Riparian Diversions

Now I lay me down in green pastures, but preferably the ones near rivers. Image by Midjourney.

Humans are terrestrial creatures, but inexplicably are drawn to water. Maybe it's not that inexplicable. We do need water to live. Aren't we mostly made up of the stuff? I often attribute it to my island upbringing for my fascination with water, but it isn't necessarily true. So many days I've started a bike ride with no intentions to go anywhere but still find myself drawn out to the Leslie Spit, a purpose-made headland created from demolition rubbish. Out on the point of broken concrete and brick, you can feel like you're out in Lake Ontario. Standing out looking over the water is one of my only ways to see the horizon in Toronto.

Being near or out on the water is the best way to forget about the city but it's not always about leaving things behind as much as finding new things. Probably the most surprising part of Toronto is the amount of nature you can encounter thanks to the Ravines. You have to go pretty far to completely leave the built world behind. So many Saturdays I would ride 50-60 KM away from my house and still never leave the city, never leaving its sights, sounds or smells behind. One summer we went kayaking on the Humber River. You can ride your bike or just take the subway to a parking lot where a company rents kayaks and canoes. At the launch point you can paddle beneath the bridge that carries the east-west subway leaving you in the curious position of being on a lazy river looking up at a subterranean rail line. Once, while floating past the shoreline, I thought I spotted eggs nestled in the grass but on closer inspection they were really just faded golf balls. I guess I wanted them to be eggs, even if it made no sense. That paddle was full of surprising encounters. Gliding in and out of inlets thick with water lilies and tall marshy grasses, we met swans, ducks, spied fish below, spotted hawks floating above and saw egrets walking in the shallow water or perched in a willow. Those sleepy, slender white birds, lazing about on an equally slim branch seemed like an image from a Japanese wood block print. The image is still in my mind. Later in the year, we returned to the Humber to watch the salmon run and their attempts to jump the weirs in the river.

I'm assuming many cities have their unique moments. When you grow up in a farm town you may mistakenly think you're more connected to nature than city folk. Yet, I've had a lot of moments of seeing nature in Toronto that might surprise you, like seeing a fox catch a rabbit only to lose it by the intervention of some cheeky onlookers. The dying rabbit was dropped by the fleeing fox and both slipped into the darkness. The fox into the tall grass, the rabbit into Lake Ontario. While paddling around Toronto Island, I watched a mink determined to drag a fish twice its size to shore and disappear in the underbrush. I've seen traffic held up by a frightened deer which leapt over one car and left a sizeable dent in the fender of a BMW as it bounded over another lane of traffic. There were a family of rabbits I would often pass on rides through Mississauga. Once when kayaking in Toronto Harbour, a magnificent bass jumped the bow of my kayak. I nearly soiled myself in surprise. There have been too many encounters with squirrels, skunks, raccoons, swans, ducks, cormorants, and loons to mention. The only time I felt truly stupid was mistaking a possum for a cat and almost petting it before it looked up and met my stare with its beady rodent eyes.

Minutes from my home, embedded in concrete, steel and the asphalt of dense traffic are rolling trails on the shore of the Don River where I can find bat boxes and sculpture gardens beneath trees and over muddy creeks. Sure, Toronto isn't exactly Wind in the Willows but it has a surprising lot to offer and plenty of places to get lost, especially in your thoughts.