Exploring another great lake in Toronto
TORONTO — One good thing about a long-distance relationship is how separation illuminates discovery. That is what I think about when my mind drifts to Toronto. I’ve enjoyed the city’s ethnic cuisine, the abundance of record stores, the warmth of the people.
Toronto seems more progressive than Chicago, even though Toronto looks at Chicago’s lakefront as a model for urban development. But Toronto’s Lake Ontario — the easternmost and smallest of the Great Lakes — is quite unlike our Lake Michigan.
(Photo courtesy of Toronto Tourism)
KAYAKING: Kayak season runs from May through October, weather permitting. Kayak and canoe rentals are available at Harbourfront Canoe and Kayak Centre, 283A Queen’s Quay West, (800) 960-8886; paddletoronto.com. Rental rates for kayaks start at $27 an hour; $36 for a tandem.
SAILING: You can rent a sailboat at Harbourfront Centre Sailing and Powerboating, 275 Queen’s Quay West, (416) 203-3000; qqy.ca, if you have prior experience. If not, courses are offered. No experience is necessary to rent a two-person powerboat. Three-hour sailboat rentals range from $68-$159. Powerboats start at $59 an hour.
FERRIES: Ferry service to the Toronto Islands runs year-round. The Mainland Ferry Terminal on Queen’s Quay West is a 10-minute walk from Union Station.
MORE INFO: For island attractions and ferry schedules, visit toronto.ca/parks or call (416) 397-2628.
The laid-back Toronto Islands are just a 10-minute ferry ride from the mainland. I have never seen anything like the Toronto Islands in an urban setting.
Three major islands and 21 smaller specks of land form a buffering arc in the lake. The islands were once moving sandbars carried westward by lake currents.
The islands comprise the largest urban car-free community in Canada. There’s a clothing-optional beach at Hanlan’s Point, the westernmost island in the chain. Algonquin and Ward’s islands have cottages from the 1920s and English-style gardens. More than 700 people live year-round on these two islands.
Centre Island is the most popular destination, featuring picnic areas, bicycle paths, a marina, restaurant and chapel. Most tourists reside in seasonal cottages.
Earlier this summer, my traveling companion, Adriana, and I rented a 17-foot-long tandem kayak from the Harbourfront Canoe and Kayak Centre between the CN Tower and the Toronto Harbour. It took us about a half hour to paddle out to the islands in a fierce wind. Kayaking was a smart transportation choice as a city workers’ strike shut down municipal ferry operations. (The strike ended last month.)
We paddled to Centre Island and detoured through narrow channels surrounded by a bird sanctuary. We saw nesting swans, herons and turtles basking in the sun like George Wendt in the Wrigley Field bleachers. We stopped. We looked. And listened. The Toronto skyline was just two miles away but we were in another world.
Adriana thought about the beauty of nature. I thought that if Chicago had these islands, Mayor Daley would be installing parking meters.
We had lunch at the Toronto Island Marina and Yacht Club, open through Oct. 31. For a tropical Toronto getaway, check out the adjacent Upper Deck Bar and Grill, which has the funky ambiance of the Florida Keys and a stunning view of the Toronto skyline.
On the three-day weekend we also rented a 35-foot-long sailboat from Harbourfront Centre Sailing and Powerboating, a stone’s throw from the kayak place.
The beautiful boat had varnished oak trim with a pair of sails. We spent two hours aboard with captain-guide Tim Westmorland.
“Even people who live in the city are surprised at what they find when they come to the waterfront,” said Westmorland, 25, a native of London, Ontario. “When I mention I work at a yacht club in downtown Toronto people don’t realize you can rent a boat downtown.”
We departed the harbor around 15 knots. I became the captain as Westmorland and Adriana put up the second sail.
The Harbourfront Centre was behind us. The 10-acre facility (harbourfrontcent re.com) offers up to 4,000 events year-round. It has art galleries, literary fests, a lakeside boardwalk and outdoor ice skating in winter. The 25th Annual Vegetarian Food Fair, North America’s largest annual veggie fest, takes place here Friday-Sunday. At 1 p.m. Sunday, author Nick Hornby will discuss his latest book “Juliet, Naked.”
Think Navy Pier without the pier, but with more eclecticism.
“Like Chicago, Toronto is a lake city,” said Michelle Noble, communications and marketing director for Waterfront Toronto, a $27 billion initiative that works with the public and private sector to revitalize the city’s waterfront. “Here, waterfront development has been talked about a long time. Our process began with Toronto’s bid for the 2008 Olympics.
“The overall area for development is 2,000 acres,” she said. “It is as big as the main downtown core of Toronto.”
One targeted area is an old industrial section east of downtown, where at least one-quarter of future development will be devoted to parks and public space — like Chicago’s green history.
Toronto businesses are more accessible to the water than those in Chicago. Many harborfront developments jut into the water. There is easy pedestrian access from downtown across Queens Quay West to Lake Ontario. You can’t get across Lake Shore Drive without the help of a pedestrian bridge.
“We looked at the Chicago model,” Noble said. “The Sydney model. London. New York. And we tried to take the best of those cities.”
That’s the beauty of a trip to Toronto. The world-class city clearly absorbs the adventurous spirit of Chicago.
Accommodations for this story were provided by Tourism Toronto and airfare was provided by Ontario Tourism.