What It Was Like to Paddle the Don Hundreds of Years Ago
From century to century, the Don River has provided an important transportation route for canoeing, from its role as a passageway for Indigenous Peoples to a corridor for settlers to travel and transport goods.
As we get ready to celebrate the annual Manulife Paddle the Don, itâs important to remember the much longer history of people taking to the Don River in canoes for the sake of exploration, commerce, recreation and to build Toronto into the city it resembles today.
Indigenous Tradition of Paddling the Don
Prior to European settlement, there existed an extensive Aboriginal trade network along established canoe routes. Settlers found that their heavy boats werenât suitable for navigating these waterways and portaging, making the canoe their only option.
The Don Valley during this time was covered with mixed deciduous and coniferous forests, providing habitat for wolves, deer, wolverine, lynx and bear. It was also the route for flights of migratory birds and nesting grounds for waterfowl in the marshes at the mouth of the river. As Toronto began to take shape years later, these marshes were seen as a breeding ground for mosquitos, bringing with them fear of fever and malaria, and eventually these marshes were filled.
Although the Indigenous Peoples who inhabited the area left few remains of their passage in the Don River, itâs believed that the Don Valley was used sporadically by the Seneca and Iroquoian groups as well as the Algonquian Mississauga to seasonally hunt and fish. The river was essential to the Mississaugas as it connected with trail systems that are followed by present day Yonge Street, the gateway north. Few settlements were located in the Don systemâlikely due to the scarp formation around the Toronto Islands that extends from the Humber to the Scarborough Bluffs, which tended to block passageway past the mouth of the Don River.
History of Settlers Paddling the Don
The first recorded person to have written about the Don River was the Jesuit priest Father Pierre Raffeix who mapped the Don in 1688.Â
A hundred years later, the surveyor Alexander Aitkin created a map that included the Don with the note ânavigable for a boat for two or three miles [north of the lakeshore].â Despite this limitation, the valley formed part of an ancient Aboriginal trail network linking Lake Ontario with Lake Simcoe and the upper Great Lakes and served as an alternative to the more frequently traveled Carrying Place trail along the Humber River.
Toronto Harbour looking west from the mouth of Don River, 1793. (Photo credit: Toronto Reference Library Digital Archive).
Looking west from the mouth of Don River, 1793. (Photo credit: Toronto Reference Library Digital Archive).
While there are long gaps in the history of exploring the Don, the existing records paint a picture of the early sights and impressions on the valley during those years.Â
In the late 1700s and into the 1800s, ice fishing, boats with music and canoeing were some of the pastimes on the Don. Elizabeth Simcoe, one of the early European settlers described some of her early paddling voyages exploring the Don River and understanding the geography of the land.
âThis evening we went to see a creek which is to be called the River Don . . . After we entered we rowed some distance among low lands covered with rushes, abounding with wild ducks and swamp black birds with red wings. About a mile beyond the Bay, the banks become high and wooded, as the river contracts its width.â
Elizabeth Simcoeâs diary, 11 August 1793
Canoeing at Toronto Island, 1891. (Photo credit: Toronto Archives, Fonds 1244, Item 6043).
Canoe race in Toronto Bay, 1910. (Photo credit: Toronto Reference Library Digital Archive).
On the first Sunday of May, we celebrate Manulife Paddle the Donâa unique tradition in which hundreds of Torontonians come together to paddle a 10.5-kilometre stretch of the Don River from Leslie and Eglinton to the Toronto Harbourfront. Paddle the Don is also an important fundraising event to help restore the river and its surrounding watershed to the healthy ecosystem it was before intense urbanization nearly decimated it.
Outside of Paddle the Don, people are allowed to paddle any of Torontoâs rivers at any time without a permit required. However, paddlers should note that the water levels are usually too low in the Don River for anyone to paddle large sections. After a storm event, when water levels rise, water moves very quickly and can be very challenging, especially around existing weirs.
When we look at the history of our city, early trade and commerce would have been impossible without the canoe. Today there is equal value in the canoe and revisiting these early water passageways in how it lets us get away, lets us rejuvenate and challenge ourselves, and helps us find or rekindle our connection with the natural history of the land.
Manulife Paddle the Don, 2010.
Manulife Paddle the Don, 2013.
Manulife Paddle the Don, 2015.
Manulife Paddle the Don, 2016.
Manulife Paddle the Don, 2016.