My Secret Affair ... In Pine Point Park

On Monday I started an affair.  The awkward greet of an acquaintance in his home.  Fumbling with strange clothes and collars.  He sensed my inexperience and showed me what to do.  The nervous tension as we built trust in each other.  The elation and joy of a new experience and of the connection, understanding and respect we began to develop for each other.

No, my husband has nothing to worry about.  It’s my dog that needs to hire the P.I.  

I have a friend whose hours at work have changed and now she’ll be away from her house for most of the day.  Her dog won’t make a whole day without being let out at least once during the day.  We’ve made arrangements for me to stop by once a day for a brief walk.   

I did feel kind of guilty not bringing my dog along.  These two are actually walk buddies.  They know each other well and get along famously.  But my dog is still in the puppy phase, and while he’s generally well behaved and follows commands well, when there is another dog around its nutzoid time.  He loses all focus and sees, hears, smells and thinks of nothing else except that other dog.  He pulls, he does violent ballet leaps in the air, he sprints helter skelter to the very end of his leash, he jumps on his friend and on my friend.  Usually it takes a good long walk by ourselves or a run in the dog park to burn a little energy before we can consider a shared walk, and even then it can be a bit nightmarish for the first few minutes of happy greeting.  Once he’s settled it’s not so bad.  I know that I have to keep working on the socialization skills with my dog and also know that his friend will pass on some good leash manners, but the thought of handling the two of them together makes me nervous.  At any rate, I figured it would probably be best for me to at least walk this other dog a few times alone so I could get a good feel of how he walks.  He was a dream dog to walk, so I think we’ll be okay together.   

(The new guy in my life.  November 22, 2010.)

I took him down to Pine Point Park in Etobicoke (Rexdale).  This is a regular haunt, primarily because it can either be done as a short walk on it’s own or as a long extended walk if you continue north into Summerlea Park.  It is a peaceful park that follows the Humber River.  I usually park at the Hadrian Drive entrance and on this particular occasion I decided to head south, which I haven’t done before.  Pine Point Park is located right at the entrance/exit ramps for the 401 on Islington Avenue, on the north side of the 401.  While you generally will be quickly free of the noise and bustle of the highway by heading North, travelling South takes you right into it, forcing you under a gritty, graffiti-tagged underpass.  The noise of the traffic above is amplified and somewhat distressing.  The drone of cars speeding along, trucks changing gears, loud banging and clangs.  It is dark and damp and smells, and covered in all sorts of unpolite, rude and crude graffiti.  This is not a place to get your inner peace on.  

 (Not the most inviting sight.  November 22, 2010)

Immediately after the overpass, you are forced to make a choice.  You can go right, but that path is just a dirt path that will just take you right out to Islington (often, while walking along Islington I had seen people exiting this path and had wondered where they were coming from).  Left takes you over a high bridge and across the river.  

The path continues on for a short while and then connects with Crawford-Jones Memorial Park.  This park is named after Jim Crawford, an area policeman, and Herb Jones, a local contractor who both heroically worked together to save many lives during Hurricane Hazel.  Mr. Crawford received a medal of merit for his actions.  He also witnessed the last execution at the Don Valley Jail, and in fact, the last executions conducted in Canada.  

Jim Crawford Obituary 

The park is not fitting of its namesakes.  While clean, it is small, with a solitary picnic table.  We see not one other soul in our time there.  What once had been an open field has now been planted with many trees in the recent spate of city-wide forestry efforts.  In a grove of older trees, someone feeling keen civic spirit has felt it obligatory to hang bags of doggy poo from branches; the blue and clear bagged fecal ornaments bob heavily in the wind.  The path dead ends at Cardell Avenue.

My new guy and I backtrack back to familiar territory, Pine Point Park.  This park is a multi-use community park.  A soccer field is on site; a pool, hockey arena and tennis court are nearby.  There is ample parking at the park and despite its popularity, it is never full.  It features a short heavily used, paved trail (Bicycle Route 15).  In the summertime, the entrance can be litter strewn, but in the spring and fall, it is relatively clean.  Following the trail north, you are flanked on the left by a steep wooded hill.  To the right, the Humber is bottle green and meanders past a small island, tracing broad, graceful curves. 

At this time of year, the trees are bare, leaves heavily carpet the ground below. A stately heron stands guard on the banks of the river.  As you walk, the city din lessens, and is only disturbed by planes on approach to the airport.  We cross the Humber by footbridge just south of Albion Road.  Here we could continue northward to Summerlea, or take the pedestrian connection towards Weston Road, but alas, our time is almost up and we turn around and head back to Hadrian drive. 

 

{A small path not noticed before to explore another day.)

Useful Information:

• Duration of Walk:  Roughly one hour (based on short legs, picture taking and doggy care)
• Difficulty: EASY.  Relatively flat terrain throughout.
• Parking:  For Pine Point Park, generous parking is available off Hadrian Drive.  For Crawford-Jones Park, parking is available off Dee Ave. [? – I didn’t personally check out the street, I’m getting this off of the City Trail map].  You can access Pine Point Park by TTC by taking Islington Route 37North and getting off at Allenby St. and walking east several blocks until it dead ends in the park. 
• Washrooms:  No.  I will note that there was a Port-a-Potty this past summer located by the parking for Pine Point Park, however I cannot vouch whether it was available for public use. 
• Local Coffee Haunts:  No.  But I suppose you could hit the McDonalds located a few blocks away inside the Walmart on Islington.  
• Safety Factor:  Crawford-Jones Park:  Very Low, at least the walk from Pine Point.  Walk at your own risk, have a buddy.  Pine-Point Park:  Medium-High.  Walk at lunch time when the teachers from a local school crowd this park for their break.  Buddies are best.  
• Special Gear?:  No.  A good pair sneakers is all you need.
• Suitable for Dog Walking?:  Yes.  Dogs must be on leash here.

Happy Trails!

Back On My Feet

As I’ve noted in my preamble above, I was born with a walker’s soul.  Having been born into a family that walked everywhere, the idea of putting on shoes and “hoofing it” was second nature.  I grew up in a one car family.  My father needed that vehicle to commute.  When you live in small communities and rural areas, there is no transit system and often you have to travel a good distance to bring home a steady paycheque.  When we lived close to town, if we needed to be somewhere, we walked.  When we lived in the “boonies”, it was often a major form of amusement in a pre-cable, pre-internet, pre-video game world.  There was a certain magic and wonder to be found on our endless strolls.  Turtles ambling up pathways, heaps of jellyfish stranded on the beach, the noise and sight of hundreds of frogs during mating season, spiders grown impossibly large in our Canadian climate, close encounters with deer startled out of hiding spots.  I learned about the ocean, the woods, the towns that I grew up in.  A social life in a small town high school invariably meant long walks to escape the prying eyes of our parents.  A university career in a small town with a just a couple of pubs, a small theatre and a coffee shop meant lots of long walks to pass the free time. 

When I first moved out on my own I lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  I continued my walking habit on a limited basis.  My longer rambles were confined to the weekend, with short jaunts to the park or stores in the evening after work.  Most things that I needed were within walking distance.  I didn’t own a car so I took transit to work or when I needed to go into the downtown core or other side of town.  A long transit strike one summer back in 1998 forced me into my sneakers and taught me that hour and half walk either way could be pleasant and enjoyable and the best way to get to the office and back; through pleasant neighbourhoods and parks and across the harbour high up on the bridge.  The one neighbourhood that always seemed a little questionable when seen from the bus turned out to be vibrant and lively and friendly.  As it turns out that hour and a half was a reasonable time to commute.  My current Toronto commute by bus and subway currently runs an hour and a half.  When they finally got the buses rolling again, they had lost a passenger, at least when the weather was good. 

Eventually I married and my husband’s work took us to Chicago.  While the city itself was good for strolling (usually with necks crooked back, nose to the sky to gawk at that amazing architecture), and there were the state parks and zoos and gardens, the suburbs where we resided were a wasteland.  We needed a car for my husband’s long commute, but that left me stranded.  There wasn’t anything close to where I lived.  Transit service was very poor and often involved going for long stretches in the wrong direction to transfer to a bus to get me where I needed to go.  Sidewalks were rare and the ones that existed were never cleared in the winter.  My husband is a serious car addict and while he was game for driving to parks for hikes or engaging in some urban exploring when we first married, once we had children his interest and energy waned.  When you’re part of a couple, you tend to do things as a couple, and I walked less and less.  Several problematic pregnancies left me bedridden.  I put on the pounds and lost the motivation. 

When it came time to move back to Canada, one of the reasons we chose Toronto was a vague recollection from some time I had spent here almost a decade before of a decent transit system (at least better than what we had been dealing with) and places to roam.  And for a while, we did roam.  Living near the lake and parks got us out.  But it didn’t develop into a habit, and once I was working again, the thought of it was out of my mind.  I would sometimes think that I should get out the car and check out all the interesting things I was spying, but there never seemed to be time. 

But there has come a realization that I have to make time for myself.  Between demanding work, small children, trying to maintain a home and all the other little commitments we seem to bury ourselves in the person who I was and the things that brought me joy somehow managed to get lost.  I haven’t been a whole person in a very long time.  When I looked back at all the things that had made my happy and that gave me joy, I wasn’t really doing any of them anymore.  It had once been a bit of a running joke amongst those who knew me that if you were going to visit with me, you needed to be prepared to do a lot of walking.  I’ve been slowly piecing together all of those things that made me a good and happy person and getting on track to bringing those things back into my life. 

My first step was to get a dog.  Dogs need to walk.  I’d have no excuse.    I deliberately focused on breeds that were more active.  Last year, when he was a puppy, we were confined to walking around the block or quick jaunts while waiting for children to finish piano/soccer/dance or other activities and that was a good start.  Now that he’s full grown, we’ve been putting on the miles.  We’re walking several hours a day.  I’ve have gotten to know every nook and cranny in the immediate area around my home.  I have explored parks and trails within a stone’s throw of the backyards of friends who have lived here all their lives and had no clue of their existence.  Secret paths are everywhere.  I’ve reintroduced myself to birds, marvelled at urban deer startled by passing cyclists, treasured the soul-restoring silence of a wooded ravine in the middle of a bustling city.  We’ve worn through three pairs of sneakers and two leashes, my dog and I. 

And I’ve kept it up.  I’ve learned to walk part of the way home or to work instead, picking up the subway a few stops down the line, keeping my eyes open to all the sights and sounds.  I’ve discovered whole neighbourhoods with a small town feel deep in the city core.  I’ve learned so much of the forgotten history of this City that I’m starting to grow a little warmer to it.  I tend to get bored very quickly, so I try not to walk the same routes too often.  I’ve been slowly trekking my way across the city from west to east, and at the suggestion of a number of my friends and my own frustration at finding any really useful information about many of the area parks, I will share my thoughts and photos with you.  And I’ll recollect about some of my favourite walks I’ve taken in the past.  It’s going to be a long, leisurely stroll, and I hope you’ll take it with me.