History
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The grim history of the Ku Klux Klan in Toronto
Two men in hooded Ku Klux Klan uniforms flash Nazi salutes on a porch. Beside them, a woman with “white power” tattooed crudely across her chest stands...
By Chris Bateman -
The day the sun turned blue above Toronto
The first sign of the apocalypse came on a Saturday night in the early autumn of 1950. It was a little after 9 o’clock. That’s when a star was...
By Adam Bunch -
The slow and deadly evolution of Toronto’s crosswalks
Crossing the street in Toronto has been a potentially deadly challenge for almost a century. Until the 1950s, when the number of automobiles dramatically...
By Chris Bateman -
The giant prehistoric beavers of the Don Valley Brick Works
Meet the giant beaver. It’s one of the largest rodents to have ever walked the earth: as much as seven feet long and more than 200 pounds. So, like, the...
By Adam Bunch -
Good Reads: Special Edition of Fort York’s newsletter Fife & Drum
A special edition of the Friends of Fort York’s quarterly newsletter, Fife and Drum was released recently to celebrate the opening of the new visitor...
By Shawn Micallef -
There are 100 graves in the parking lot of this mall
The 100 or so people interred at Christie’s Methodist Cemetery near Warden and Finch never expected they would spend a portion of eternity buried...
By Chris Bateman -
Two Toronto nurses and one of the most terrible nights of the First World War
One dark night in the summer of 1918, the HMHS Llandovery Castle was steaming through the waters of the North Atlantic. She was far off the southern tip...
By Adam Bunch -
How Tomlin’s Creek was lost, found, and lost again
There’s ancient Lake Iroquois sand on Glen Davis Crescent near Kingston Rd. and Woodbine Ave., you just have to look closely to see it. A clue to...
By Chris Bateman -
The first (almost) Canadian President
There’s a small town on the very western edge of England, not far from the River Severn, which marks the border with Wales. It’s called Thornbury. It’s a...
By Adam Bunch -
Lake Ontario is a Sea
A few weeks ago I biked over to The Guild park. Known for its collection of modern Toronto “ruins”, a bonus to visiting the park is its unobstructed view...
By Daniel Rotsztain -
How the CN Tower killed Toronto’s rooftop lookouts
There was a time when observation decks were all the rage in Toronto. The designers and developers of tall buildings like TD Centre, Commerce Court, and...
By Chris Bateman -
A.Y. Jackson paints for his life
It was 1916. The First World War was in full swing. And while men were dying in the trenches all around him, A.Y. Jackson was about to save his own life...
By Adam Bunch