We continue our By The Book tour series, with Dororthy Ellen Palmer's When Fenelon Falls. In the novel, we find ourselves in the vivid imagination of Jorday May March - a fourteen year old disabled girl stuck at adopted family's summer cottage. Life in 1969 is tough and Jordan survives by avoiding her cousins, listening to music, and chronicling her plans to rescue Yogi - a caged bear cub at the end of the street.
The book covers many locations as Palmer's young Jordan concocts scenarios of her birth based on what little she knows about her adoption. From New Toronto to the Kawartha Lakes region, small town historic stops to lakeside lunatic asylums, When Fenelon Falls covers parts of Ontario you may not have heard of. Or, it brings to mind a few places long forgotten.
We invite you to read Dorothy's book, hop in your car, and take a trip into the past.
Other Tours to Consider:
Located at the mouth of Etobicoke Creek on Lake Ontario, Marie Curtis Park was build after the devastating floods of Hurrican Hazel in 1954 destroyed fifty-six cottages and homes on the site leaving hundreds homeless and seven people dead.
One of the oldest and interesting group of buildings in New Toronto are those of the Mimico Lunatic Asylum built in 1888 on the grounds of what is now now Humber's Lakeshore Campus. The hospital underwent several name changes over the years: opening as the Mimico Lunatic Asylum, then becoming the Mimico Hospital for the Insane in 1911. In 1919 it became the Ontario Hospital, New Toronto, and later renamed once more as the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital.
Sunnyside is a lakefront district along Toronto's waterfront on Humber Bay. The site of a massive waterfront reclamation project in 1910, Sunnyside is most famously known for its Amusement Park - which was the heart of Toronto's recreation scene from 1922 to 1955.
Showcasing many buildings noted under the Ontario Heritage Act, the Canadian National Exhibition first took place in 1879 to promote agriculture and technology in Canada. Now it is North America's largest event, with 1.3 million visitors in attendance over its 18 day period leading up to Canada's Labour Day.
Built by the Canadian Pacific Railway and situated directly across the street from Union Station, the Fairmont Royal York Hotel is a historical icon. Built to replace the demolished Queen's Hotel, it was completed in 1929 and has been the main residence of Queen Elizabeth and other members of the Royal Family when visiting Toronto.
The Argyle General Store has been around since the late 1800's, serving the local Woodville community. A featured location in Dorothy Ellen Palmer's novel When Fenelon Falls, the Argyle General Store is a part of the Kawartha Northumberland Butter Tart Tour. In the book, the butter tarts are a favourite snack for Yogi, a caged bear cub and local attraction in Rosedale.
The Trent Severn Waterway is Central Ontario's 387 kilometers of waterway utilizing 41 locks, a marine railway and 2 hydraulic lift locks. The highest point, Balsam Lake is 180 meters (590 feet) above Lake Ontario and 80 meters (260 feet) above Georgian Bay.
The Coboconk Jail is a designated heritage site and attraction in the Kawartha region. The Coby Jail has 2-foot-thick (0.61 m) limestone walls mined from the local quarry. These along with the iron bars remain unchanged since the construction of the jail in 1884. Inside the jail were two cells, in addition to the wardens office. The sole constable of the jail, Joseph Wakelin, was appointed in 1899 and retired in 1922.
The Pattie House has been around since 1873, serving as an attraction for locals and visitors alike. Originally built as a hotel stop and restaurant for the newly arrived Toronto and Nipissing Railway, the Pattie House almost closed in 2013. It was purchased, enovated and reopened as a barbecue house featuring live music
Enrich your experience by reading books about the places on your tour!
If a city is its people, and its people are what they eat, then shouldn?t food play a larger role in our dialogue about how and where we live? The food of a metropolis is essential to its character. Native plants, proximity to farmland, the locations of supermarkets, immigration, the role chefs can and should play in society - how a city nourishes itself makes a statement about the kind of city it is.
Along the Shore examines the Toronto waterfront, past and present, through the lens of four lakefront communities and districts ? the Scarborough shore (including the Bluffs), the Beach, the Island, and the Lakeshore (New Toronto, Mimico, Humber Bay, and Long Branch). Each retains a direct and immediate connection with Lake Ontario and the natural world.
A spaceship hurtles towards the moon, hippies gather at Woodstock, Charles Manson leads a cult into murder and a Kennedy drives off a Chappaquiddick dock: it?s the summer of 1969. And as mankind takes its giant leap, Jordan May March, disabled bastard and genius, age fourteen, limps and schemes her way towards adulthood. Trapped at the March family?s cottage, she spends her days memorizing Top 40 lists, avoiding her adoptive cousins, catching frogs and plotting to save Yogi, the bullied, buttertart-eating bear caged at the top of March Road.
In Becoming Modern in Toronto, Keith Walden shows how the Toronto Industrial Exhibition, from its founding in 1879 to 1903 (when it was renamed the Canadian National Exhibition), influenced the shaping and ordering of the emerging urban culture. Unlike other studies of its kind, it fully integrates experiences on and off the fairground by viewing the fair as a microcosm of developing structures in the city and surrounding rural areas.
Twenty-five fascinating images that offer a 360º panorama of the Toronto's downtown in 1856-57 mark the beginning of the use of photographs to document Toronto's growth, its achievements, its great civic works, and its citizenry. Since 1856, the City of Toronto has been commissioning photographs to document and to promote it.
This book, published to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the city's incorporation, brings together more than 100 of these images, selected by city archivists from their collection of hundreds of thousands.
Other tours that might be of interest.
John Goddard's Inside the Museums is the perfect book to accompany this tour of all the designated heritage sites of Toronto. Toronto, as one would guess, is a culturally alive city that has not only lived through but helped foster some of the watershed moments in Ontario history.
