It's only natural

Torontonians keen on greenery and wildlife know about the Leslie Street Spit, and it's only likely to grow more treasured. A first-person view from a lover of the outdoors

- M.L. BREAM

Double-crested cormorants fly over the park.

Toronto’s “accidental wilderness” is getting bigger — intentionally.

The Leslie Street Spit, the humanmade peninsula that juts out into Lake Ontario east of the Don River, began life more than 60 years ago, conceived as a landfill project that would accomplish two main goals. It would be a cheap place to dump the waste created by Toronto’s mid-20th-century building boom, and it would serve as a breakwater to protect the city’s Outer Harbour.

Snails shade in a milkweed plant.

But the hands of time and nature have turned dross into gold. From the detritus of a growing city — concrete slabs, old bricks, rebar and other rubble — an astonishing collection of diverse ecosystems has sprung up. Now, along its five-kilometre stretch, there are meadows, wetlands, aquatic habitats, beaches and sand dunes, as well as forests, woodlands and thickets. The nature preserve on the Spit, Tommy Thompson Park, is home to grasses and wildflowers, cottonwoods and willows, cattails and bulrushes, water lilies and pondweed — and a kaleidoscope of animals that make their lives among them.

It didn’t take long before people, too, found the verdant promontory to be hospitable. Today, Spandexclad cyclists whiz down the peninsula’s paved main road, passing joggers, walkers, and families just out to get some fresh air. Along the gravel footpaths, people tote binoculars and photographers lug long, camo-covered lenses, for birders know this is a fine place to find their quarry; more than 334 different avian species have been recorded here.

Belted Kingfisher flies across the park.