The river and the city are a dynamic duo that led the human race to civilization stardom. Rivers gave us our first meals, provided nutrients to our first crops, and powered our first industries.

But during the nineteenth century, we forgot about rivers’ importance and buried them underground for the sake of development. Now, in the concrete jungle that many of us call home, seeing a blade of grass or a stream of water is cause for celebration.

Taddle Creek’s past

The glacier tore up sediment, shaping the landscape of southern Ontario. Once melted, the glacier’s northwest movement lent all rivers in Toronto — including Taddle Creek — a southeast flow.

The Taddle Creek area was first inhabited by Indigenous communities that moved into Toronto in 9,000 BCE. Today, this area is recognized as the traditional territory of several First Nations, including the Missisauguas of the Credit, the Anishinabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples.

Taddle Creek gave them fresh water and fish, and then became even more important when corn was introduced to southern Ontario in 500 CE. Indigenous communities shaped the creek’s banks into floodplains in order to create fertile soil to grow food. The river’s generosity allowed villages to grow until the start of European settlement in the mid-seventeenth century.

Initially, European settlers’ relationship with water was a continuation of Indigenous reliance on waterways. But soon, they discovered that the glaciers had moved large collections of sediment to the banks of rivers like Taddle Creek. Brick, chimney, and drainage tiles could be made from those deposits. In 1796, Toronto’s first brickyard sprung up at Taddle Creek, meant to manufacture bricks for the city’s first parliament building.

By providing the city with the foundation for development, Taddle Creek signed its own death warrant. European construction accelerated and population density increased. Our reciprocal relationship with Taddle Creek broke down, and a lack of sewage practices led communities upstream to pollute Taddle Creek. By 1830, reports were talking about the awful smell of the creek.

Still, Taddle Creek became U of T’s river, and proved to be a centerpoint for student culture. Its importance to the U of T community increased even further when, in 1855, Taddle Creek was dammed in front of present-day Hart House to create McCaul’s pond.

Taddle Creek and McCaul’s pond gave students a place to skate, fish, swim, and ponder by a riverbank. In November 1881, The Varsity reported that freshmen had been forced to dunk in Taddle Creek after an argument with senior students. A few years later, in October 1883, The Varsity published a poem titled “To The Taddle, A Graduate’s Farewell.” It featured a student’s solemn goodbye to the creek, describing how “[Taddle Creek’s] poetic surroundings… are an education in themselves.” Despite the world of rivers coming to an end, the students at U of T kept the last section of Taddle Creek alive.

Burying the creek

It was fate that the power of politics and pollution would kill Taddle Creek. In September 1881, U of T put the problem of Taddle Creek’s pollution on its Board of Management agenda. The university advocated for burying the river because of concerns for student health.

The City responded that the creek was on private property, so U of T would have to pay for some of the project. A report from The Varsity in December 1881 stated that the City’s proposed solution would cost $9,000, which is equivalent to around $220,000 today.

Unfortunately, pollution worsened with the building of McMaster Hall — the present-day Royal Conservatory of Music — in 1881. The building featured an open sewer placed beside Taddle Creek, even though open sewers had been discouraged since 1845. Further reports were published in The Varsity in November 1881 and March 1883 describing the state of McCaul’s pond and the pollution coming from Taddle Creek. At this time, the university and the City were still debating payment.

Our solution was to bury the waterway. In May 1884, U of T signed off on the construction of a sewer system that would bury the creek underground. This came after the introduction of Toronto’s first Medical Officer of Health, Dr. William Canniff, in 1883, and the release of new research on sewage and health by Dr. William Oldright.

Its last few years had been tarnished by politics, pollution, and corner cutting.

It is surprising that a river that played a pivotal role in both Indigenous and colonial civilization was removed so quickly from our landscape. Today, it fuels our artificial water cycle by transporting sewage and storm water through downtown Toronto.

Still, you can find evidence of Taddle Creek’s survival. Originally, Taddle Creek flowed through present-day Philosopher’s Walk, down through Hart House and toward College St.

Kendal Avenue makes an abrupt 90 degree turn just south of Bernard Avenue, following a similar turn by the creek. A few hundred meters further south, the St. George subway station uses multiple sump pumps to keep Taddle Creek’s water out of its tunnels. Down the block, the creek’s buried waters once flooded the basement of the Remenyi House of Music.

Finally, Philosopher’s Walk still follows the path of Taddle Creek from Bloor St to Hoskin Ave. The path’s landscape is similar to that of a river bank. At one of its lowest points, near the entrance at Hoskin Ave, stands a grand willow tree. Willow trees are an example of riparian vegetation, meaning that they can only grow near sources of water.

We may have cast the Taddle aside, but the willow tree is a reminder that it is still here.

Daylighting

The burial of Taddle Creek was not without repercussions: it affected Toronto’s water management system. The city’s sewage system was constructed in such a way that sewage tunnels would overflow into creeks and rivers, ultimately reaching Lake Ontario. But due to our rising population density and the decrease of non-paved urban spaces, the city needs to process higher amounts of sewage and storm water.

Currently, the city experiences one sewage overflow every week, which results in flooded basements and contaminated water. In the coming decades, it will cost the city $1.5 billion to improve this system.

Ultimately, this problem stems from the moment we disconnected from the natural water cycle in the nineteenth century. We left the dynamic duo of city and river behind, and are witnessing the fallout of that today.

There is a solution, though: globally, some activists are promoting river daylighting, or the reexposure of rivers. This enables waterways to reestablish the natural water cycle. The soil and riparian vegetation that exists alongside a healthy river can absorb water, reducing the load on the sewer system. That, in turn, reduces flooding and property damage.

The City of Toronto has set a goal to preserve and re-establish a natural hydrologic cycle in the coming decades, and daylighting could be one way of achieving that goal.

If we want to break out of the concrete jungle, we must understand the stories of the past, recognize their impact in the present, and correct our mistakes. These stories may decide our city’s future.