Wakestock is admittedly not my cup of tea, and if I can avoid it and its fans I will try (see post below), but it’s a big city and there is space for everybody to play. Yet The Star’s fine music and culture writer Ben Rayner is reporting of some rather atrocious and disturbing activity on the island this past weekend:
The dirt bike daredevils on the “freestyle moto-x” circuit, meanwhile, were left sitting atop their jumps while some dude with a scissor lift and a chainsaw hacked out chunks of the aged trees they were hitting during their wilder ascents.
The motocross antics are always a guilty, polluting pleasure. But watching some beautiful old-growth foliage defiled when the cityscape across the harbour was half-obscured by a brown film was kinda horrifying.
“I give you air and this is what you do to me?” exclaimed one of De La Soul’s three MCs — I’m not sure which one because I was watching the firewood fall with everyone else — in the middle of their spirited early-evening set. Fifteen minutes later, he was rather more direct: a cry of “Do not cut down any more f—ing trees!” was heard echoing over the discount sporting-goods displays. Some of us were already too upset to watch anymore.
We hope that random cutting of trees was not part of Wakestock’s contract with the City of Toronto — and that appropriate penalties will be levied. Rayner did a good job capturing the mood of this event, and also this particular trangression, even though he perpetuated the myth that you can’t swim in Lake Ontario.
(Thanks to Jonathan of the Public Space Committee for pointing this out, and thanks to De La Soul for sticking up for Toronto’s trees.)
18 comments
I inadvertently ended up on the islands while wakestock was going on yesterday. The ferry ticket lines were mad, but the islands themselves were mostly ok (though that may have been that I didn’t take the centre island ferry).
On the other hand, I encountered several huge, gas-guzzling and ad-laden vehicles. They sure didn’t look like emergency vehicles (normally the only vehicles allowed over there) – I sure hope they had to pay through the teeth to bring them over.
does it really surprise anyone that trashy shit like wakeboarding and motocross attracts the kind of crown that doesn’t give a shit about their environment.
Yeah, I agree with Guul. This type of behavior kind of sounds like par for the course with a motocross crowd. The behavior sounds atrocious but not at all surprising..
Cancel the fucking event. This city is better off without self-absorbed fucknuts who take part in this sort of behavior. It’s completely unacceptable and the city should not tolerate it. Cancel the event and the jocks will stay off the island and leave our trees alone, who gives a fuck about this trashy event anyway?
Very Woodstock ’99…
Sue them for however much it will cost to replace those damaged trees. Then make sure they never come back to any part of GTA ever again.
Send them back to Crystal Beach or some other god-forsaken clapped out place.
The unmitigated brass of them to do such a thing to old growth trees.
The city has to go after these idiots. They must penalize Wakestock with heavy fines and penalties for the damage they did. Weren’t there any police around to stop them from cutting the trees? They are invited to our city and this is what they do to it? Time to send all that trash packing up back north…
How does anyone even get away with pulling out a chainsaw, let alone firing it up? I can’t believe the city agrees to have such noisy, ridiculous events (even big concerts) on the island.
It’s important to try and limit our problem with Wakestock to this tree cutting. What I think of Wakestock culture is irrelevant, because at some other point some noisy city event might be *my* noisy city event that other people think is ridiculous, and I’d hope they would tolerate it, because that’s how cities work.
they fucked up, their privileges should be revoked. no more wakestock, ever. period. end of story. let those stupid little kids fuck up some other city with their juvenile stunts
I completely agree with Shawn. Living on College St, the noise, crowds and mess from the World Cup of Soccer last year was very annoying. Yet I still tolerated it.
Indeed, the people responsible for the chainsaw should be severely fined. But this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t host Wakestock again. It would be like saying that Toronto should never host an international sporting event again, after the brawl that occurred the other week.
What bugs me is the fact that they’re hacking away at public property rather than just telling the riders to adjust their riding technique for one day. If the tree is in the way, go around the damn tree.
I want to point out a couple things as I was there when it happened. First of all I don’t recall it like the TStar writer. As soon as me and the rest of the crowd became aware of it we yelled at it to stop. As much as you (the commenters) wanna put down the crowd and imagine what you think we’re like, we were yelling just as much as De La Soul for the guy to stop and he did. If we really had been a bunch of rednecks we would’ve cheered for him to cut down the whole gaddam tree, instead it was (a tleast during the De La Soul show) just one branch I saw go down and it wasn’t very big.
sookie> What we have here is the case of the Rashomon effect, chainsaw style.
The act of cutting even one unauthorized branch of a public tree for an event — Wakestock or the PopeStock (why didn’t they call World Youth Day popestock?) or Pride, it doesn’t matter — is important to bring up as principal. There is so much work being done by non-profits and individuals in this city to maintain the fragile urban forest, the casual disregard, as portrayed by Ben Rayner (who I trust as a cultural and city observer) is why we posted the link to the Star story.
Many people were as upset when World Youth Day occurred because the Catholic Church refused to sign the city of Toronto’s standard Anti-Racism, access and equity policy, but it still happened. A small thing, maybe branch size, but a big deal for GLTB groups, and etc. Which is why the commentors who disdained Wakestock culture were doing a disservice to the real issue, and muddling it, and getting the backs up of people who like wakestock events.
Rashomon though, nice movie.
Doesn’t the city cut trees/branches down on a daily basis all for the sake of electricity?
One of the organizers of Wakestock is the same person who got the filming permits for the giant T debacle in our parks earlier this year.
Needless to say, I am not surprised.
piss off about your moto wake boarder comment and go update your computer and your blackberry then when the landfills are full with all your techno waste and the land scape is flooded to power your gadgets you can complain about a few trees beeing cut down.
I lived at Toronto Island Marina – that is right beside the Wakestock event, season 2006 and 2007. You folks witnessed the tree cutting; this is what I witnessed:
1) All the grass chewed up where the event took place and it took 2 weeks to mend. So the thousands of visitors – with families etc., arrived to a mess of parkland.
2) Wakestock has an electrical company teak the electricity for major capacity. They ran cords and plugged in at the marina and it was cranked so high the ground and water (boats) vibrated.
3) Wakestock event crew camped out in the park and stayed up all night using their Wakeboard pool and yelling etc.
4) Wakestock event crew used the Toronto Island Marina’s washroom facilities and drove the mere distance in their golf carts at 30 km/h with no lights on a pedestrian path (kids & pets roam free). Though asked not too it took a dozen requests at least.
5) A young woman was physically assaulted on Toronto Island Marina property by Wakestock event crew and their plain clothes security. She had done nothing, no charges were laid and to this day she doesn’t know why a security guard pushed in a washroom stall while she had her pants around her ankles and attempted to physically remove her. To this day Wakestock and their security company have yet to return her phone calls and emails that she is enlisting a lawyer to sue.
6) Lots of broken glass
7) This season they’ve brought in security that has a muzzled dog.
I view this event as a dangerous event, a threat not just to nature but to people too.