{"id":47408,"date":"2014-01-20T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-01-20T13:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=47408"},"modified":"2014-12-21T19:50:20","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T00:50:20","slug":"landfill-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/01\/20\/landfill-islands\/","title":{"rendered":"Landfill on the Toronto Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I took this photo of Gibraltar Point Beach on a long walk around Toronto Islands during the city&#8217;s most recent cold snap. Because parts of the Island are exceedingly untamed, especially in the isolated winter, I was surprised to see Leslie Street Spit-style slabs of concrete and twisted rebar landfill breaking the otherwise undomesticated landscape of the Island&#8217;s south-west beach.<\/p>\n<p>As <a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2012\/06\/24\/sunday-on-the-island1\/\" target=\"_blank\">past posts<\/a>\u00a0have explored, the Toronto Islands were formed when land from the dramatic erosion of the Scarborough Bluffs dropped into Lake Ontario and was pushed by the lake&#8217;s current to form a peninsular sand bar. Though always referred to as &#8220;The Islands&#8221;, a powerful storm in 1858 pierced its thin connection to mainland Toronto, rendering them islands in the true sense.<\/p>\n<p>Looking at a few historical Toronto maps (courtesy of the fantastic <a href=\"http:\/\/oldtorontomaps.blogspot.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\">Historical Maps of Toronto<\/a> blog), the shape of the sand bar changes dramatically. For its first hundreds of years, the form of the Toronto Islands changed every year and after every storm.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_47410\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-47410\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1818.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-47410\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1818-600x438.png\" alt=\"Source: http:\/\/oldtorontomaps.blogspot.ca\/\" width=\"600\" height=\"438\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1818-600x438.png 600w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1818-300x219.png 300w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1818.png 660w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-47410\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Toronto Island, 1818<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_47411\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-47411\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1834.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-47411\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1834-600x405.png\" alt=\"Toronto Island, 1834\" width=\"600\" height=\"405\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1834-600x405.png 600w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1834-300x202.png 300w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1834.png 706w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-47411\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Toronto Island, 1834<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_47412\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-47412\" style=\"width: 542px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1860.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-47412\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1860.png\" alt=\"Toronto Island, 1860\" width=\"542\" height=\"348\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1860.png 542w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/1860-300x192.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 542px) 100vw, 542px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-47412\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Toronto Island, 1860<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When the Leslie Street Spit peninsula made its final extension into the lake in the 1970s, the flow of sand from the Scarborough Bluffs was effectively blocked. Consequently, the Islands <a href=\"http:\/\/urbantoronto.ca\/forum\/showthread.php\/4591-Toronto-Islands-slipping-into-Lake-Ontario-through-erosion\" target=\"_blank\">have been eroding<\/a>, their sand pushed away by the lapping waves of Lake Ontario without the replenishing effect of the Bluffs&#8217; accumulative currents of land.<\/p>\n<p>The city&#8217;s response has been to dump landfill along the Island&#8217;s south shore to curb erosion. In fact, the City has been doing this for more than a hundred years. In 1885, with the vision of Central Park style forests, lawns and meadows,\u00a0the City decided to &#8220;parkify&#8221; the Islands and began dumping soil and infill to landscape and tame the wild, constantly changing landform (picture the French-style geometric gardens that lead from Centre Island to the pier, and the constantly mown fields just to their west). More recently, the City has embraced <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/gta\/2013\/02\/24\/toronto_landscape_architect_michael_hough_leaves_legacy_of_urban_ecology_hume.html\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Hough<\/a> style &#8220;natural processes&#8221;, and native plants are reclaiming their habitats.<\/p>\n<p>In both cases &#8212; the historical parkification, and the current attempts to curb erosion &#8212; I can vividly see how this wild place is slowly being taken over by the deep urbanity across the Bay. As the Toronto Islands remain untamed in many senses, I hope that a delicate balance is maintained between the urbanity and wildness that characterizes Toronto&#8217;s frontier shoreline as we <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/gta\/2014\/01\/20\/council_port_authority_pave_way_for_harmful_island_airport_expansion_hume.html\" target=\"_blank\">continue to negotiate<\/a> the Island&#8217;s role in our cityscape.<\/p>\n<p><em>Daniel Rotsztain is the Urban Geographer. After six years of formal and informal education in Montreal, Halifax and Amsterdam, he is happily back in his home-city of Toronto and ready to respond to it with words and art. Check out <a href=\"http:\/\/theurbangeographer.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">his website,<\/a> or say hello on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/theurbangeog\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>!<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I took this photo of Gibraltar Point Beach on a long walk around Toronto Islands during the city&#8217;s most recent cold snap. Because parts of the Island are exceedingly untamed, especially in the isolated winter, I was surprised to see Leslie Street Spit-style slabs of concrete and twisted rebar landfill breaking the otherwise undomesticated landscape<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/01\/20\/landfill-islands\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Landfill on the Toronto Islands&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8085,"featured_media":47409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-waterfront"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Landfill on the Toronto Islands - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/01\/20\/landfill-islands\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Landfill on the Toronto Islands - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I took this photo of Gibraltar Point Beach on a long walk around Toronto Islands during the city&#8217;s most recent cold snap. Because parts of the Island are exceedingly untamed, especially in the isolated winter, I was surprised to see Leslie Street Spit-style slabs of concrete and twisted rebar landfill breaking the otherwise undomesticated landscapeContinue reading &quot;Landfill on the Toronto Islands&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/01\/20\/landfill-islands\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-01-20T13:00:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-12-22T00:50:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/Landfill-Island-600x450.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Daniel Rotsztain\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Rotsztain\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/01\/20\/landfill-islands\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/01\/20\/landfill-islands\/\",\"name\":\"Landfill on the Toronto Islands - 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