Port Lands - History

History

The land was formerly marshland and delta of the Don River in Toronto. The area was connected to the Toronto Islands archipelago until a violent storm in 1858 created a natural channel break turning the archipelago into a series of islands to the west. Much of the port lands were initially part of Ashbridge's Bay, which consisted of a five square kilometre triangular shaped area of marshes and ponds surrounded by sandbars. The water and reeds in marsh provided habitat for birds and other animals. The marshy area was gradually filled in to make more available land for industry and shipping, beginning in the 1880s. Gooderham and Worts used the marsh to dispose of waste from pigs and cattle, as well as wheat swill from their distilling operations. The once natural area was now an open sewage dump and became a health hazard by the 1890s (threat of a cholera outbreak) forced the city to act.

The Don River's mouth was filled in and the river was re-routed into the Keating Channel (named for the City engineer Edward Henry Keating (1844–1912), who devised the idea to re-route the Don) into the inner harbour and a large shipping channel (the inner basin) was created to allow access into the center of industry in the 1910s. Until the mid-20th century the marshy area within the sand spits become further filled in and developed industrially under the watch of the Toronto Harbour Commission. With deindustrialization spreading rapidly by the 1980s, and oil companies writing off polluted lands to avoid future liability, much of the previous land uses became abandoned.

The port industrial uses have been reduced to a 50-acre (200,000 m2) shipping facility and a cruise ship terminal, both run by the Toronto Port Authority, an electrical generating station, road salt storage, a "concrete campus" and roof shingle manufacturing along with municipal services such as a waste transfer station on the site of a deactivated incinerator, a Toronto Hydro utility yard, and a TTC wheel trans garage. Other commercial uses also exist on the land, but the majority is still abandoned brownfields.

The vast majority of the lands were transferred to the City of Toronto in the 1990s. The area is ear-marked for cleanup and redevelopment in addition to restoring a natural mouth for the Don River. The redevelopment is being organized through the Waterfront Toronto partnership.