Unique Toronto houses near Kensington Market

Along with the many glass box skyscrapers, the city of Toronto maintains a lot of old houses in historic neighbourhoods. These unique old beauties are located on a side street near Kensington Market.

The Toronto Waterworks - clean water for a huge city

In the Dirty Thirties, Commissioner R.C. Harris designed and built an engineering marvel that still delivers fresh water from the lake to the city.

The fraught era of the construction of the Water Works by immigrant labourers is portrayed in Michael Ondaatje's brilliant novel, In the Skin of a Lion. While Patrick, the protagonist, tunnels under the lake, immigrant labourers ashore hold forbidden political meetings using mime.

The building at the left is part of Harris's system. Located on the Toronto Islands, it is off limits to members of the public. The main R.C. Harris water treatment building is a city landmark.

Antiquated businesses adapt and survive through eras

Cigars, so popular in the early part of the twentieth century, fell out of fashion in the latter years, as more people stopped smoking. Recently, there has been a resurgence in the cigar business. This one survives alongside the vapes shops that have sprung up, providing another way to take legal drugs.

The leather supplies store sign also evokes an elaspsed era. A century ago, this type of business was mainstream. After a mid-century fading, hand sewing and leatherwork had a resurgence during the sixties. Who patronizes these venerable shops on Spadina now?

Old brick buildings on Spadina

Seen from the glass elevator of the Super 8, the warm and elegant brick buildings on the left date back to early Toronto. The ornate structure below is located at the corner of Spadina and Queen.

The view from the Muskoka chair

Writers at the Summit relax in Muskoka chairs, composing sentences as they gaze over sunny lawns at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre.

In the garden of my first house, a chair like this was abandoned. A minor repair and a coat of white paint made it usable. Drink on armrest, I spent many happy hours in that chair.

Torontonians call these Muskoka chairs, for the Ontario hinterland. They're also known as Cape Cod chairs and Adirondack chairs, for similar reasons. Once exclusively wood, they now come in plastic and in kid sizes.

A journey into history aboard the Oriole

At Harbourfront Centre, the Oriole and the Mariposa (evocative of Stephen Leacock's zany stories) wait to show tourists some pleasing views of the Toronto Islands and Lake Ontario. The Great Lakes cover an enormous surface (about a fifth of the total surface of the huge province of Ontario), and contain one fifth of the earth's surface freshwater. They're traversed by enormous numbers of cargo ships. "Lakers" stay within the lakes, while "salties" are oceangoing ships that travel through the St. Lawrence Seaway into the Atlantic.

I got lucky on my Oriole trip: there were only a handful of passengers aboard and the commentary was clear and informative. I learned how much the Toronto waterfront has been filled in; ships once docked near the Royal York Hotel. A kilometer inland from the current dock, this old Toronto landmark is now dwarfed on all sides by enormous glass towers.

Toronto Islands tranquillity

Pleasure boats ride at anchor in the three yacht basins in the Toronto Islands. Hanlon's Point  on Ward's Island has earned the designation of a Blue Flag beach, an international standard of eco-cleanliness.

The Toronto Islands were once a peninsula; they were ripped from the mainland during a massive storm in 1858.

A few minutes' ferry ride from downtown Toronto, this oasis of calm and quiet allows no cars except service vehicles.

In the past, many Torontonians built summer cottages and beautiful homes on these islands. But WWII changed Centre Island changed radically; after it, all private homes were repossessed and demolished to give way to a public park. There are still a few houses on the other islands: 262 to be exact.

Love to live on the Toronto Islands? Good luck with that. Owners know what they have, and rarely is anyone is willing to part with such a special property. For potential buyers, there's a years-long waiting list for the lottery. If your name is picked, only then can you bid on one of the very rare homes that comes up for sale.