Ferries travel from docks on the mainland to the Islands, and cargo ships deliver aggregates and raw sugar to industries located in the harbour.

Clay is more prominent in near the centre of the harbour, whereas the soil turns to mud near the north shore, towards the mouth of the Don River.

The north shore has a mixed range of uses including Harbourfront, a conversion from industrial land to recreational and cultural uses.

Most of the Islands is parkland, although it is also the site of several boat clubs, an amusement park, an airport, and a small residential area.

The gap is deep enough (over 31 metres) to allow large ships (like lake freighters) to enter and exit into the Inner Harbour.

[2] The Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport is located on the south side of the channel and is accessed by ferry and tunnel.

Before the Western Gap was dug in 1910, the waterway was wide with a shallow sandy shoal surrounding what became Hanlan's Point.

Prior to the 1800s, small boat users had to use a portage on the western end of the sandy spit peninsula (thus requiring them to travel a short distance on land) from Lake Ontario to the inner harbour.

At that time, it was expected that there would be a great upswing in the number of ships calling at Toronto once the Saint Lawrence Seaway opened.

Gaasyendietha is a legendary Loch Ness Monster-type creature and it is sometimes spotted in Lake Ontario and even within the Toronto Harbour.

[6] The original shoreline of the northern shore was low sandy bluffs, just south of today's Front Street.

Strong lake currents over time washed the sand eroded from the bluffs westwards to form the peninsula surrounding the bay.

Although not fully established by the War of 1812, the British colonial army was determined to set up boat-building for the defences at York.

An armed schooner was under construction at the York Naval Shipyards when the Americans attacked and the British burned the hull rather than surrender it.

[11] In 1832, the Gooderham and Worts Distillery went into operation, using a windmill on the Toronto waterfront, near the Don River, to provide power.

[12] Ostensibly for carriages and carts, the roadway eventually became primarily the route for rail lines in the central core.

The next rail line was the Grand Trunk, which underwrote the Esplanade project in exchange for an easement to enter the City.

[15] The western channel's depth was found to be too shallow by 1906 when the steam barge Resolute sank outside the harbour during a storm.

The rebuilding of the Loblaws warehouse in the 2010s uncovered an old boat, left in the landfill when the Queen's Wharf area was filled in.

The 1910 Toronto Board of Trade proposal for the Ashbridge's Bay was for an industrial district for industrial offices and sites served by railway lines, public warehouses alongside docking facilities south of Keating Channel to the Eastern Gap and parkland/recreational strip at the south end.

In 1912, the commission delivered its first plan for the harbour and the waterfront from the Humber River in the west, to Woodbine Avenue to the east.

[20] As the city of Toronto grew the northern shore of the bay was further altered by landfill, and has been moved approximately 500 metres (550 yd) south.

[21] The final infill on the north shore was in the 1950s, from Yonge Street east to the Don River, providing room for the Redpath Sugar Refinery, the Victory Soy Mills and several marine terminals.

In the 1920s, most of the low-lying marsh of Ashbridge's Bay was filled in to create Toronto's inner harbour area (with the small section to the east and the shipping channel the only reminder of the body of water).

Others have been demolished or are slated for demolition, including grain storage elevators at the east and west end of the inner harbour.

[23] In June 2004, the company Canadian American Transportation Systems (CATS) began regular passenger/vehicle ferry service between Pier 52 and Rochester, New York using the vessel Spirit of Ontario I.

The Toronto Port Authority officially opened the International Marine Passenger Terminal on June 27, 2005, three days before ferry service resumed.

[24] Even with impressive passenger numbers by the winter of 2006 the ferry service lost funding from the City of Rochester and announced that it would no longer be in business.