My kayak shrugs into the calm waters of Lake Ontario. It is early in the morning, and as I paddle away from shore, a few dogs and their owners take advantage of the otherwise deserted Cherry Beach. As the dogs splash along the edge of the shoreline, I come to the end of the secluded outer harbor and turn north into the Eastern Channel, one of the two entrances to Toronto’s busy Inner Harbour.

A few small sailboats pass me on their way toward the lake. Leaving the trees and sand behind, I head toward the city, its port lands and the mouth of the Don River.

All concrete and progress: Lakeshore Boulevard sits atop the mouth of the Don River; above that are the Gardner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway.

To my left are the Toronto Islands, a recreational haven and vacation spot within the city that’s only a short ferry ride from the harbor. The islands shelter the harbor front with a natural barrier from choppy Lake Ontario waters during storms. Directly in front of me is the city itself, all concrete and progress. Cranes claw at the skyline. Most of the new construction is condominiums, intended to provide housing to the million or so newcomers expected to arrive in the city in the next 10 years. To my right are the Toronto port lands, an industrial area of nearly 1,000 acres, just minutes from downtown. Here, Great Lakes tankers hug piers and loom over me. I pass recycling depots, abandoned grain elevators, shipping and receiving buildings and a host of industrial plants.

I paddle under the Cherry Street Bridge and into Keating Channel. Although I’ve been a resident of Toronto for 10 years, I have yet to see the mouth of the Don River. As I approach it, I can see why it has been lost and forgotten even by those of us who live near it. Directly above the river sits the six-lane Lakeshore Boulevard, above that sits the Gardner Expressway, and yet above that is the Don Valley Parkway. The Don River was once the source and means for a city’s prosperity, but now thousands of commuters pass over it every day unaware of its existence.

The years have not been kind to the Don. Refuse collects in the lower reaches of the river.

Approaching the mouth of the river, I am met with stares of curiosity from people sitting in their cars while they’re stopped at the traffic light directly above me. It’s easy to understand why. Before turning from the Keating Channel up the Don, I am surrounded by murky brown water and another curious feature: bubbles. The greatest accumulation of sewage and garbage throughout the concrete-lined channel is at the mouth of the river. The bubbles are methane gas generated by rot and decay at the river bottom. The only wildlife visible are seagulls that, in a real twist of irony, dive and hunt for their food instead of scouring the neighborhoods hunting for garbage. Even the old industrial buildings on the south side of the river look run down and unused. The mouth of the Don River is not for the faint of heart.

A Pattern of Neglect
Cities have been unkind to the rivers that helped create them. The Don is one of many neglected urban rivers that have deteriorated over time. There are three phases of development that contributed to the degradation of the Don. It’s a pattern that can be seen in many other North American cities. The first phase in urban development was the period up until 1850, when rivers were home to gristmills, lumber mills and foundries. These simple industries supplied lumber, flour, bricks, liquor and meat to the growing cities. In the second phase, as technology expanded in the post-1850 industrialized world, watershed regions throughout Canada and the United States came under heavy stress as waterfronts around North America became manufacturing and transportation centers. Gasworks, petrochemical plants and other heavy industry spread out along city waterfronts in the third phase. Rail yards and steam locomotives, which needed water to make their engines go, needed support infrastructure along rivers and lakes.

The by-product of this progress and expansion was waste. Sewage and industrial refuse flowed into the Don and was trapped at the river’s mouth in the marshland of Ashbridges Bay. By the 1880s, the stench was becoming unbearable. To make matters worse, in periods of heavy rain, the river would flood its banks, sending sewage through city streets.

City planners in Toronto sought to deal with the problem in the most efficient and effective means possible. Natural river curves were straightened and dug out. The spoiled marshland areas were drained and filled. Industrial waste and sewage flowed unimpeded into larger bodies of water. The pollution was merely washed farther away from its source.

Little changed for North America’s urban rivers until the post-World War II boom of the 1950s, when populations exploded and cities expanded. Suburbs sprouted on the outskirts of city centers, and to link them together, highways were built along the waterways and lakefronts. People moved to the suburbs, in part to avoid polluted urban cores. The stresses that industry placed on urban rivers increased as automobiles grew more numerous.

Main Arteries: On-ramps from the travel corridor feed traffic into the downtown core.

In most municipalities, storm runoff is unregulated and untreated. During periods of heavy rain, water from roofs and pavement flows through city streets, accumulating contaminants before flowing into storm drains. Storm water discharge from one square mile of roads and parking lots can yield approximately 20,000 gallons of residual oil per year. Some of this runoff may be diverted to the sanitation system for treatment, but when the storm drains become overwhelmed with volume, runoff can mix together with raw sewage and flow directly into the watershed.

The degradation of the Don and other urban rivers has subsided in recent years, and while it is no longer subjected to the same influx of industrial pollutants, the Don has a long way to go before it can be a life-sustaining river. It still registers very high levels of lead, copper and fecal coliform. Of the more than 30 species of fish native to the waterways of southern Ontario, only 18 species, small and adaptable to pollution, inhabit the river.

One indicator of the river’s health is in the variety of amphibians in the watershed. Of the more than 20 species native to this area of Ontario, only five varieties of amphibians have been documented in the lower portion of the river. Life exists in the Don, but it is far removed from the thriving river that was once home to many types of large fish, waterfowl and other riparian wildlife. Without active intervention, the river won’t be able to support its former abundance of life.