I’m one of many who swim and paddle in downtown Toronto year-round. I have no summer cottage. The beach is my cottage.
Until our last swim on January 7th, 2024, we swam nearly every day year-round at Michael Hough Beach, Ontario Place West Island. It is now closed for development. This fine pebble beach has been our joy and pleasure for more than 50 years. It looks pretty much the same as it did in my childhood, except that the trees are much larger now. It is Toronto’s cleanest and most accessible beach. Many of us prefer the fine pea-sized pebbles to sand, as you don’t need to put down a towel or blanket — you can just lay on the pebbles like a giant beanbag bed.
What will “development” do to our fine pebble beach?
Let’s compare the original West Island, as yet untouched by developers, with the Ontario Place East Island, recently developed into Trillium Park. Trillium Park is wonderful but for the water’s edge, which is the reason many of us go there. Instead of nice beaches, the entire shoreline perimeter is buttressed by big rocks, making it dangerous for swimmers and paddlers alike.
For safety, especially when the water is colder, we paddle close to the shore and stop to take frequent rests and check the safety of our vessels. But getting out of the water along these large slippery rocks is treacherous.
The massive number of condominiums along the waterfront puts additional strain on our scarce green and blue space, and we need more, not fewer, clean beaches. At the same time, we have a massive problem with a Combined Sewer Outfall (CSO) at Sunnyside beach behind the breakwall, making it is often unswimmable. Likewise the large sewage treatment plant in the east end often makes Ashbridges Bay, Woodbine, and Cherry Beach unswimmable. So we look to natural beaches further from the mainland.
Many of us with disabilities or mobility issues are also looking for accessible (e.g. fine pebbles rather than sand) beaches as alternatives to the now-closed Ontario Place West Island. Several members of our swim group, SwimOP.com = Swim at Ontario Place, are now swimming at Humber Bay Park. But that series of beaches is also being bouldered over.
While perhaps well-meaning, the city’s consultants and advisors are often not users of recreational water. Their idea of water access means being able to have a footpath that comes close to the lake, but not actually getting into and out of the lake. If all we want to do is look at the lake, we can do that with a VR (Virtual Reality) headset. But one thing we can’t do in VR is jump in the lake and go for a swim or paddle or jump into a ball and run around on the lake.
What about the new Don River developments? I’ve been running the Waterhci = Water-Human-Computer Interface Symposium for 26 years and we invite speakers from around the world to talk about the intersection of water, humans, and technology. The Symposium brings together thought leaders from MIT, Stanford, University of Toronto, and elsewhere working at the intersection of the physical, virtual, and social worlds. I invited Waterfront Toronto to come and talk about their new development. They seemed interested until they asked what I wanted them to talk about. I said I wanted them to talk about the new beach they plan to build. They then immediately declined.
The City could do a lot to improve water access. Take a look at the condition of safety egress ladders, for example. They’re in a state of disrepair. I’ve tried talking to many people at the City and attended meetings at City Hall to present the problem in deputations, and the like, but have been unable to get a meaningful response regarding the state of the safety ladders.
Will it take a tragedy or death for the City to respond?
As more and more of our beaches are sold or leased to private developers or bouldered over, we have more and more people packed into fewer and fewer remaining beaches. This leads to overcrowding, and loss of water access at a time when the city’s population is expanding and its density is increasing.
We don’t want to be packed into little roped-off swim areas, or to buy tickets to swim in a concrete bowl. As Kate Rew said so eloquently: “We do not want to queue up and pay for a swim, we want to swim as people walk: at 5am, for three minutes, at midnight, for hours.”
Ontario Place was supposed to be the “cottage for people without cottages,” but now that it is under private development, and likely closed for years of construction, where do we swim?
Water access is a basic need and a basic human right. It is time to make it safer rather than destroying it or making it more dangerous.
A number of us have decided to engage in a water-access and water safety campaign to raise awareness with a series of “swim ins,” “paddle ins” and “ball ins” at public fountains and basins, as well as sunbathing in the city away from beaches, to get the message across.
Give us a safe place to swim, and a place to paddle in downtown Toronto!
Steve Mann is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Full Professor at University of Toronto. He invented HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging, the smartwatch, wearable technology, and the hydraulophone (underwater pipe organ). He also founded the new field of Water-Human-Computer Interaction (WaterHCI.com). Join him at facebook.com/groups/swimop
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