Hundred-Acre Wood

Every kid should have a hundred-acre wood. Every kid needs a hundred-acre wood to play in. Someplace where they can run wild and let their fantasies float free like fluffy white clouds on a lazy summer's day. I had such a place when I was a kid. It wasn't really a hundred-acre wood. It was more like a five-hundred-acre-forest with valleys and gullies, glens and meadows, paths and trails.

Scarborough, or Scarberia as it is not too fondly referred to, was not a good place for kids to be growing up in the 50's. It consisted of endless miles of strip malls and boring hectares of subdivisions with look-alike houses on boring straight streets and claustrophobic crescents. Scarborough was the eastern suburb of Toronto, situated above the Scarborough Bluffs overlooking Lake Ontario. The citizens for the most part were cut off from the lake by the towering cliffs except for the few who had the daring to venture down steep treacherous paths to the stony beaches.

I grew up living in an old house on Warden Avenue, a nondescript street that ran north from the lake and abruptly changed into a gravel road at Danforth Road. Our house was situated on the gravel part of the road. The gravel section was sprayed with smelly tar every summer to keep the dust down. After a few weeks the tar and gravel combination would congeal into a hard packed, pot-holed surface. Gradually over the summer the road would revert back to gravel and dust.

It was not until 1959 that Warden Avenue was widened, paved, and lined with curbs and sidewalks. The only reason that happened was because; Queen Elizabeth II was visiting Canada that year. She was going to cut the ribbon to officially open 'The Golden Mile'. The Golden Mile was the first real shopping centre in Canada. It was decided that her cavalcade would travel from the Golden Mile Plaza back to downtown Toronto via Warden Avenue, hence the facelift. This was an exciting event for us because as loyal British subjects, we got to stand on the curb in front of our house and wave to the Queen as she passed by. Luckily for us, the Queen sat on our side of the car and waved to us.

At the top of the street, sat Warden Avenue Public School, or WAPS as we fondly referred to it, the primary school where I experienced many unhappy years. The huge playground extended right into Warden Woods. During the 50's, Warden Woods was more like a forest than woods. At least that's what it seemed like to us. It was a very large wilderness area in the midst of a very large suburban area. This was an anomaly, even for that time. Warden woods was bounded by the school and Prairie Drive on the south, St. Clair Avenue on the north, Warden Avenue on the East and Pharmacy Avenue on the west.

For an adventurous and active 6 year old, Warden Woods was a place of mystery and adventure, and a place to escape the everyday ho-hum of suburban living. Going to play in the woods, leaving early in the morning and staying all day, and not returning home till dusk had set in was common, year in and year out. Even after school, the bush was an inviting playground. There were great places in the woods that we had given names to. There was Pollywog Pond, Broken Down Bridge, Tunnel of Love, Hidden Valley, Apple Orchard and The Farm. There are many more that I have long forgotten with the passage of time.

I knew every path, every trail, every gully, every valley, brook, stream, cave, glen, and meadow like the back of my hand. I knew every climbing tree and every secret hiding place. I knew every swimming hole in Taylor Creek that snaked its way through our woods.

Two main trails traversed the park. They both ran from north to south or south to north, depending on your perspective. The old railway line was up above the valley. It was a wide, sandy trail that has once been an old CPR railway right of way. The rails and ties had been removed long before I moved to the neighbourhood. It was the trail favoured by the riders from the 'Three Gates Riding Stables' located at Warden and St. Clair Avenues. Fresh road apples were always in plentiful supply for the vegetable and flower gardens in the neighbourhood. The other, more interesting trail was down in the valley and it followed Taylor Creek bend for curve.

My first and only experience at riding a horse was at Three Gates. Some friends and myself had collected enough two-cent pop bottles to pay for an hours ride. I was given a huge old mare that had more smarts than I. After a short instruction we mounted our steeds and headed across the field towards Warden Woods. My horse stopped and proceeded to graze in the field while the posse continued on to the trails. Nothing I could do would convince this mare to follow the pack. She kept her head down and munched on the succulent clover. I prodded her, poked her, slapped her neck, sweet-talked her, yanked on the reigns, and cajoled her, all to no avail. She continued to graze. I sat for my hard earned hour in the field atop this kid-smart horse while my friends enjoyed a leisurely trot along the trails.

My horse never looked up until the others returned, and dutifully returned to the stables behind them, with me fuming in her saddle.

Small trails and paths ran in every direction through the forest. Some were so obscure and hidden that you had to know the woods to know they existed. These were the adventure routes where I spent most of my time. They took me to old apple orchards, meadows and mysterious ravines. They led to secret glades and clearings where I build hidden lean-tos and dugouts that I camouflaged with pine boughs and leaves.

One of my favourite places was 'Pollywog Pond', a small lake created by spring run-off. It was situated at the base of a small sandy cliff. This was my source for tadpoles in the spring, frogs, toads and turtles in the summer, and cattails in the fall. Many-a-day, I would kick off my shoes, roll up my pants and wade into the oozing muck and hunt between the bulrushes for the wildlife, especially tadpoles. There was even a raft made out of logs that could be poled around the pond in the spring when the water was still deep. By late summer, Pollywog Pond had dried up and turned into a hard bed of cracked mud and dried cattails.

Above Pollywog Pond at the top of the cliff was a glade with huge beech trees with smooth silver bark, perfect for climbing and ideal for carving initials. The trees had huge limbs that made it easy to scale to the very top and spy on any interlopers who happened to pass by. My carved initials along with the initials of my crushes are probably still up in those trees, way up out of embarrassments way.

Near the trees was a small path hidden by brambles. It led down to the 'Apple Orchard'. If you didn't know the path was there you would never find it or the orchard for that matter. This was one of the secret places we hung out. The orchard was situated in a small, secluded valley hidden from the main trails. It had been an apple orchard, planted by a long forgotten owner of a farm on Warden Avenue. Most of the trees had died and fallen down, but a few of them around the perimeter still bore fruit. I don't know what kind of apples they were, but they were small, misshapen and sweet. I harvested many bushels of them over the years to take home to my mother so she could make applesauce and bake pies.

The orchard was where we played Indians and waged battles against the Redcoats, taking no prisoners, but plenty of scalps. We had built stone, circular fireplaces to bake mud coated potatoes and apples, and cook weenies and marshmallows on pointed sticks.

Drinking water was never a problem. I could fill my canteen at any one of a number of bubbling springs that trickled from hillsides and gave cold, refreshing, crystal clear water. I can't ever remember taking water or drinks with me to the woods.

There were many hillsides covered in long, sun parched grass that came up above my knees. The breeze would blow and bend the grass into gentle, undulating waves of golden brown. One of my fondest childhood memories was laying on my back on one of the hillsides, hidden by the tall grass, looking up at the deep blue sky and soaking up the last of the summer sun. The season was beginning its transformation into autumn, my favourite time of year. The wind had made its seasonal about-face and was now coming from the north and carried with it a definite chill, a sure sign that a Canadian winter was inevitable. I spent many an afternoon laying on one of these hillsides contemplating the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

At the north end, where Taylor Creek enters the woods, there was a soggy lowland area that was created by the tons of snow that was dumped in the hollow every winter, gathered from street clearing. By spring, the snow was piled twenty or thirty feet high. So much snow was dumped in there that it took until early August to melt totally away. I guess that's why this hollow was always cool, even in the dog days of summer.

What made this part of the woods so special were the tall clay cliffs on either side of the creek, where it cut into the woods creating the Taylor Creek Valley. Some of the cliffs were too dangerous to scale, even for adventurous, fear-nothing kids. One cliff though, was just perfect. We scraped handholds into the hard clay, and about three-quarters of the way up; we dug a huge cave, the size of a living room. It was a perfect place to disappear into and plan the next sortie into the land of the Redcoat.

'Broken Down Bridge' was another favourite place to play. It was an old concrete bridge that had been dismantled when CP Rail removed the rail line. They left the concrete abutments intact, so that the trail could still pass through the right-of-way to give access to the lower woods. The bridge had high walls with sloped sides that were perfect for sliding down. The ledges at the top were great places to sit and daydream and view the valley below.

In a gully, just to the north of Broken Down Bridge, was 'The Tunnel of Love'. It was a concrete tunnel that ran beneath the railway right-of-way to allow one of the streams to empty into Taylor Creek. The tunnel had a ledge on one side that ran its length that let you traverse the tunnel without wading in the water. It wasn't very tall, but if you stooped you could run the length of the tunnel without banging your head, most of the time. A favourite pastime was to stand at one end of the tunnel and yell as loud as we could. Our voices would resound through the tunnel and echo across the valley. The walls of the tunnel were covered in all sorts of graffiti proclaiming who was in love with who, who was a dork, and all sorts of profanity that would be reason for a good soaping if repeated in public.

There was the old farm. The only remnants of it were the overgrown gravel drive and a broken up concrete pad. This was a favourite place for waging WWII battles and Indian wars. The meadow was overgrown with skinny poplar trees, thorn bushes, shrubs, milkweed, goldenrod and tall grass. What was really special about this place was that people used it for a dump. Piles of trash were everywhere for scavenging. I've found books, naughty magazines, toys, tools, and on one occasion, a small folding chess set. The set was made of rosewood, with an inlaid board and filigree carvings around the edge. The board had tiny holes drilled into the centre of each square to hold the delicately carved ivory men. That chess set was a treasured find that I kept for many years, but it disappeared along with many of my childhood possessions.

Nothing was better on a muggy summer's day than a muddy swimming hole. There were plenty of them along the winding course of Taylor Creek. Some were only waist deep while others were good for diving. One deep one in particular was everyone's favourite. It was on a leisurely bend in the river. The water was over our heads, which made it perfect for what nature intended. A tall tree arched over the hole and it had a sturdy branch that overhung the creek. Custom made for a rope swing. Mother nature must have really been thinking of kids when she made this swimming hole because it was at the bottom of a hill.

To experience drop-dead excitement, all we had to do was drag the heavy rope up the hill, straddle the knot and jump to launch ourselves into mid air. The rope arced over the water to the other side of the river, and on the back swing we would let go and drop into the water from about fifteen feet straight up.

When we had had enough excitement, we would wade upstream a bit and lay in the rapids to let the cool waters flow over us as we watched the clouds sail overhead.

During the winter, the fun didn't stop. The steep hills made fantastic toboggan runs. One in particular was very exciting and now that I have 100% hindsight, very dangerous. It never entered my mind as I was speeding out of contol down that hill that I would even break a findernail. It ran down a frozen streambed, across the path and overshot the creek. If you weren't lucky enough to own a sleek wooden toboggan or one of the aluminum suicide toboggans, a flattened cardboard carton worked just fine, as did sheets of tin. Sleds with runners were good for one trip only down the rugged chutes.

The spring thaw was an exciting time at the creek. It turned into a raging torrent each April. The water overlapped the banks and took with it all sorts of flotsam and jetsam. Some years if the snowfall had been particularly heavy, the river would overflow and flood the whole valley. I loved going down to the creek in the spring, just to watch the power of the water.

My idyllic forest was not to last. Ominous signs of great change appeared. In the early sixties progress loomed its ugly head high over the horizon. One day, big yellow monsters materialized. Huge bulldozers and giant earthmovers; maws agape, sat idling, ready to devour my hundred-acre-wood. Nobody had heard a thing about this. Everyone was taken by surprise and a sense of shock and numbness settled over the community. I guess way back then, governments were not obliged to keep their citizens informed as to their plans.

Acres of trees were bulldozed and burned. A curtain of gray smoke shrouded the neighbourhood for weeks. The ravines and gullies just north of the school were filled in. One large ravine, which could not be filled by the available fill, was turned into a huge garbage dump. Hundreds of garbage trucks trundled up Warden Avenue every day and dumped their smelly contents into the ravine. At the crack of dawn, large flocks of noisy gray gulls from the lake arrived to dine on the foul smelling refuse. The whole neighbourhood was covered in bird crap when the gulls flew back to the lake every night, after a day of fine dining. I think it took about six months to fill the dump, but the smell of rotting garbage lingered for months after that.

A least a quarter of the woods had vanished forever. Paradise was lost. I could no longer just walk up the street and through the schoolyard to go into the woods.
The following spring, the construction began. Streets were laid out. Utilities were put in. Street after street of identical, two-story, utilitarian, flat roofed, flat-faced, red brick row houses were erected. Two tall apartment towers looked down on the development like evil overseers. All of this was government assisted, rental housing, which says much for the lack of architectural style put into the development. WAPS was tripled in size to accommodate the influx of new students.

The old railway right-of-way was turned into a public transit corridor for the subway trains going to downtown Toronto. Broken Down Bridge was filled in and grates were installed to cover the entrances to the Tunnel of Love. I had been cut off from the lower woods. To get there now, I had to walk for over a half hour to get around the new transit right-of-way. Three Gates Riding Stables was put out of business.

Things were changing in what was left of Warden Woods. My forest was being gentrified. The name was changed to Tommy Thompson Park. Bridges were built across the creek. No longer was it necessary get a soaker crossing the river by balancing precariously on slippery boulders. Waterfalls were leveled and the banks were gabiened and the flow was tamed to a trickle. Pathways were straightened, leveled, and paved. The hillsides were trimmed and cleared of undergrowth and deadfall. The hidden meadows and glens were made accessible, cleared of scrub, and picnic tables were installed. Everywhere, Hibachis on steel posts sprouted like weeds and utilitarian park benches appeared by the dozens along the paths.

All of my secret places were gone. The hundred-acre-wood had been transformed into a sterile city park with acres of manicured green lawns and designer flowerbeds. Not a Trillium, nor a Jack-in-the-Pulpit, nor forest of Milkweed, nor field of Queen Anne's Lace, nor meadow of Goldenrod was to be found anywhere. No meadow grass. I stopped going into the hundred-acre-wood.