Story by Andrew Yee

“I used to live around Grenadier Pond when I was in university. I never went to the park. I lived basically a few minutes walk from the park, but I’d never been there. Then I discovered a family nature walk in NOW magazine.  Oh, I thought, somebody’s leading a walk and they’re going to talk about things in the park. I better go. The talk was about the savannah. I realized, wow, I just thought it was a forest. I didn’t realize it was a very unique forest because it’s fairly rare to have this kind of savannah environment in Southern Ontario, particularly in a big city. So I wondered what else could I discover?

I started to go to the park on my own. I liked going there and seeing the changes over time. Yes it’s the same place, but you never know what you’re going to see. The different seasons have different looks. In winter the trees are bare and snow covered. Come spring you see the buds come out, signalling something to look forward too. Then the nicer weather of summer, the fall colours and back to winter again. It’s a cycle, it’s change, it’s time. Down by the retention pond you can see water coming out from an aquifer.  This aquifer was created by an ancient river in southern Ontario that predates the recent ice ages. In the park you see lots of sand. That sand is from a glacier deposit from the end of the last ice age. There is evidence of a geological time scale in the park. That’s what I like.”

Story by Lynda Dunal

Toronto offers an array of winter activities to keep most sports enthusiasts happy. One activity I have recently become reacquainted with is skating.  One Saturday late afternoon this past January my husband and I were cycling on our way to try the outdoor rink at Harbourfront. As we biked along the path that runs adjacent to the south end of Grenadier pond I called out to him to stop a moment because I was hearing sounds from the pond. Peering through the rushes at the side of the path we were delighted to see skaters gliding around and across the frozen pond.

As it was nearing dusk we continued on our way to the brightly lit Harbourfront rink but early the next morning we put our skates into our backpacks and hiked on down to the south end of the pond. We knew that the city had started to monitor the pond for skating and felt some reassurance with this. Parting the bushes to gain access to the pond we were excited to see skaters of all ages and abilities enjoying the clear frozen surface. We sat on the ice to don our skates, slipped our backpacks on with our shoes inside and pushed off.

The ice was amazingly smooth and there were stretches of black, clear ice – I imagined I could see through to the bottom! Scattered about were intricate patterns etched just below the surface where either bubbles were frozen in time or cracks had refrozen into spider like shapes. We glided lazily along, past impromptu hockey games, past people just walking on the ice and families holding hands, laughing at the joy of being on such an open space. It was wonderful to skate all around the pond, gazing up at the stately homes bordering the west side of the pond, noticing details you never could see once foliage appears and never being able to get so close. Most properties have a canoe hidden close to shore! Our time was limited but we were able to enjoy several revolutions of the pond before skating to the north end where we removed our skates and continued on our way. We seldom get conditions such as this, continuous, smooth frozen ice, no snow and cold enough to create a thick enough surface to support us.

Note – it was only later that we learned the city monitors just a small area of the pond – not the whole pond that we enjoyed. We have all the other brave skaters that went before us to thank for giving us the reassurance that the rest of the pond was safe enough for us!

Story by Dianne

For many years my son participated in the Big Brothers Soap Box Derby. The event was traditionally held every September on Centre Road. He attended his first derby at the age of 7 years. After that first year he gained the nick-name of “Crash” and you can imagine why. There were many news/TV articles written about him and his big brother, including from the Villager. Even during his teen years he volunteered for the organizing committee and at the event until it was cancelled. With his love of ‘things that go’, he is now a working automotive engineer and can truly say he loves his job!

Story based on a conversation with Jon Hayes, Program Director of the High Park Nature Centre

This is a space in the city where kids can have the freedom to explore, tinker, build and play. During the summer months goldenrod, thistle, grasses and shrubs grow high above the kids heads, creating a convoluted network of trails. Because the area is completely fenced kids can explore nature without us leading them to certain things, following only their natural curiosities. Sometimes we give them a magnifying glass, a bug net or a jar. They always find really interesting things. I have done a lot of learning here as well. 

One year we found all these blue splotches on the ground and thought someone was doing an activity with blue food colouring. We started noticing that it was usually next to rabbit scat. We did some research and discovered that when rabbits eat the bark of a buckthorn shrub their urine reacts with the sunlight and turns blue. It was a totally mind boggling discovery for us!

Goldenrod is one of the main plants here. It’s a great food and shelter source for many species of insects, so there’s a surprisingly rich biodiversity in this area. There’s also a solitary bee cabinet installed here, created by Sarah Peebles, an environmental artist. Solitary bees and wasps lay their eggs within cavities in the cabinet. You can open a door and see all of the cells, and you can plug in earphones and listen to the sounds of their bodies resonating.

This is also a place for play. One game that works really well in here is called “Coyote Howl”. One person gets chosen and they run and hide, and everyone tries to find that person. The kid hiding can give them a clue by howling like a coyote. When they eventually find the person hiding, they hide with them until almost everyone is hiding like a coyote pack. When the last person finds the group of hiding kids we all jump out! Within a space like this, even a simple game of tag becomes a nature game, because the feelings of trying to get away and trying to chase are the same impulses that animals must feel. 

This area used to be a lawn bowling green, which is why we still call it “The Bowling Field”. Through years and years of doing small naturalization projects, and also by just letting it grow, it has turned into something remarkable. We have been creating a similar type of area called “OURSpace” near our new location at the Forest School to create a space for kids and adults to learn, play and restore the black oak savannah plant community.

Story by AJ Alberti

“In the way that we tend to take for granted so many of the fundamentally important things in life I have never really thought of High Park in thematic terms. But in doing so now I discovered that there is a thread connecting my many years’ worth of activities in the park.

I have lived within walking distance of High Park since I moved to the area 44 years ago. In all that time the park has played a big and varied part in my life. Its natural areas have offered me a quiet retreat from the daily hustle. I have ridden and run and hiked on its paths, both paved and unpaved. My children have played on its sports fields, sung and danced in its picnic areas, planted in the Children’s Garden. As a family we enjoyed performances of Shakespeare’s plays, picnicked with friends and neighbours and helped build – and later, rebuild – the Jamie Bell Adventure Playground.

Through my 10-year participation in the Sunday Walking Tours I have learned much about the history, geography and natural features of the park. And I have made many good friends among the committee volunteers and the folks who come often to enjoy the walks.

Yet for all this the thing that centres my feelings for High Park is the friendship that brought me here in the first place. I came to Toronto in 1971 to study at U of T. Knowing nothing about the city I rented the first appropriate apartment I found, affordable and conveniently located in a quiet neighbourhood near Yonge and Eglinton which was the end of the subway line at the time.

Within a couple of months I met Jim. He lived on Algonquin Avenue, just off Parkside Drive. As we were discovering the great number of mutual interests which formed the basis of our long friendship Jim often extolled the beauties of the park and surrounding neighbourhoods, always suggesting – no, make that insisting – that I relocate. After two years I “saw the light” and from 1973 to 1983 I lived on, or within a block of, Roncesvalles Avenue, only two or three blocks from the park.

It was then that the park became “my back yard” and our common ground. We walked through it. We took dates there, rented boats and rowed on Grenadier Pond. We listened to music there. We cycled together until Jim decided to try racing and I couldn’t keep up. We practiced cross-country skiing on High Park’s snow-covered fields. We relaxed with a coffee (alas, never a beer) in the restaurant.

Inevitably, life moved forward. We got real jobs. We bought houses – he near Port Perry, which seemed so far away, and I in The Junction, still within walking and jogging distance of the park. I was Best Man at his wedding; he was my children’s favoured “Uncle Jim”. But in spite of the physical distance separating us the early bond we had formed in and around High Park sustained a lifelong friendship.

The last time I talked to Jim I was in High Park on The Naked Trees of Winter Walking Tour. My cellphone rang and it was him calling from Sicily, where he was vacationing. A week later he was dead. So the park kind of book-ended the beginning and end of our time.

And so I have come to realize that High Park has been at the centre of many of the most important friendships that have enriched my time in Toronto. Family, neighbours, friends of all sorts have had experiences and adventures in the park. Friendship has indeed been the common theme of the happy memories I am reminded of at every visit. High Park is many things to me but above all, it is friendly ground.”

Note from the artist:

I sat on a bench in High Park waiting for inspiration for this painting. For some reason as I sat there I felt compelled to turn around and read the inscription on the bench. It read…

“May you know that absence is alive with hidden presence, nothing is ever lost or forgotten”

I thought about how the friendships from our past continue to nurture our present lives. A tree that has died if left in place (called a snag) will continue to support a forest by providing habitat for birds, small mammals and insects (in fact, one article I read stated that snags provide more habitat than living trees!). How reassuring to realize that nothing is ever lost. That although a friendship may be absent, it continues to live within us, to enrich us, to feed our souls and provide habitat for our growth.

xo Sarah