Walking the Garrison Creek

Recently, we have seen unprecedented levels of rainfall, causing dangerous and disruptive flooding. Impermeable surfaces are often cited as a reason why our cities flood. We also have answer for where cities flood as well, because the land remembers. 

There have been numerous recent examples where former environmental features have become present during a major flooding event. In Abbotsford, a flood in 2021 matched the location of Sumas Lake, which was drained in the 1920s for farmland. Just last week, a flood in West-Island revealed numerous filled waterways.

Toronto is no exception to this rule: as you can see in the map below, Toronto had a significant number of waterways crisscross the City, with most filled in by 1949. Only the waterways in blue still exist. You can explore this map here.

While many of these waterways really only make appearances during floods, one particular waterway influences geography in Toronto today: the Garrison Creek. Filled between 1920 and 1960 and converted to a storm sewer, the creek's impact is still visible in a few ways in Toronto, notably its park system and road network. In fact, a lot of the parks only exist because of the waterway. I took a walk along the former river in order to see how it has influenced our City today.

I started my walk at the intersection of Ossington and Geary, beside the aptly named Garrison Creek Park. This is about where the two source tributaries to the north combined into the creek (funnily, these two tributaries were filled far after the main section of the creek was).

There is little sign of the river along Ossington and Pendrith, but the first sign of where the creek ran is a very visible place: Christie Pits Park. This park sits around ten metres below street level, and is the location of a large 'bowl' in the creek's course. Keep in mind this trend of bowls marking the river.

While Bloor to the south is back to street level, Bickford Park, located just a bit south on Montrose, is another example of a bowl park. 

At the south end of Bickford Park, there is a concrete wall at Harbord Street. This is actually a piece of the Harbord Street Bridge, which used to carry the street over the creek. The bridge was never removed, just filled in with soil. Art Eggleton Park falls within the watercourse, but there is no evidence of this.

While most of the streets follow a grid, Montrose and Crawford in this neighbourhood have a weird curve to them. These roads match up nearly exactly to the watercourse, and appear to have been built after the river was buried. The curvature of the roads has allowed for the City to install some small green spaces in disused rights-of-way.

The next park, Fred Hamilton Playground, dips down a little in the southwest corner, with more grade changes further south in the small Roxton Road Parkette. The Garrison Creek combined here with the Denison Creek, which extends west, passing through Dufferin Grove Park. The installation of an old canoe as a planter is a great nod to what used to be here. The waterway passed through the greenspace to the southeast that is part of the Bellwoods building.

At the intersection of Shaw and Dundas, the corners are marked to acknowledge the Garrison Creek. Closer to Crawford, there is a historic plaque explaining the history of the creek, and the Crawford Street Bridge.

Similar to the concrete wall at Harbord Street, the concrete walls here are a part of the old bridge. The fill that buried this bridge was from the tunneling of the Bloor-Danforth subway.

 

The steep incline into the Trinity Bellwoods Dog Bowl is another marker of the creek. Like Christie Pits, the lowest point of the bowl sits nine to ten metres below street level. The Gore Vale was a notable house that sit overlooking the creek, at the corner of Queen and Gore Vale, which was demolished in 1920.

South of Queen, the park winds its way over to Stanley Park and South Stanley Park. Niagara Street has a peculiar curve here, because the street used to the pathway along the edge of the valley. Some other tributaries joined the creek near here, before the creek turned east and ran along the north side of Fort York, which supplied the 'Garrison' name. 

The Garrison Creek finished its trip by ending in Lake Ontario near what is the intersection of Bathurst and Fort York (noting that anything south of here was fill). 

My walk here helped me visualize the Toronto the past, and really put into perspective the ways that water as a resource and an ecosystem had been mistreated in the past. First, we polluted the waterway. Then, we used the excuse of pollution as a reason to cover the waterway, overlaying a strict road grid. The land remembers. When Christie Pits fills with water, or Niagara Street becomes a spontaneous river, it should come as no surprise: the strength of water cannot be paved over. I recommend that others take this walk to see the City of the past. 

Below you can see the route I took, which was about 6.4km in length. I recommend going from the north towards the lake, as you follow the gradual incline of the City, but there will be some uphill portions from Christie Pits, Bickford Park, and Trinity Bellwoods Park.