This Night Walk with the Lost Rivers and Rivers Rising initiatives traces hidden histories of the Garrison Creek, which enters Lake Ontario just east of Fort York, the military garrison for the region. Closed since the 1920s, the hidden creek has gained interest as new initiatives have formed to draw attention to the relationships between “lost” creeks, community planning, and urban design by restoring buried bridges and regenerating the Garrison Creek ravine system.
Event Notes: Rain or (moon) shine, participants will meet promptly at 8pm in front of Christie Subway Station on the corner of Christie Street and Bloor Street West.
Accessibility: The Night Walk involves active walking through various paths in a public park with a few stops to rest over the course of the program.
Image Credits: Maria Thereza Alves, Garrison Creek, 2019, on display at 259 Lake Shore Blvd E for the Toronto Biennial of Art.
Bios
Lost Rivers is a small group of citizen geographers, researching and mapping the long-buried creeks. Newer related projects are Rivers Rising and RAINscapeTO, both social enterprises that connect people to neighbourhood greening projects and eco gardening job opportunities. Grounded in historical connections of the place to Indigenous, settler, and immigrant communities, Lost Rivers/Rivers Rising travels through time to envision a future for the city that connects us all.
Nicholas Power is a founding member of the Meet the Presses literary collective, and has performed with the storytelling duo The Wordweavers and the sound poetry ensemble Alexander’s Dark Band. As part of the River Poets (Maureen Harris, Maureen Hynes and more,) he has read along the Don, the Humber, lost rivers and wild places. He has been published by Teksteditions (Melancholy Scientist and The Boneshaker Anthology), Underwhich Editions (wells), The Writing Space (a modest device), FindorCreate (a wrinkle in the mind) and Battered Press (No Poems). He has been editing and publishing with his own Gesture Press for 30 years.
Rivers Rising (based in Toronto, ON, Canada) showcases community-led, neighbourhood walks, through our parks ravines, and watersheds, where you can learn the stories of people, place, and the politics that shape the neighbourhood over time. Grounded in historical connections of the place to indigenous, settler, and immigrant communities, we travel through time to envision a future for the city that connects us all. Rivers Rising is a collaborative project of the Toronto Green Community’s Lost Rivers program, and the Toronto Community Garden Network (TCGN) / Toronto Urban Growers.
Setayesh Babaei is an Iranian-Canadian artist and designer based in Toronto. During her undergraduate studies at OCAD University in the Environmental Design program, she dedicated her work to the realization of the buried rivers in Toronto and their transformation due to urbanization from waterways to underground sewage systems. Her project explores the history as well as the future of the city’s hydrological system; from the greenbelt to rivers, the “Veins” of our city. Besides her full-time career as a designer at a transportation planning and engineering company, Setayesh has been collaborating with the Toronto Lost Rivers for the past two years. She is currently a graduate student at OCAD University where she is continuing to develop her project and expand her research.
Tsiktsinensawe Yakonkwe/Rhonda Lucy of the Mohawk Nation is the founder and Artistic Director of Sun Raven Arts established in 2015. Birthed out of the Idle No More Movement, MMIWM2 initiatives and the 94 Calls to Action. Sun Raven Arts aims to empower voices through the arts and tradition by means of alternative methods of learning and healing. Offering arts based education, cultural awareness, trainer training, trauma and harm reductions arts based programming, workshops, lectures/talks, and production in both live performance and film.