Leslie Street Spit

[2] It was part of a plan to expand the capacity of the harbour in anticipation of an expected increase in shipping traffic on the Great Lakes after the Saint Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959.

However, owing to the containerization revolution of the 1960s, cargo traffic began to shift to East Coast ports, and shipping volumes in Toronto fell by almost half between 1969 and 1973.

[4] The spit is a man-made successor of a natural sand bar / peninsula that existed to the north before infilling of Port Lands and connected to Toronto Islands before 1858.

While the original need for the landform was eliminated, the site continued to receive excavation and construction waste from the building of Toronto's subways, office towers and other large projects.

[6] It began as a long, slender finger of bare land stretching out into the lake, and developed several lobes enclosing small bays.

[7] The provincial government gave the TRCA the mandate to develop parks, beaches and recreation areas along the waterfront from Mississauga to Ajax.

This was referred to as the Metro Waterfront Plan and excluded only the area between Leslie St. and Dufferin St. (roughly the eastern harbour to Ontario Place in the west).

[8] Even at this early stage, there were reports that there was little coordination between TRCA (a joint Metro Toronto - provincial body), the City's planning department and the federal Harbour Commission.

Public discussions on the future of the site were held in June 1974 and proposed uses included mooring for over 500 boats, along with bicycling, picnicking and fishing facilities.

The consultants' report proposed significant development, including expanded marinas (now mooring for 1,500 boats), an amphitheatre, a water ski area and a hotel.

[10] Former City of Toronto councillor Colin Vaughan portrayed the consultation process as narrowly focused in a February 1977 article.

The Master Plan was criticized by several groups and in the end, governments were not prepared to fund the high cost on a relatively controversial proposal.

In 1985, the TRCA announced that the northern portion of the Spit was designated as an environmentally sensitive area and that future plans would accommodate both recreational and naturalist groups.

The Tommy Thompson Park Bird Research Station operates seven days a week during spring and fall migration, and runs other projects within the Greater Toronto Area throughout the rest of the year.

Map of Leslie Street Spit. The Spit extends from the city's east end in a roughly southwesterly direction into Lake Ontario.
Leslie Beach looking east, 1935. The beach disappeared when the spit was constructed.
Leslie Street Spit was the result of decades of land reclamation by the Toronto Port Authority . Beginning in the 1970s, these areas began to be converted into parks by the TRCA .
View of the Outer Harbour's east headland and Vicki Keith Point.
A snowy owl at the Spit. The area was designated an Important Bird Area by Nature Canada and Bird Studies Canada given its importance to a number of bird species.
Coyote pup