Dave LeBlanc rows around the newly constructed mouth of Toronto's Don River.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail
It is the morning of Sept. 4. Local news outlets, including The Globe and Mail, are rife with frightening photographs of a flooded Don Valley Parkway, a partially collapsed Rogers Stadium and descriptions of “ping pong-sized hail with gusts up to 110 kilometres an hour.”
As architect Rick Galezowski of Great Lake Studio – a fitting name for this morning’s activity – prepares to hoist his 16-foot, Evergreen Prospector canoe over his head and portage it to the new, pebble-lined “Canoe Cove” in Biidaasige Park West, I silently curse Canada’s troubadour, Gordon Lightfoot, for his woeful account of that ill-fated ore freighter, the Edmund Fitzgerald, and my propensity to look up old newspaper articles.
“The gales of November can pile up mountainous waves,” Derik Hodgson wrote in The Globe on Nov. 12, 1975. “The ore carrier suddenly vanished from sight and radar … [and] although much debris has been found, the searchers failed to find any bodies or parts of the ship.” Thanks to Mr. Lightfoot’s song, we all know the rest of the story.
And despite the tree debris on the surface of Lake Ontario – which has turned brown due to last night’s churning – Mr. Galezowski assures me we won’t suffer the same fate. He’s consulted windy.com “all week” and he’s just returned from 16 days canoeing with his wife, architect Maggie Bennedsen, and their 12-year-old son, at Wabakimi Provincial Park (north of Thunder Bay), so he’s ready to take on anything Lake Ontario can throw at us.
However, in my mind, too much time in the wilderness can lead to Colonel Kurtz Syndrome; Mr. Galezowski is sporting an enormous vacation beard, and beards are good for hiding malevolent smiles.
Guided by Mr. Galezowski, Dave LeBlanc approaches the restored Atlas crane.Rick Galezowski
We push out into the water. I am in the front seat (probably to prevent me from seeing Mr. Galezowski ruddering us into a freighter) and, after admiring the restored, 300-ton Atlas crane (installed in 1961), which Mr. Galezowski agrees is a “fantastic landmark,” I dip my oar into the water. While I haven’t been in a canoe for, perhaps, 20 years, I quickly find the rhythm. Before long, we are exiting the newly naturalized mouth of the Don River into open water (have you seen the 2003 movie of the same name? Thankfully there are no sharks here).
“One of the cool things about touring this area, particularly from the water,” he says, “is it’s such a weird mishmash of competing interests, of old stuff and new stuff, and things on the rise and things in decay.”
I agree, and add that I’m surprised at how far away the urban realm seems. One of Jerome Markson’s red-brick buildings of the St. Lawrence neighbourhood – a place that feels pretty far south – is way up there to the north, and looks pretty tiny.
The water is a little choppy as we paddle beside Polson Pier, so Mr. Galezowski steers us into the long, much calmer Ship Channel. As we pass a few sleeping – and tired-looking – pleasure boats and slip under the Cherry Street Strauss Trunnion Bascule Bridge (built in 1930, it has 750-ton concrete counterweights that allow it to raise), the architect lulls me into a false sense of security by allowing me to talk about my time as a failed rock star in the late 1980s and my current 1980s cover band. But, when I look up, I realize he’s positioned our little boat dangerously close to the enormous anchor of the McKeil Spirit (according to the McKeil site, it’s a “newly converted, shallow-draft pneumatic cement carrier” with four holds that combine for a 13,770 metric ton capacity).
“That anchor could kill us,” I stutter nervously as I look back to see Mr. Galezowski grinning under that beard.
The canoe drifts toward the McKeil Spirit.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail
Luckily, the lure of looking at landscape architect Claude Cormier’s Leslie Lookout Park overtakes my host, so we paddle away. After inspecting GH3’s lovely lookout tower – which mimics the silos nearby – we notice three painted ‘banners’ trumpeting Emma Robinson’s achievements on the concrete wall of the channel. Typing her into Google, I learn she is a medal-winning rower who won many world championships in the 1990s, as well as a silver during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and a bronze in Sydney in 2000. Did she practice here?
We paddle back to the mouth of the Don, but this time venture to where it begins to zig and zag. Mr. Galezowski, who canoed here last year when the riverbanks were still lined with piles of earth, is amazed at the transformation: “It all looks established,” he says as we glide past ducks and a father and son standing in a clearing, fishing lines dangling in the water.
“How did the city make it look so natural so quickly?” I wonder aloud.
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Arriving at the twin bridges of Commissioners Street, we pause for water and snacks. Talk, which has been rather philosophical so far, turns to politics. While mostly in agreement on Canada-U.S. relations, when talk turns to local politics, Mr. Galezowski warns that “canoes have been known to tip over,” so I immediately change the subject and ask him about Great Lake Studio.
“I’ve always got three or four projects on the go,” he says. “I’ve got a new build in Swansea that is about halfway through construction right now … and a wonderful client, which makes all the difference.” Is there a benevolent smile behind that beard? Was Rick Galezowski’s plan to rid this city of one of its architecture writers just a fiction in my head?
“Welcome to dry land,” he says after three hours on the water. My junior by only one year, Mr. Galezowski’s back and shoulders are fine, but, since mine are aching, he generously helps me out of the canoe.
The Don opens up into Toronto Harbour and the city skyline.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail
“It was a fiction,” I think to myself as I wash my hands in the robot-voiced, self-cleaning bathroom.
But as he narrows his eyes, snarls and aggressively ratchets the straps to secure the canoe to his car’s roof-rack, I know I can’t be entirely sure.
My alter ego, Irma Girdle, drag queen/architecture expert, will be reading from my book, Hidden Toronto, at Book Bar (600 Markham St., Toronto) on Sunday, Sept. 27. For tickets, visit: bookbarto.ca/events.