouge Trail" in the St. Andrew's Review.48
Despite a lack of maps comparable with the excellent maps of the Humber trail that enabled the reconstruction of its route, Robinson suggested a possible route for the Rouge trail using two maps dating to the 1670s and 1680s. According to Robinson, the trail potentially had a winter extension to Roche's Point on the east shores of Cook's Bay in
Lake Simcoe in order to avoid the more exposed route through the Holland marsh.49 As with his reconstruction of the southern portion of the Humber Carrying Place, Robinson was greatly assisted by the survey measurements of Augustus Jones in the retracing of the northern terminus of the Don/Rouge River Carrying Place from the east branch of the
Holland River.50 Robinson has also discussed the Don trail in his publications on the survey and construction of Yonge Street and mapped its probable route.51 To Robinson, however, the Humber Carrying Place was "the more important trail" and most of his research and publications deal with the western branch of the Toronto Carrying Place.52
In the late 1940s, at least two plaques were erected by the York Pioneer and
Historical Society in collaboration with the Toronto and York Roads Commission as well as the Municipal Corporation and the Board of Education of the Township of York that touch upon the Humber branch of the Toronto Carrying Place. One plaque is found on a concrete cairn in what is now a small parkette at the corner of Weston Road and Clouston
48 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 53-56; Robinson, Percy James Robinson, 19. 49 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 53; ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place", 49- 50. 50 Ink drawing, "Northern Terminus of Portage from Gandatsekwiagon at mouth of Rouge R. to Old Pine Fort," Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2428, Archives of Ontario. 51 Percy J. Robinson, "Simcoe's Yonge Street 1793," pamphlet reprinted from the Saint Andrew's College Review, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2427, Archives of Ontario; Percy J. Robinson, "Yonge Street and the North West Company," Canadian Historical Review 24 (1943), 253-265. 52 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 195. 135
Avenue in northwest Toronto and is meant to provide a short history of Weston Road up to 1911.53 The other is set in a stone where Baby Point Crescent meets Baby Point Road in the enclave of Baby Point, which the plaque is meant to celebrate.54 Following the same format, the plaques present a series of events associated with 'important' persons
(important enough to be commemorated) with the associated date of said events. Both plaques start by acknowledging an earlier Aboriginal presence. The Weston Road plaque begins: "NEAR THIS SPOT / RAN THE INDIAN TRAIL TO LAKE HURON /
CALLED / THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE / (LE PORTAGE DE TORONTO)"; and the Baby Point plaque: "THIS AREA INCLUDES / THE SITE OF TAIAIAGON /
IROQUOIS VILLAGE AT THE FOOT / OF THE TORONTO CARRYING PLACE /
(LE PORTAGE DE TORONTO)." This acknowledged presence, however, does not include dates and is quickly followed by the dated exploits of Europeans and Euro-
Canadians, starting with Etienne Brule, "FIRST WHITE MAN / TO SEE LAKE
ONTARIO, 1615." It is logical to suggest that Robinson's research played a certain role in the subject matter of the plaques and a typed manuscript in his papers suggests that
Robinson gave an address at the unveiling of the Baby Point plaque.55 In fact, it would not have been the first time Robinson participated in such an event - in 1937 he unveiled
51 York Pioneer and Historical Society and the Toronto and York Roads Commission, "Weston Road" historical plaque, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.torontoplaques.com/Pages_VWZ/Weston_Road.html. 54 York Pioneer and Historical Society and the Municipal Corporation and the Board of Education of the Township of York, "Baby Point" historical plaque, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.torontoplaques.com/Pages_ABC/Baby_Point.html. ""Unveiling of the Tablet at Baby Point," typed manuscript, Percy James Robinson fonds, F 1080, MU 2408, Archives of Ontario. 136
the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada plaque commemorating Yonge
Street.56
Another historian who has conducted substantial research on the Toronto
Carrying Place is V.B. Blake. As the historian for the Ontario Department of Planning
and Development between 1945 and 1962, Blake was responsible for the historical
research of a number of watershed conservation reports published in the late 1940s and
1950s. Of interest are reports for the Humber Valley, the Don Valley, the Rouge, Duffin,
Highland, and Petticoat Creek watersheds, and the Upper Holland Valley.57 The Toronto
Carrying Places are briefly mentioned in the history of the various watersheds, which
themselves form a small part of the larger environmental planning reports.
In the reports, Blake builds on some of the information previously presented by
Robinson and includes additional information on the potential use of the trails by early settlers. Interestingly, utilising some of the same early nineteenth-century survey maps,
Blake interpreted two potential routes for the Rouge Carrying Place in different reports.
Both trails, however, are situated well west of the route proposed by Robinson.58 In the
Humber Valley report, Blake also cast doubts as to the reliability of Robinson's proposed route for the Humber trail. According to Blake, the trail followed the west bank of the river, rather than the east bank, up to the Kleinburg area where two alternative routes
56 Robinson, Percy James Robinson, 80. The plaque is located at the entrance to the Summit Golf and Country Club in Richmond Hill; Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, "Yonge Street" historical plaque, accessed July 1, 2011, http://www.ontarioplaques.com/Plaques_VWZ/Plaque_York30.html. 7 ODPD, Humber Valley Conservation Report; ODPD, Don Valley Conservation Report, (Toronto: King's Printer, 1950); ODPD, Upper Holland Valley Conservation Report, (Toronto: King's Printer, 1953); ODPD, Rouge, Duffin, Highland, Petticoat Valley Conservation Report, (Toronto: King's Printer, 1956). 58 ODPD, Upper Holland, 63-64; ODPD, Rouge, 74; ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place", 49-53,58. 137
presented themselves, one of which followed the main branch of the river until it crossed
the east branch near Nobleton. Also, according to Blake, archaeological evidence
suggests that a more easterly route was in use in the seventeenth century, crossing the
Oak Ridges Moraine near the village of Eversley.59 These doubts were reaffirmed in a
memo to Blake in January of 1962. Now head historian for the Conservation Authorities
Branch of the Ontario Department of Lands and Forests, Blake scheduled a meeting with a Mr. William W. Barrett to discuss the creation of possible easements over land "which might have been used as a part of the Indian trail which ran from near Kleinburg to a
point on the Holland River or the Schomberg River." While Blake missed the meeting, a
colleague explained to Barrett that "there was still considerable doubt as to whether Mr.
Robinson's route was the correct one."60
National, Provincial, and Local Commemorations
Percy J. Robinson's Toronto during the French Regime was re-published in
1965.61 It is probable that this second edition re-ignited people's imagination concerning the Toronto Carrying Place and, less than a year later, O.W. Titus, Vice-Chairman of the
Canada Wire and Cable Company, wrote to the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Ontario) appealing for the commemoration of the Humber Carrying Place. In his letter, Titus cites
Robinson's book as the authoritative source on the subject. He writes,
59 ODPD, Humber Valley, 20; Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, iii-ix. 60 Memo, January 31, 1965, K.M. Mayall to V. Blake, V.B. Blake's historical research and correspondence files, RG 17-27, Container #6, AO. 61 The second edition included the addition of an appendix containing a number of Robinson's articles on Toronto that had been previously published elsewhere. 138
I respectfully suggest that this route which aside from its historical importance, could well appeal to the romantic interests of our younger generation and aid in recapturing our enthusiasm for Canada. I would suggest that historical markers should be erected wherever it could be established that the trail crossed highways and roads and, possibly, arrangements could be to permit it to be followed, at least in part, somewhat along the lines of the increasingly popular Bruce Trail.62
Titus continues by arguing that the Toronto Carrying Place is of greater "historical importance" and "romantic interest" than the De Puisaye Settlement on Yonge Street which already featured a provincial historical plaque.63
While Titus's appeal did not seem to have led to new provincial commemorative activities, the Toronto Carrying Places were municipally and nationally recognized in the late 1960s. In 1967, the Etobicoke Historical Society assembled two large rocks on a grassy knoll in South Humber Park, one of which is inscribed. In the same tradition as the earlier plaques described above, the memorial is dedicated to the first "white man" to see
* Lake Ontario, Etienne Brule, and "all like adventurous spirits who laid foundations of our nation" and passed by the "Portage Toronto," including explorer Rene Robert Cavalier de
La Salle and Upper Canada governor John Graves Simcoe.64
62 Letter, July 26, 1966, O.W. Titus to Hon. J.W. Spooner, General subject files of J.W. Spooner, Minister of Municipal Affairs, RG 19-4-1, AO. The Department of Municipal Affairs had a Historical Branch at that time. 63 The De Puisaye Settlement, also known as Windham, was located along Yonge Street in the former Townships of Markham and Vaughan. It is the site of a failed settlement of some forty exiled French Royalists who emigrated from England to Upper Canada under the leadership of Joseph-Genevieve, Comte de Puisaye. As these members of the French nobility and their servants could not adapt to pioneer life, the settlement lasted less than a decade, from 1799 to 1806; Ontario Archaeological and Historic Sites Board, "The De Puisaye Settlement 1799" historical plaque, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.ontarioplaques.com/Plaques_VWZ/Plaque_Yorkl8.html. 64 Etobicoke Historical Society, "Discovery Point" historical plaque, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.torontoplaques.com/Pages_DEF/Discovery_Point.html. 139
On the national stage, the Humber and Rouge River branches of the Toronto
Carrying Place were designated as a National Historic Event by the HSMBC in 1969.65
According to Parks Canada, to be designated of national historic significance, an event has to represent a "defining action, episode, movement, or experience in Canadian history."66 It was not until 1982, however, that a plaque was erected commemorating this event and celebrating this designation.67 The plaque's content reflects the rise of social history in academia that occurred throughout the 1960s and 1970s.68 Certainly 'the great man and colonialist themes' are still evident on this plaque, which mentions Etienne
Brule and the Humber trail's contribution to the settlement of Toronto. However, the
HSMBC also acknowledges that the Humber and Rouge Carrying Places formed an important trade route for "the Indian nations and later the French," and that "the Iroquois reputedly used it on their way to attack Huronia in 1649." In 2000, Parks Canada and the
HSMBC developed a system plan for their National Historic Sites in which a thematic framework was introduced. The Toronto Carrying Place National Historic Event is now considered part of the theme of 'Developing Economies,' which explores the various ways Canadians have worked to sustain themselves, and the sub-theme of
'Communications and Transportation.'69
65 Parks Canada, "Toronto Carrying Place National Historic Event," accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/lhn- nhs/det_E.asp?oqSID=1671&oqeName=Toronto+Carrying+Place&oqfName=Portage+de+Toronto. 66 Parks Canada, National Historic Sites of Canada System Plan, (Ottawa: Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, 2000), 4. 67 The plaque is located in a small park on the east side of Humbercrest Boulevard in the Baby Point area of Toronto; Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, "The Toronto Carrying Place" historical plaque, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.torontopIaques.com/Pages_STU/Toronto_Carrying_Place.html. 68 Peers and Coutts, "Aboriginal History and Historic Sites," 278. 69 Parks Canada, System Plan, 15-17, 77. 140
In 2006, the HSMBC plaque commemorating the Toronto Carrying Place was included in the Inventaire de lieux de memoire de la Nouvelle-France, a collaborative effort between various academic and cultural institutions in Canada and in France.70 The main goal of the inventory is to recognize the various facets of human activity associated with the earliest French presence in North America (up to 1763) as it is manifested in today's built and natural landscape on both sides of the Atlantic. It brings together history, landscape, and memory by recognizing built heritage resources, archaeological sites, commemorative markers of historic places and events for which there are no more remains in place, and remnants of spatial settlements (roads, street layout, etc.). Each entry within the inventory includes a section on "donnees memorielles" which allows the presentation of historic and memorial information about each site such as associated persons, type of protection, type of commemoration, as well as information on intangible heritage. As this lieu de memoire is simply associated with the commemorative plaque itself and its contents composed in 1982, the only person associated with the Toronto
Carrying Place, according to the inventory, is Etienne Brule.71 The inventory fails to recognize the countless other peoples who have travelled the trail throughout its long history.
70 Inventaire des lieux de memoire de la Nouvelle-France, accessed October 16, 2011, http://inventairenf.cieq.ulaval.ca:8080/inventaire/apropos.do; see also Inventaire des lieux de memoire de la Nouvelle-France au Quebec, accessed October 16,2011, http://www.memoirenf.cieq.ulaval.ca/Quebec/index.html. 7l"Plaque commemorative portage de Toronto," in Inventaire des lieux de memoire de la Nouvelle-France, accessed October 16,2011, http://inventairenf.cieq.ulaval.ca:8080/inventaire/oneLieu.do?refLieu=1651&returnForward=%2FlistLieuA ccessible.do%3Faction%3Drechercher%26concept%3Dlieu%26queryAll%3Dtoronto. Interestingly, the inventory provides the wrong location for the plaque, directing people to Etienne Brule Park off Old Mill Road. The plaque is found to the north of the location provided. The monument and plaque commemorating Fort Rouille at Exhibition Place is also part of the Inventaire des lieux de memoires de la Nouvelle-France. 141
In addition to the erection of the HSMBC plaque, 1982 saw the unveiling of two
T) cairns commemorating the Humber Carrying Place in the Town of Vaughan. One cairn
with a bronze plaque, situated in the northwest corner of the intersection of Pine Valley
Drive and Major Mackenzie Drive West, marks the approximate halfway point along the
trail. The plaque features a map of the trail that is slightly different from Robinson's map
in that it presents an alternative, more westerly route between what is now Woodbridge
and Kleinburg. This altered map is based on research conducted by B.S. Case in the mid-
1970s. Case determined that Robinson had misinterpreted Lieutenant Pilkington's 1793
map upon which he partly based his reconstruction, and that the trail actually followed
the height of land between the two branches of the river, rather than along the east bank
of the Humber's east branch as Robinson suggested.73 Case also based his interpretation of this portion of the trail on the knowledge of a local inhabitant, Major A. A. (Lex)
Mackenzie, who took Case and V.B. Blake "over what he understood to be the route of
the Humber Trail in the vicinity of Woodbridge." The researchers discovered that
Mackenzie's version of the trail, which at one point followed "a foot path worn down to
the sub-soil," corresponded perfectly with Pilkington's map (or their interpretation of it),
joining up with Robinson's version near Kleinburg. In his report on the Humber trail, whose main objective was to trace out its path from available information, Case suggested that a plaque be installed at the northern terminus of the portage at the Holland
72 Austin, "The Toronto Carrying-Place Trail Today," 10. 73 "The Humber Trail or Le Portage de Toronto or The Toronto Carrying-Place," typed manuscript, B.S. Case, April 1975, CPC 1975,0027, CTA. 142
River, and another in Woodbridge, where the course of the trail down the hog's back was
still visible in the landscape.
The cairn located at Pine Valley Drive and Major Mackenzie Drive West, which
was erected by the Town of Vaughan in co-operation with the Vaughan Township
Historical Society in 1982, illustrates the Humber Carrying Place with both versions of
the trail as it appears in Case's report.74 The inscription provides the following
description:
... The trail splits at Woodbridge, with one for crossing the east branch of the Humber and going up the west side of the branch, following roughly the line of Islington Avenue to the vicinity of Kleinburg where it re-crossed the river. This trail was probably used during the seasons when the water was low enough to ford. The other fork stayed on the east side and angled across the country to King Creek, joining the other fork before crossing the river.
While this interpretation is quite possible, what was initially an illustration of two schools of thought regarding the actual route of the Humber trail based on different
interpretations of the same historic map, has become the accepted version of trail
alternatives that were actually used by past peoples. The Humber Carrying Place showing
the divergent paths has since been recreated in a number of publications and commemorations.75
Late Twentieth-Century Research on the Toronto Carrying Place
In the 1980s and 1990s, scholars from various disciplines presented and published their research on the Toronto Carrying Place. In the early 1980s, cultural geographer
74 Map A, "The Humber Trail...," typed manuscript, B.S. Case, April 1975, CPC 1975,0027, CTA; Town of Vaughan and the Vaughan Township Historical Society, "The Toronto Carrying Place, 1615-1793." 75 See for example: Austin, "The Toronto Carrying-Place Trail Today,"4; MacDonald, "Toronto's Natural History," 24; The Shared Path Discovery Walk, "Discover the Humber River's Ancient Path." 143
Victor Konrad did much to advance our understanding of the Iroquoian north shore
villages of the late seventeenth century and the potential use of the Toronto Carrying
Places. For example, Konrad shows that, contrary to Robinson's assertion that Teiaiagon
was established prior to 1673, there is no documentary evidence to support this.76 He
does agree with Robinson, however, that the Rouge Carrying Place was the more travelled route prior to the construction of Fort Frontenac. The construction of the Fort resulted in a new preferred trade route as the Iroquois tended to avoid French interference by travelling around the western end of Lake Ontario and up the Humber trail. In addition, the introduction of larger sailing vessels to Lake Ontario in the late 1670s led the French to choose Teiaiagon and the Humber trail as the preferred route as the Humber
River offered safer anchorage.77
Mima Kapches looked at the role of major post-glacial physiographic features, such as the Toronto Scarp and the Scarborough Bluffs, on the development of prehistoric transportation systems.78 In the presence of a physical obstacle, ancient transportation networks developed in a way that facilitated ease of movement, following the path of least resistance. Once established, Kapches argues, these networks could remain in place for the following millennia if there was no change in the physical obstacle and/or in the transportation systems over time. According to Kapches, the Don River Valley was not used as a transportation corridor in early prehistoric times as the scarp and bluff acted as a physical barrier, preventing access to the Don. Inland trails however, could be
76 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 20, 24; Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier," 133 77 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 23-26; Konrad, "An Iroquois Frontier, 133-134 78 Mima Kapches, "The Toronto Scarp," Paper presented at the Canadian Archaeological Association 23rd Annual Meeting, Whitehorse, May 1990. 144
established at either end of these major landscape features along the Humber and Rouge
Rivers. Kapches argues that these transportation networks continued in existence through
time, and that the Don River was not part of the Toronto Carrying Place system of trails
during historic times.79 Kapches suggests that Governor Simcoe, on his return trip to
York in 1793, intended to follow the Rouge trail back to Lake Ontario but deviated from
its path.
Archaeologist Gordon Dibb argues that at the time of the arrival of the first Euro-
Canadian settlers in Whitchurch Township, a trail was in fact established along the Don
River which paralleled Yonge Street.80 Through his research, Dibb also determined that
another trail wound along the Rouge River, crossed the watershed towards the historic settlement of Vandorf, then continued northward to what would later become Newmakret on the Holland River. A bronze crucifix bearing the inscription Souvenir de Mission was reportedly found along a section of the Rouge trail in the sixth concession of Whitchurch.
Another religious ornament was reportedly found farther north along the same trail near
Holland Landing. These items potentially date from the French occupation of the area prior to the 1760s and provide evidence on the historic use of these Aboriginal trails.
Dibb also speaks to the fact that "the local native population never totally abandoned
79 Kapches, "The Toronto Scarp," 12; Kapches, "Back to the Beaten Paths," 2. In the latter newsletter, Kapches also presents information on a number of other early Aboriginal trails in Toronto, some of which developed into modern roads. These include Indian Road trail, the Garrison Creek trail, the Poplar Plains trail, the Lakeshore trail, and the Davenport trail. 80 Whitchurch History Book Committee (WHBC), Whitchurch Township, (Toronto: Boston Mills Press, 1993), 8. 145
Q| their hunting and trapping grounds in Whitchurch." Dibb published his findings in a history of Whitchurch Township.
In the summer of 1994, Shaun Austin embarked on a modern-day search for the
OI Humber Carrying Place. Austin transferred, as accurately as possible, Robinson's placement of the trail onto a series of modern maps and drove the length of the reconstructed trail, frequently stopping to inspect areas of foot. He confirmed that the
Toronto Carrying Place was routed so as to follow level and dry ground as much as possible and discovered that sections of some current roadways, railways, and hydro corridors had been laid out along the same lines of portions of the trail.84 Austin also revealed that "literally all of the registered Late Iroquoian villages" along the Humber
81 WHBC, Whitchurch Township, 10. 82 Since the mid-twentieth century, a number of local histories have been published that provide information on the Toronto Carrying Places and how they helped shape the land use and settlement of the north shore and even the rest of Canada. See for example (among others): Champion, ed., Markham 1793- 1900\ Careless, Toronto to 1918; L.A. Johnson, History of the County of Ontario 1615-1875 (Whitby: The Corporation of the County of Ontario, 1973); W.A. MacKay, The Pickering Story, (Pickering: Township of Pickering, 1961); Berchem, The Yonge Street Story; Dianalyn Kennedy, "West Rouge Old Trails History" (Parts 1 and 2), West Rouge Review, Winter 1998 and Spring 1999, accessed July 24, 2011, http://westrouge.org/?p=146; Ron Fletcher, The Humber: Tales of a Canadian Heritage River, (Toronto: RWF Heritage Publications, 2006); Williamson (ed.), An Illustrated History; and C.M.W. Marcel, "Iroquois Origins of Modern Toronto," Counterweights, August 5, 2006, accessed July 25, 2011, http://www.counterweights.ca/2006/08/iroquois/. 83 Austin, "The Toronto Carrying Place Today," 1-12. Archaeologist Peter Carruthers and colleagues also conducted their own search for the Humber trail in the mid-1990s. In the spring of 1996 they also embarked on a search for the eastern branch of the Toronto Carrying Place, starting off in canoes at the mouth of the Rouge River. A short discussion of this expedition is found in ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," 53-55. It is also reported that in the summer of 1976, a group of high school students and teachers from Illinois set out from Montreal to recreate La Salle's journey to the Mississippi. These modern-day explorers apparently dressed-up as voyageurs, travelled in (and slept under) fibreglass canoes painted to look like birchbark, carried large leather baggage trunks and muskets, and relied "for their food on dried peas, corn meal and the generosity of the Canadian "natives"." They walked the urbanized Toronto Carrying Place from September 10 to 22; Heather Robertson, Walking into Wilderness: The Toronto Carrying Place and Nine Mile Portage, (Winnipeg: Heartland Associates Inc., 2010), 212. 84 Austin provides the following examples: parts of Riverside Drive, Humbercrest Boulevard, Weston Road, Pine Valley Drive, the CN/CP railway between Weston Road and Wilson Avenue, and the hydro corridor that runs west of Kipling Avenue in the City of Vaughan and northeast past Hackett Lake in King Township. 146
and East Humber Rivers are located on the eastern banks of these watercourses, along the
length of the trail. While there was no real direct evidence left of the Toronto Carrying
Place, Austin discovered through his fieldwork that hints of original terrain and drainage
pattern that influenced the placement and direction of the trail could still be perceived in
the landscape of the mid-1990s. Austin's work explicitly allows for a re-imagining of the
Humber trail, one where "the real importance of the Toronto Carrying Place (...) was not
that it was witness to the passage of a few heroic figures in Canadian history, but rather
that it served as a channel for the movements and communication of countless
OC anonymous Native peoples over hundreds," (if not thousands,) "of years."
The Humber River was officially designated a Canadian Heritage River in 1999
by the Ontario Minister of National Resources and the federal Minister of the
Environment. This designation acknowledges the Humber's human heritage and the
contribution it has made to the development of Canada through exploration, settlement,
and commerce.86 According to the Humber River "fact sheet," while the history of human
settlement within the watershed extends to 10,000 BCE, it was not until the Woodland
period, however, that what became known as the Toronto Carrying Place trail became a
major north-south transportation route. The fact sheet also explains that Etienne Brule
was the first European to travel the Toronto Carrying Place Trail in 1615, and was soon followed by numerous traders, explorers, and missionaries who made their way from
85 Austin, "The Toronto Carrying Place Today," 12. 86 The Canadian Heritage Rivers System (CHRS) was established in 1984 by federal, provincial, and territorial governments to conserve rivers with outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational heritage, to give them national recognition, and to encourage the public to enjoy and appreciate them. There are now 41 Canadian Heritage Rivers across the country, 37 of which are designated with another four that are nominated. The Canadian Heritage Rivers System, accessed July 25, 2011, http://chrs.ca/en/main.php 147
New France to open up what would become Upper Canada. CHRS affirms that "the spirit of the historic Toronto Carrying Place Trail" is maintained along the Humber River through its unique system of greenways along its course. It should be noted, however,
that present-day recreational trails along these greenways are generally located within the
valley lands rather than along the high banks of the river where the ancient footpath
would have been situated.87 Humber River: The Carrying Place was published to
go commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Canadian Heritage River designation. The book, which is filled with beautiful images of the Humber River watershed, emphasises
the role the Carrying Place Trail played in the designation process, characterizing it as
"the hallmark of the Humber's heritage designation."89 Today, an official plaque commemorates the Humber River's designation in Etienne Brule Park. It explains that some 12,000 years ago the watershed was home to Aboriginal peoples and that they established an overland route along the river that led to the interior. Unlike earlier commemorative plaques, it does not name individual European 'heroes' but simply explains that "[l]ater, European explorers and settlers used this route they called the
Toronto Carrying-Place trail."90 While previous federal and provincial plaques are
bilingual (English and French), the CHRS plaque also includes a translation in Ojibway
which actually appears first on the plaque.
87 It would be interesting to explore if and how the location of modern trails, such as those following the lower part of the Humber in the City of Toronto, plays a role in the public imagination of the Toronto Carrying Places. Such an investigation, which could only be conducted through interviews or surveys, is unfortunately beyond the scope of this thesis. 88 Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), Humber River: The Carrying Place, (Downsview: Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, 2009). 89 TRCA, Humber River, front cover. 90 The Canadian Heritage Rivers System, "Kabechenong/The Humber River/La Riviere Humber" historical plaque, erected February 1999. 148
The Brule Debate
The year 2010 marked the 400th anniversary of Etienne Brule's arrival in what is now Ontario and a number of events were held to celebrate this occasion, including a re- enactment of his arrival in Wendake.91 Of special relevance to this project, this occasion provided the opportunity to revisit and re-imagine Brule's connection to the Humber branch of the Toronto Carrying Place. To this end, a panel of experts was brought together to share their views on this part of the myth of Brule.92
In September of 1615 a large war party of Wendat and French, including Samuel de Champlain, traveled south from Wendake with the intent of attacking the Onondaga who resided south of Lake Ontario in the area of present-day Syracuse, New York. From the Narrows between Lakes Couchiching and Simcoe, Champlain and his group travelled through the Trent Valley while his interpreter, Brule, was sent with a group of twelve
Wendat in two canoes to gather assistance from the Andastes for this attack. Allied with the Wendat, the Andastes resided south of the Haudenosaunee, in the area of the
Susquehanna River. The southern reinforcement, however, never arrived, and consequently, the first group of Wendat warriors (with Champlain) suffered a terrible
91 wjjgibson, "Etienne Brule comes to Huronia - Oct. 16th (Couchiching Park) Oct. 17th Midland (Huronia Museum)" Huronia Museum Blog, October 8, 2010, http://huroniamuseumtest.wordpress.eom/2010/10/08/brule-comes-to-huronia-oct-16th-orillia-couchiching- park-oct-17th-midland-huronia-museum/. 2 "Etienne Brflle and the Toronto Carrying Place - Did He or Didn't He?" was held on June 28, 2010 in King City. Led by Hugh Barnett, a researcher and co-creator of the theatrical and musical component for the Humber River's 10th anniversary as a designated heritage river, the panel included: archaeologist Martin Cooper; John Raynor, president of the Huronia Chapter of the Ontario Archaeological Society; John Steckley, professor and scholar of the Huron language; and researcher Ken Carter. See Bill Rea, "Brflle might not have used the Carrying Place Trail," The King Township Sentinel, August 11, 2010, accessed July 31, 2011, http://www.kingsentinel.com/news/2010-08- 11 /News/Brl_might_not_have_used_the_Carrying_Place_Trail.html. 149
defeat. Brule was not heard from for three years. The route that Brule took from the
Narrows to the Susquehanna River has been the source of much conjecture and speculation, in particular the route he took from the narrows to the Neutral country.93 As many of the commemorative plaques indicate, collective memory recalls the Humber
branch of the Toronto Carrying Place as being the route travelled. To the surprise of one
of the experts taking part in the panel mentioned above, no one supported the Humber
trail as the route Brule took in September 1615.94
According to archaeologist Martin S. Cooper, the belief that the first European to travel the Toronto Carrying Place and see Lake Ontario was Etienne Brule emerged in the
late nineteenth century with historian C.W. Butterfield.95 In his biography of Brule,
Butterfield wrote,
...They must therefore, go southward, carrying their two frail bark canoes for transportation on water-courses necessary to follow or to cross, until Lake Ontario was reached. There were two streams, one from the southward emptying into Lake Simcoe, another, the Humber, from the northward flowing into Lake Ontario, which were to be their highway of travel, there being a short portage from one to the other, across which the two canoes could easily be carried. It was not a long journey to the lake and the route was well known to the Hurons.96
With the help of contemporary documents, Cooper elaborates on several reasons why
Butterfield's claim that Brule and the Wendat traveled to the Neutral via the Humber trail
93 There is no contemporary documentary account of the route that Brule took between the Narrows and the Neutral country. The route he took from Neutral country to the Susquehanna is only known from a dotted line on Champlain's 1632 map that is believed to be Brute's travel route to the Andaste. Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic, Plate 28, 334; Martin S. Cooper,"Etienne Brule: Hog Town or Hog Wash?," report on file at Archaeological Services Inc., Toronto, 2009. 94 John Raynor, July 26, 2010 (10:02 p.m.), comment on W. Gibson, "Etienne Brule and the Toronto Carrying Place - June 28th," Huronia Chapter of the Ontario Archaeological Society Blog, June 12, 2010, http://historichuronia.blogspot.com/2010/06/etienne-brule-and-toronto-carrying.html. 95 Cooper, "Etienne Brule," 5. 96 C.W. Butterfield, History of Brule's discoveries and explorations, 1610-1626, (Cleveland: Helman Taylor Company, 1898), 48. 150
was erroneous.97 He also demonstrates how subsequent historians and writers, such as
Kathleen Lizars, Percy Robinson, J. Herbert Cranston, and Olga Jurgens, while at times questioning his knowledge of the route, continued to repeat Butterfield's hypothesis.98
According to Cooper, C.W. Jefferys' illustration of Brule and the Wendat at the mouth of the Humber which was commissioned for Robinson's book "provided all the evidence necessary for the generations of Canadians who grew up with his images as history."99
Together with Robinson's support (however speculative) of Brule's use of the Humber trail and his detailed description, retracing and mapping of the route, Cooper argues that
C.W. Jefferys' drawing has resulted in the legend becoming ingrained into our collective imagination.
It seems that the doubts as to the veracity of Brule's travels down the Toronto
Carrying are starting to trickle down to some commemorative activities. In honour of 400 years of francophone presence along the Humber, the King Township Historical Society
(KTHS) held a special event in September 2010 which included the unveiling of a legacy
97 His main arguments lie with the fact that there is no documentary evidence to support the theory that Brule used the Toronto Carrying Place to reach the Neutral and the idea that Lake Ontario was avoided by the Wendat, and by association the Europeans, during the first half of the seventeenth century due to fear of Iroquoian attack. 98 Lizars, The Valley of the Humber, 4-5; Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 7; J. Herbert Cranston, Etienne Brule: Immortal Scoundrel, (Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1949), 82-83; Olga Jurgens, "Etienne Brule," Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, Volume 1 1000-1700, accessed July 31, 2011. 99 Cooper, "Etienne Brflld," 11; Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, frontispiece. C.W. Jefferys pen sketches appear in many Canadian history textbooks from the first half of the twentieth century as well as other publications focused on Canadian history. The culmination of Jefferys's contributions to reconstructing the past was The Picture Gallery of Canadian History, a three volume collection of his illustrations; Eric Weichel, "An "Artist of Standing": C.W. Jefferys and Historical Illustration in Canada," Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing, accessed October 22, 2011, http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca/case-study/artist-standing-cw-jefferys-and-historical-illustration-canada; C.W. Jefferys, The Picture Gallery of Canadian History, 3 vols (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1942). See also Brian S. Osborne, "'The Kindling Touch of Imagination': Charles William Jefferys and Canadian Identity," in A Few Acres of Snow: Literary and Artistic Images of Canada," ed. Geln Norcliffe and Paul Simpson- Housley (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1992), 28-47. 151
i no plaque entitled "Le Passage de Taronto." Comparing the mock-up to an earlier KTHS
plaque entitled "The Toronto Carrying Place 1615-1793" reveals a few discrepancies
that, however subtle, illustrate how the Toronto Carrying Place has been imagined, and continues to be imagined, over time.101 For example, in contrast to the old plaque which indicates that the Carrying Place "was used by Brule," the new plaque indicates that he
"may have been the first European to use the trail." While the two plaques more or less
provide the same type of information, the new plaque includes more nuanced details that
perhaps reflect developments in our knowledge of the trail, but also reflect broader
changes in Canadian history in general. What the older plaque called "Champlain's
Huron allies," the new one calls "12 Wendat warriors." The new plaque does not speak to the "vast and hostile continent" that was North America prior to the arrival of Europeans, nor does it mention that "the Carrying Place had great significance in Canadian history,"
part of the grand narrative of nation-building. The new plaque, however, does speak to the nameless Algonquian- and Iroquoian-speaking peoples, coureurs de bois, and voyageurs, who potentially used the trail.
Despite the aforementioned doubts, the lore of Brule being the first European to travel the Toronto Carrying Place continues to occupy our collective imagination, and will probably continue to do so for a very long time. In her recent popular book on the
Toronto Carrying Place, Heather Robertson has Brule and his "twelve companions"
100 A photo of the mock-up appears on the King Township Historical Society website. The full-sized version is to be installed in 2011. King Township Historical Society, "Le Passage de Taronto" historical plaque, accessed July 31, 2011. http://www.kingtownshiphistoricalsociety.com/FrenchHumberPostEvent.html. 101 King Township Historical Society, 'The Toronto Carrying Place 1615-1793" historical plaque, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.natureconservancy.ca/site/DocServer/TCPT-plaque.pdf7docID:: 1241. 152
travelling "their shortest, most familiar path (...) down Lake Taronto (Simcoe) to the
Toronto Carrying Place, then across Lake Ontario...," although recognizing that their exact route south remains unknown.102 The presence of E.W. Jopling's 1934 drawing of
"Etienne Brule's Last Lap of the Portage to Lake Ontario, 1615," on the facing page certainly strengthens this picture we have of Brule on the trail, as C.W. Jefferys' sketch did in Robinson's publication in the 1930s and 1960s.
Interpretive Trails and the Toronto Carrying Place
Over the last decade or so, the celebration and commemoration of the Toronto
Carrying Place has become more interactive. Every year, for example, a number of walking tours are held by local heritage organizations which feature the Toronto Carrying
I Place. " In addition, a number of municipalities through which the Toronto Carrying
Places traversed have developed or are developing interpretive trails in which parts of the carrying places are highlighted.104 One such potential trail is being developed by York and Durham Regions as part of their enhancement plan associated with the Southeast
Collector (SEC) Trunk Sewer Environmental Assessment. Through engagement with
102 Robertson, Walking into Wilderness, 56-57. 103 See for example the walking tours presented by the Weston Historical Society (http://www.heritageweston.com/fullArticle.aspx?type=h&no=5); Heritage Toronto (http://www.heritagetoronto.org/discover-toronto/walk); and the Societe d'histoire de Toronto, (http://www.sht.ca/guidee.html), to name a few 104 Examples of existing trails include the "Humber River, Old Mill & Marshes Discovery Walk" and the "Shared Path Discovery Walk" in the City of Toronto; 'The Humber River Heritage Trail" in the City of Vaughan and the Town of Caledon; the "Oak Ridges Trail" in York Region; and the "Nine Mile Portage Heritage Trail" in the Town of Barrie and the Township of Springwater. In addition, the Toronto Carrying Places are part of the trails master plan for the Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury; Dillon Consulting, Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury Trails System Master Plan, (Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury, 2010), 20, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.town.bradfordwestgwillimbury.on.ca/ws_par/groups/public/@pub/@bwg/documents/web_cont entAvspar_026722.pdf. 153
stakeholders such as the Rouge Park Alliance, with the general public, and with First
Nations, the development of a heritage trail along the east branch of the Toronto Carrying
Place was identified as a priority enhancement project, one that has both significant cultural and recreational value. A number of First Nation communities have shown strong support for this project and expressed an interest in participating in a working group
related to the development of the proposed Toronto Carrying Place East Heritage Trail. It
was suggested that the trail could incorporate interpretative nodes which would provide
First Nations' history to those using the trail.105 Representatives from the Huron Wendat
Nation from Wendake, Quebec also suggested that the Regions should consider
establishing a virtual Carrying Place Trail that could be accessed on-line where users
could experience the trail as it is in the present and as it was in the past.
As part of this project, historical and archaeological research was conducted on
the east branch of the Toronto Carrying Place.106 In addition to providing a historical
narrative of the Rouge trail, the goal of that research was to uncover the actual footprint
of the portage route which could then be recreated as an interpretive trail. Despite the
number of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century maps that allude to it, extensive research
revealed that there are no maps of the Rouge trail comparable to those of the Humber trail
that would have enabled the retracing of its exact course from the mouth of the Rouge
105 The Carrying Place Trail East - Enhancement Project was discussed with First Nations in the course of of a meeting in May of 2008. Representatives from a number of First Nations attended the meeting: Alderville First Nation, Chippewas of Mjikaning First Nation, Chippewas of Georgina Island, Hiawatha First Nation, Huron Wendat Nation, Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, and Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte: AECOM, "Southeast Collector Trunk Sewer EA Consultation Round No. 4 Summary Report (August 1, 2007 to July 22, 2008)", (York Region and Durham Region: November 2008), 19-23, electronic document accessed October 22, 2011, http://www.sectrunksewer.ca/virtualJibrary/supporting_documents.html. 106 ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place." 154
River to Holland Landing. The report, however, brings together a number of alternatives for the portage route as proposed by various researchers, most of which overlap to some extent, as well as the many traditions of old paths and historic by-roads that add to the fragmentary evidence of the Rouge trail. It also presents a summary of the known archaeological sites located in the vicinity of the proposed trail routes, including
Ganatsekwyagon, the Seneca village that was established at the southern terminus of the east branch of the Toronto Carrying Place in the late seventeenth century. The only archaeological evidence for the Seneca presence in the lower Rouge Valley that has been found so far is at the Bead Hill archaeological site and is thus, at present, the best candidate for the site of Ganatsekwyagon. Parks Canada has designated Bead Hill, which is located a few kilometres upstream at the forks of the Rouge River, as a National
Historic Site based on test excavations conducted at the site.107
The Shared Path historical park was recently created in the lower Humber River parklands in the City of Toronto, a project that was first proposed by the Societe d'histoire de Toronto, a non-profit French historical organization. The historical park utilises the existing Discovery Walks trail network in the lower Humber valley to celebrate and raise awareness of the river's natural and cultural heritage "by highlighting the inter-relationship or "shared path" of the First Nations, French and British along the
107 ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," 18; Mayer, Pihl, Poulton, and Associates (MPPA), "The Archaeological Facility Master Plan Study of the Northeast Scarborough Study Area.," report on file at the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, 1988; Mayer, Poulton and Associates Inc. (MPA), "Report on the 1991 Archaeological Investigations of the Bead Hill Site, City of Scarborough, Ontario," report on file at the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, 1991. 155
Humber River," including the Toronto Carrying Place.108 More than individual
commemorative plaques, the fifteen interpretive nodes situated along the route feature
multiple signs that highlight, through multi-lingual text, maps, photographs, and images,
points of historical interest, "creating the story of the Shared Path," hints of which remain
embedded in the landscape. As it was recognized that consultation and support from
Aboriginal communities was essential for the success of the project, Heritage Toronto
held a series of meetings with representatives of Aboriginal groups with historical ties to
the Humber River, including the Huron-Wendat, the Six Nations, the Mississaugas of the
New Credit, as well as the Metis Nation of Ontario.109
The interpretive node on the Toronto Carrying Place is comprised of three
bilingual panels illustrated with historic maps and photographs, allowing for more
detailed information than the individual commemorative plaques described above.110 It
reminds us that "Passage de Toronto" and "Toronto Carrying Place" are European
designations and that the trails' Aboriginal names (if they were named at all) have long
been forgotten. It provides a summary of the trail's history with the Huron-Wendat First
Nation, the Five Nations Iroquois, and the Mississaugas, and the only Europeans
mentioned by name are French trader Jean-Bonaventure Rousseau and his son Jean-
Baptiste, who established a trading post after the French lost this area to the British in
108 Brenda Patterson, General Manager, Parks, Forestry and Recreation, "Staff Report for Humber Historical Park - Project Update," (City of Toronto, May 31, 2010), 2-3, accessed August 1, 2011, http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2010/pe/bgrd/backgroundfile-30757.pdf. 109 It was agreed that unique interpretive nodes would present the Humber River history of the Mississauga of the New Credit, the Huron-Wendat, and Six Nations. The First Nations also agreed to a set of principles for how their language and imagery would be used on the panels. Patterson, "Staff Report..," 3-4. 110 The interpretive node for the Toronto Carrying Place is located on the east side of the river, south of the Gardiner Expressway. 156
1763. Gone are the 'great heroes' and 'nation-builders' mentioned in the earlier plaques.
The interpretive node encourages visitors to examine the modern landscape for evidence of the ancient trail that, while mostly lost to modern development, can still be traced along city streets that follow portions of its route.
Living the Toronto Carrying Place once more?
As Heather Robertson explains in her epilogue, "[w]alking the entire Toronto
Carrying Place remains a dream for many people."111 A number of obstacles stand in the way of this dream, namely that most of the land that was once crossed by the trails now consists of privately owned land, much of which has been extensively developed. In addition, the exact location of the trails remains uncertain despite extensive research by a number of individuals.112 Is it imperative, however, to find the exact route of the forest footpaths? As David Lowenthal asks, "can it be authentic to rebuild or to replace what has ceased to be functional?"113 Even if we were able to reconstruct the exact trail, no body that has walked the busy streets of Toronto or travelled through the landscape by any motorized means can experience the trails as they were in the past. The Toronto
Carrying Place trails were used prior to the advent of passable roads and crossing the
Toronto Carrying Place on foot was once a necessity, a part of daily life. Today, crossing the Toronto Carrying Place on foot would be a recreational pursuit. Furthermore, there is
111 Robertson, Walking into Wilderness, 212. 112 Robertson presents the most recent attempt to trace the Humber Carrying Place created by Ken Carter. Carter superimposed what he believes to be the path of the trail, based on a study of surveyors' maps, Percy Robinson's map, and his own "foot-slogging", on a modern digital map; Roberston, Walking into Wilderness, 213. "3Lowenthal, "Authenticities Past and Present," 9. 157
not only one authentic experience of the trails in the past: the Toronto Carrying Place has seen countless experiences lived and discussed along its trails. Just as the eighteenth- century fur trader did not share the same experience of the trails as his contemporary
Anishinaabe guide, nor did either of them share the same experiences as the fifteenth- century ancestral Wendat woman or the Palaeo-Indian caribou hunter.
While some scholars argue that the Toronto Carrying Place trails followed one route throughout its existence, others are open to the idea that there may have been several routes at different times over its long history.114 Routes could have changed due to variations in water levels, seasonal changes, or even the interests or intentions of travellers - as described above, the trails were used for many different reasons throughout history. The maps of the Humber, Don, and Rouge trails created in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries were but snapshots of what the trails looked like at a particular moment in time. Conversely, as "embodiment of intentions," it is possible that some of the maps represented where explorers hoped the trails would lead. As such, their depiction as singular lines, Williamson argues, is unreasonable.115 If the terms 'Passage de Toronto' and later 'Toronto Carrying Place' originally represented more than just the individual trails but the actual land it crossed, then finding and interpreting the
"authentic" trail is perhaps an unnecessary and even futile exercise.116 It does not mean,
114 Robinson, Toronto during the French Regime, 1-2; Kapches, "The Toronto Scarp," 3; ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," 57; Williamson, "It's Not the Trail"; and Robertson, Walking into Wilderness, 212. This more recent view of various potential routes for the Toronto Carrying Place is also reflected in the Shared Path historical park; "Toronto Carrying Place/Le Portage de Toronto" interpretive node. 115 Williamson, "It's Not the Trail." 116 Williamson, "It's Not the Trail,"; ASI, "East Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place," 57. ASI suggests that an interpretive trail can take advantage of "the amorphous spirit" of the Toronto Carrying Place and be 158
however, that we should stop imagining the Toronto Carrying Place. While the past is
perhaps irretrievable, Lowenthal reminds us that
its sounds and sights, its artifacts and insights, continue to instruct and amaze our new eyes, new ears, new minds. These time-travel sorties immeasurably enhance our lives. Let us relish rather than regret being aware (...) that what we do is in some ways wrong, in most ways imperfect, and in all ways ephemeral.117
SUMMARY
Unlike Chapters 2 and 3 which explored the Toronto Carrying Place as it was
lived and discussed while it was actively used, this chapter focuses on how it has been
imagined since the late nineteenth century by people who have never physically walked
its trails. In order to do so, this chapter explores quite different data sources, presenting
more conventional historical, geographical, and archaeological research on the trails,
alongside more 'public' narratives, such as those found on heritage plaques and commemorations.
Since transforming from a milieu de memoire to a lieu de memoire, the Toronto
Carrying Place has been imagined and re-imagined by historians, archaeologists, heritage practitioners, and the general public, with public re-imagination usually following changes in the academic. Curzon's "darling of the centuries" who travelled across a bountiful and cheerful landscape to trade at Fort Rouille became Robinson's "grotesque and terrible figures" who travelled through wild and primitive forests. What was initially an illustration of two schools of thought regarding the actual route of the Humber routed within a corridor within which various examples of interactions with the trails have been identified, highlighting areas of cultural and natural heritage of interest to the communities through which the trails traverse. 117 Lowenthal, "Authenticities Past and Present," 16. 159
Carrying Place has become the accepted version of trail alternatives that were used in the past. 'Indians' are now recognized as Huron-Wendat First Nation, Five Nations Iroquois, and Mississaugas. Metis people are now included in the narrative, and the descendants of those who walked the trails in the past are now being consulted for input on the interpretation of their history. While older commemorative plaques celebrate 'great explorers' and 'national heroes' such as Brule, La Salle, and Simcoe, new ones celebrate
French traders Jean-Bonaventure and Jean-Baptiste Rousseau. While experts now believe that Brule probably never travelled the Toronto Carrying Place, Jefferys' sketch will forever be ingrained in our imagination. What was once a single route is potentially just one of many, and what was once a series of trails is potentially the landscape they crossed. A quick internet search reveals that the Toronto Carrying Place has today been re-imagined as a dispersed monastic community, a golf course and a subdivision, is a
| J Q geocaching location, and even has a fan page on a popular social networking site.
Interpretive trails and historical parks, of which there is a growing interest, encourage learning while travelling. Not only do they teach us about the past, but they also teach us how the past is deeply rooted in landscape. Though the Toronto Carrying
Place and its trails have ceased to exist in their original form, they continue to exist in our
118 The Toronto Carrying Place dispersed monastic community is described in the "Canadian Fresh Expressions List" of The Institute of Evangelism website (accessed October 16, 2011, http://institute.wycliffecollege.ca/2008/07/canadian-fresh-expressions-list/). The Carrying Place Golf & Country Club is located along Weston Road in Kettleby, Ontario; see www.carryingplace.com (accessed October 16, 2011). The Carrying Place subdivision is located in the City of Vaughan; see http://www.carryingplace.org (accessed October 16, 2011). For information on the Humber Carrying Place as a geocaching site, see http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx7guids418784cl-cf2c-46dl- b077-7da29b87058a (accessed October 16, 2011). Two people "like" the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Toronto-Carrying-Place-Trail/103348059719860 (accessed October 16,2011). collective imagination and will continue to do so through our studies, our debates, celebrations, and commemorations. 161
CHAPTER FIVE: ENVOI
Research projects often lead you down unexpected paths. What was initially
supposed to be an ethno-historical study of the Toronto Carrying Place developed into an exploration and synthesis of disparate lines of thinking, forms of evidence, and ways of
knowing. This thesis explores how people throughout history have come to know and
ascribe meaning to landscape and place. It focuses on the case study of the Toronto
Carrying Place, a unique cultural landscape that while of great antiquity, continues to resonate with people today. A short historiography of the study of cultural landscapes in
academic and heritage management settings reveals an extensive range of theoretical and
methodological approaches. As each approach has something different to offer to our
overall understanding of how people make sense of landscape and place, I argue that it is only through multiple approaches that we can find a rich and nuanced understanding of the overlapping narratives that effectively create place. Following Keith Basso, I suggest that landscape and place, past and present can be known in three ways, whether by local peoples or outsiders: people come to know and make sense of landscape, and in so doing ascribe meaning to it, by living it, by discussing it, and by imagining it.
This study brings together theoretical and methodological concepts, tools, and data that cross disciplinary boundaries and that are not usually combined within a single research project. It begins with an exploration of a series of experiential themes lived along the Toronto Carrying Place based on a phenomenological tradition; it explores embodied experiences rooted in landscape through a look at the archaeological record of the north shore, the historically and geographically situated social and political realities 162
that might have influenced travel through the same landscape, and the writings of early
Europeans in the region. Next, it explores the various ways people have discussed and communicated about the Toronto Carrying Place in the past following a narrative- descriptive approach as espoused by Yi-Fu Tuan; it explores narratives about experiences rooted in landscape through a look at stories that have been told, places that have been named, journals and letters that have been written, and maps that have been drawn.
Finally, this thesis explores the various ways the Toronto Carrying Place, as a lieu de memoire, has been imagined and re-imagined since the late nineteenth century; it explores stories about stories about experiences rooted in landscape through a look at various narratives that have been presented on the trails based on historical, geographical, and archaeological research, heritage plaques and other commemorative activities, and other various sources.
An exploration of such disparate lines of thinking, ways of knowing, and forms of evidence provides a unique and nuanced look at the Toronto Carrying Place, one that considers the various historically specific, individually experienced, and culturally constructed ways that people have come to know and ascribe meaning to this cultural landscape. Such a broad approach, however, can only scratch the surface of this potentially richer and more nuanced narrative as each way of knowing the Toronto
Carrying Place could form its own individual thesis. Due to the broad scope of study, I had to rely on previously recorded texts and eschew any fieldwork, interviews, or ethnographic research of my own, all of which would have greatly informed this thesis. 163
Similarly, the scope of the project only allowed for a cursory exploration of the various types of sources used.
I do not view this, however, as a failure or a weakness. On the contrary, this study demonstrates the need for collaboration among the various disciplines producing research on cultural landscapes and with related professional disciplines such as heritage management, conservation and planning. In addition, this study has raised a number of future avenues for research concerning the Toronto Carrying Place. For example, many other potential experiential themes concerning peoples' lived experiences on and of the
Toronto Carrying Place can be explored. In addition, an investigation of the oral traditions and histories of other Aboriginal groups who have used the trails in the past could lead to more insights as to their relationships with the landscape and the trails of the north shore. There are also many more toponyms, historical documents, and maps to explore, and questions of how the Toronto Carrying Place was imagined when it was still a milieu de memoire have not even been broached. Exploring how people experience the
Toronto Carrying Place today as they follow interpretive trails would also provide insights into the relationships that exist between walking, movement, and our connection to landscape, present and past. The latter would find a home amongst the growing body of phenomenological work by people like Tim Ingold and Jo Vergunst on the cultural aspects of walking.1
1 See "Culture from the ground: walking, movement and placemaking," Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen, accessed October 23, 2011, http://www.abdn.ac.uk/anthropology/walking.php; and Ingold and Vergunst, Ways of Walking. 164
An exploration of cultural landscapes through different ways of knowing inevitably necessitates a grounding in theoretically and methodologically disparate lines of thinking. While this can prove challenging and, at times, almost incommensurable, such an exploration provides insights that would not be available using a single approach.
This is especially useful when it comes to the study, understanding, and preservation of ephemeral landscape features such as forest footpaths in the distant past. The insights provided by this single case study show the potential in applying this approach to the study of other cultural landscapes. 165
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