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June 2006
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posted June 8, 2006
Friends of Dufferin Grove Park Newsletter
Volume 7 Number 6, June 2006
Comments? editor@dufferinpark.ca
Events In June
posted June 8, 2006
Annual Set-up of the Yurt
Saturday June 10, all day.
Some years ago, park friends Michelle Oser and Ian Small lent the park a huge yurt (traditional nomad tribal dwelling). They had bought it in Uzbekistan when they were working there for Doctors Without Borders. For the last three years, the yurt has been a backdrop for the Cooking Fire Theatre Festival, a story space for summer, a peaceful meditation spot, a playroom, sometimes even a billet for adventuresome park visitors. It’s time to put it up again for at least June and maybe longer. The wooden frame needs a lot of people to hold it steady when it’s being set up and when the roof struts are being put in. Anyone who wants to experience the complications of being a nomadic sheep-herder (?) will find this a very satisfying stand-in. Good food provided, to keep the nomads’ strength up. To find out more, talk to any of the par staff.
posted June 8, 2006
The Third Annual Cooking Fire Theatre Festival
Wednesday, June 14th – Sunday, June 18th, 2006
From director Kate Cayley:
“We are pleased to announce the third annual Cooking Fire Theatre Festival, a weeklong performance extravaganza celebrating theatre, food and public space in Toronto's Dufferin Grove Park. Companies from Toronto, Victoria , Halifax and New York City will present original work that promises to delight, provoke, and inspire. Each evening, Toronto's Number Eleven Theatre will lead the audience from site to site throughout the park to see performances ranging from an ancient Japanese folktale to a modern cowboy musical, from grand spectacles to intimate puppet pieces.
Delicious organic meals will be served to the audience over cooking fires and from Dufferin Grove Park's two wood-fired outdoor community bake ovens. Dan DeMatteis, who cooked at the park in years past but now works for Jamie Kennedy, will be back just for that week to work with the park cooks. Building on the success of the last two years, this year's Cooking Fire Theatre Festival will offer the experience of enchanting and challenging theatre, wonderful food and the beginning of summer.”
The schedule:
Zuppa Circus Theatre (Halifax) Open Theatre Kitchen: all possible futures – 6:30 PM
In a kitchen in the desert, a couple desires a child so deeply that they imagine one into existence. Equal parts human, part onion, mischief and mythology, the child transforms and threatens the life they have made. Presented by celebrated Halifax company Zuppa Circus, this new piece is a generous, wild theatrical feast celebrating a relentless appetite for the world. www.zuppacircus.com
Drama of Works (New York City) On the Backs of Fishes – 8 PM nightly
Part two of their epic puppet drama Warrior, On the Backs of Fishes tells the story of Jingo, the warrior empress of Japan, and uses marionettes, rod puppets, overhead projections and storytelling. On the Backs of Fishes won an award for Original Adaptation at the World Festival of Puppet Art in Prague. Drama of Works is an experimental puppet company, and company-in-residence at New York City's HERE Arts Centre. www.dramaofworks.com
Theatre SKAM (Victoria) Billy Nothin' – 8:30 PM nightly
Trapped in a world of leather chaps and cowboy boots, five Wild West characters collide, encountering murder, metamorphosis, and mayhem alongside a meta-whore who may or may not have the answers to set them free. This cowboy musical, presented by the wildly popular BC company, is a quintessential Western with more twists than a lasso. www.skam.ca
Stranger Theatre (Toronto) Käthe Kollwitz – 9:45 PM nightly
A new piece using marionettes, shadow puppetry and toy theatre, based on the life and work of German printmaker and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz, her depiction of life in working class Berlin, and her struggles as a pacifist in Nazi Germany. www.strangertheatre.ca
Performances begin at 6:30 PM every night and dinner is served from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM. Admission is pay-what-you-can ($10 suggested contribution).
posted June 8, 2006
Day Of Delight
Sunday June 18, 2 to 5pm: with Clay and Paper Theatre
A way to welcome summer into the park with dance, music, and puppetry. Clay and Paper Theatre director David Anderson says: this is a celebration of Love and Desire in Toronto and also for Toronto. (Pay what you can.)
posted June 8, 2006
Dufferin Grove Park Summer Craft Fair
Sunday June 18, 11 – 4 p.m.
DUFFERIN GROVE PARK SUMMER CRAFT FAIR Sunday June 18, 11 – 4 p.m. organized by Gladstone Ave. resident Abbey Huggan. She writes:
“we’ll have a variety of crafts and art on offer at this event: all *hand-made* by the person who is selling them, and with a priority for people whose craft is not their profession (at least not yet).”
If you fit that description and you want to sell at the fair, you can contact Abbey by e-mailing her at abbeyhuggan@yahoo.ca.
posted June 8, 2006
Park Pieces (Dance Theatre)
June 23 and 24
During the last two weeks of May, well-known local artists and park friends Meagan O'Shea and Lisa Pijuan-Nomura spent many hours collecting park stories from people in the park. Meagan and Lisa are working on a dance theatre project called PARK PIECES, creating dance pieces based on the stories they gathered, which will culminate in public performances on June 23 and 24. Eroca Nicols’ park dance classes will take part in the performances too. For more information about the project: lisa@girlcancreate.com.
Weekly Summer Events
posted June 8, 2006
Dancing In The Park, Step One
Tuesdays and Wednesdays,4 to 6 p.m.
Many of the people who work at the park have other “hats” that they wear as well. Park staff Eroca Nicols, as lots of park friends know, is a dancer currently studying with Ballet Creole. When park staff Ted Carlisle, who is also a DJ, presented a DJ on Ice day at the end of February, lots of people danced (on the ice, with or without skates). That was so much fun that Eroca began to plan with Ted, for summer dancing in the park.
So this is the summer to try it. Eroca says there are so many wonderful group dances/ line dances/ square dances in all the cultures of the world, and she wants to introduce some of them in the park, with the help of park kids. So the park is offering free children’s dance classes every Tuesday and Wednesday all summer long at the park. Then on one Friday each month (July, August, September, maybe October if the weather is still good), Eroca and Ted and will host a D.J.’d dance on the rink pad, for everyone, after Friday Night Supper. The dance class kids will teach everyone (adults too) who want to learn the traditional group dance of that month and then Ted will spin all sorts of other music too.
The sessions are:
- Tuesdays:
- Ages 5 and under, 4:00pm-4:30pm.
- Ages 6-8, 4:45pm-5:30pm
- Wednesdays:
- Ages 9-12, 4:00pm-4:45pm.
- All Ages Dance/Instrument Jam 4:45pm-5:45pm
From Eroca:
All classes will be in front of the playground gazebo. Make sure to wear sunscreen and bring water to class. Thanks to all who came to the first week of classes, And for your patience with the age group/schedule experiment. If anyone has kid friendly instruments (maracas, tambourines, percussive noisemakers of any kind) and would like to donate them please contact Eroca or drop them by during the All Ages Jam on Wednesday between 4:45pm and 5:45pm.
To find out more or to sign up, call the park at 416 392-0913 and leave a message, or e-mail Eroca at staff@dufferinpark.ca.
posted June 8, 2006
Bike Maintenance Clinic
Every Thursday, 2 to 8 p.m. near the farmers’ market and/or the playground.
Park friend Issie Chackovicz tried this out on the last weekend in May, bringing his tools and also his educational material about the CAN-BIKE courses he teaches. It worked so well that every Thursday beginning on June 15, Issie will do on-the-spot bike maintenance, with explanations. If your bike is squeaking, the handlebars are crooked, the brakes are loose, the gears don’t work right – Issie can get your bike back in shape while your kids play in the sandpit, or while you walk the dog, or come to shop at the market. He’ll charge for the work and the parts; the explanations, of how to do it yourself the next time, are free. That might get some squeaky bikes back into good condition fast, for all those busy people who can’t fit in regular maintenance trips to the bike shop.
Issie is a nationally-certified CAN-BIKE instructor. He writes:
“The CAN-BIKE PROGRAM is a set of courses on all aspects of cycling safely and enjoyably on the road. The orientation is toward recreational and utilitarian use of the bicycle rather than toward competition. The CAN-BIKE courses are organized on age and 3 levels - basic, advanced and instructor. I teach all the levels including bike maintenance.”
Issie says the Can-Bike approach works for people who (1) want to learn to ride a bike, or (2) who already ride a bike in the city but would like to learn how not to get run over by a truck. Issie says he can teach anyone, child or adult, to ride a bike in half an hour. That’s just getting moving. After that comes riding in your neighbourhood, then riding on main streets, than riding safely in the urban jungle. The courses are offered at various Parks and Recreation locations but Issie wants to start some sessions at Dufferin Grove Park. He says there couldn’t be a better location, with the large surface of the rink for doing figures-of-eight, and then the local-traffic-only protection of the block between the park and St.Mary’s High School. Contact: issie.chack@sympatico.ca.
Community Sports
posted June 8, 2006
Community Sports
Soccer And Cricket
As in other years, the soccer field is available for free community permits from Saturday at 2 p.m. to Sunday night. The permits are available from park staff Mayssan Shuja. You can contact her by e-mailing mayssan@dufferinpark.ca or by leaving a message for her at the park: 416 392-0913.
Neighbourhood soccer games all accept drop-in players – just talk to the players and join the game. The same is true of the Ultimate Frisbee game, and of the Sunday cricket game.
From cricket organizer Hasanka:
“On Sundays from 4pm to 6pm on the soccer field, we’ll be playing an informal game of cricket at the park. We'll be playing with a tennis ball, so no protective equipment will be required. If you'd like to join us, just walk up and introduce yourself. This is not a club with membership fees, just a group of amateur cricket enthusiasts. Beginners (and spectators) are welcome. We hope to see you there.”
Website, Wireless
posted June 8, 2006
About www.dufferinpark.ca
The park web site is now almost completely a wiki. That means it’s much easier to keep up to date, and the task can be shared among many. Our webmaster Henrik Bechmann has trained almost half the park staff to do postings, including pictures. Park staff Mayssan Shuja and Corey Chivers are the senior park “web geeks,” doing the more complicated stuff. Anna Galati does the neighbourhood posts, including local tradespeople. Amy Withers does the food and sports updates, and Lea Ambros does the arts. Jutta Mason (non-staff) is in charge of posting for the 3-1-1 park maintenance pilot project.
The basis of Wiki is that its use is free. Henrik is continuing in that spirit, making the latest organization of the park web site as transparent as possible so that other groups can make use of what we’ve learned. Henrik is willing to talk to any other community groups who would like to set up or convert their web site so it’s easier to post. He hasn’t got time to do other sites but he can give some free advice: webmaster@dufferinpark.ca.
posted June 8, 2006
Wireless Internet
The park is now a free wireless “hotspot,” thanks to Wireless Toronto (www.wirelesstoronto.ca ) and Kijiji - a free, local, community classifieds site (www.kijiji.ca). There are still some bugs to get out, so the hotspot is not always hot. Hopefully it will soon be completely reliable. Park staff have moved some tables under the trees into the centre of the park, south of the bake oven and west of the playground. For people who work in a hot apartment, the park can be a cooler office. And people with young kids can catch up on extra work at the park while their kids dig rivers in the sandpit. It’s not conducive to conversation, but that’s modern life…..
Editorial - The Right Size Park
posted June 8, 2006
Editorial: The Right Size
The question of permits for events in Dufferin Grove Park seems to be the issue of the moment. There are three major problems:
- One-size-fits-all permit fees: This year, for the first time, the City wants permit fees from everyone who does any event in the park, including groups like Clay and Paper Theatre who have brought their gifts to the park from the beginning, and who have helped to shape the park by their long-term involvement. These permit fees apply even if the event requires no extra work from any City staff: pure profit.
- New-found popularity: It seems that almost every day, park staff get new inquiries from new groups, including for some events that might swamp out the park (such as this request to hold an open-air concert for young adolescents who can’t go to clubs on account of their age: “We're planning on bringing in everything from noise-punk to electro to experimental jazz to twee-core indie pop.” ......Too big for this park!)
- Central control: There is the enduring problem of central versus local permitting. City Hall permit staff recently rejected a dance performance permit request because it was on a Thursday evening – and that day already has the farmers’ market permit from 3 to 7. The central permitting software only allows one permit a day for a park this size, without being able to distinguish between groceries and dance.
Solutions.
The new Recreation manager for Toronto and East York, Kelvin Seouw, is coming to the park soon to get better acquainted with the issues around permits. Meantime, park users had better keep talking to each other, about what kinds of events fit the park. A neighborhood park should not only be hospitable and lively but also peaceful enough that it’s not a circus. One way to accomplish that might be by sticking to events that are grounded in the local neighbourhood – not too big and not too generic.
No such rule can be ironclad – on May 29, for instance, a “No one is illegal” immigration march that began at Queen’s Park ended with a concert and a picnic at the park. Not suitable? But one of the organizers has been a long-time park friend, and many of the young people who participated were local kids who wanted to show solidarity with their Portuguese neighbors. In the end there were only 200-300 people in the Garrison Creek Hollow over by Dufferin Street, the music was not too loud, and the mood was friendly. One thing that seems helpful is if events are put on by people who have a connection with the park already, rather than people who just pick the park from a list of handy locations. And if annual events get too big and successful, they may need to migrate to a bigger park with better facilities, even if they had their beginning here. One example is the annual Fall Pow Wow put on by Native Child and Family Services, which has been growing every year. Last year they had over a thousand people, and the number of vehicles, the washroom use, and the supervision in the playground just didn’t work. This year the Pow Wow will probably be at Christie Pits, which has internal roads, larger washrooms, and a playground that’s easier to control.
The park can more easily absorb the many smaller events that enliven it. Most of these events don’t even need a permit. On a recent weekday June evening at the park, there was a small group of musicians practising near the cob courtyard, a knot of dog walkers chatting at the crossroads in the centre, a full-court basketball game, a soccer practice, some kids and families in the playground, one baby and its mother in the sandpit, a theatre rehearsal in the rink house, a martial arts practice in the west central area, a drummer playing along with his I-pod near the marsh fountain, a woman working on her computer at a picnic table – and still there was plenty of space for other park users to sit on park benches and read, or chat, or listen to the evening songbirds. The park works very well at this rhythm, not actually scheduled by anyone.
For larger events that do need scheduling, for example whole-school picnics and anniversary celebrations and performances like the Dusk Dances, the park staff can help to gauge what fits together. It’s the role of the on-site park staff to reduce the headaches and help organizers find what they need. The staff are also good at figuring out which events are the right size for this particular park. If you want their help with an event, e-mail mayssan@dufferinpark.ca or call the park at 416 392-0913 and leave a message.
Composting Toilet
posted June 8, 2006
Cob Courtyard News
From Georgie Donais:
It's truly satisfying for me to see people sitting near the cob, having picnics or eating cafe food, and generally enjoying the new space. The wall made it through the winter just fine, though there was some vandalism and also some plaster failure. I had intended to call a work bee to fix up the plaster, but I'm going to be trying some plaster experiments which means hard-to-schedule, slow-going work, so I will tackle that on my own instead.
When the big cob-building project was going on last summer, people kept asking: so where’s the toilet going to be? For parents and caregivers of young kids, the lack of a toilet near the playground has been a drawback for years. And Georgie has been interested in the ecology of sewage forever – i.e. composting toilets.
The brother of a cob volunteer, living in the southern U.S., heard about the cob project and offered to donate an industrial-strength composting toilet (the kind used in campgrounds and highway rest stops). There was no place for it in the courtyard structure, but there’s a good spot nearby, just south of the wading pool. In the fall, Georgie started talking to the park manager about the idea. She proposed building another smaller cob structure to surround the composting toilet. The manager was interested, so Georgie designed a beautiful, sculptural little cob building and applied for two small grants to cover its cost. Both grants – $10,000 from the Toronto Arts Council, and $2000 from the Parks and Trees Foundation – were recently approved.
The Parks manager has changed in the meantime, and on June 1 Georgie and several park staff met with Sandy Straw, the new Parks manager for Toronto and East York, Peter Leiss, the new West Parks maintenance supervisor, and Chris Martin, the new West Parks horticulture supervisor. Georgie showed them detailed drawings, specs, etc. (including the number of bums the toilet can accept before it needs a rest). Hopefully the final details can be worked out soon, and we can see how a composting toilet works in a city park. This means more clay and straw and sand and water and stomping with feet and shaping this summer, for playground visitors who like to build.
Old Trees, New Trees
posted June 8, 2006
Park Gardens and Trees
Jenny Cook, the park staff person who works with the garden volunteers, has moved the garden club from Fridays to Sundays, beginning at 11 a.m. The gardens are in need of weeding and watering all summer long, and garden volunteers can have bread, cinnamon buns, and Friday Night Supper free – fair trade for garden work.
The two black maples donated to the park by Mary Wigle are doing well, as are the four little silver-maple transplants from backyards and the new mystery memorial tree to the north of the sandpit. Uyen Dias from Forestry says that even though the promised 25 City trees have not yet been planted, it will happen this summer. From Uyen:
“We are currently working on finishing up our bare root plantings as they are very sensitive to weather and we only have a short window to finish those plantings. We have more than 3000 large caliper trees to plant and Dufferin Grove is definitely on the list...it should happen soon.”
June is the month when the Toronto Parks and Trees Calendar shows the photo of the red elm at Dufferin Grove (all the photos are by Geoffrey James, who lives in the neighbourhood). The text for June from Pleasance Crawford:
“Red Elm in Dufferin Grove Park. Angling across the greensward is a remnant of the valley of Denison Creek. Living comfortably nearby are several wetland-loving native elms: this red or slippery elm (Ulmus rubra) and beyond, a white elm (Ulmus americano), whose ‘oak form’ is a dramatic departure for this usually graceful species. Red and white elms have many similarities; but the red’s leaves are rough while the white’s are relatively smooth, and the red’s seeds are rounded while the white’s are ovate, fringed, and notched. Both species are susceptible to Dutch elm disease; so this aging grove needs a good influx of young upstarts.“
Amen. That’s why we’ve been after Forestry to plant some new trees. It will be wonderful to see them go in.
The last garden item is A CALL FOR SEDUMS from Georgie Donais. This drought-resistant plant would be excellent for the green roof on the cob courtyard. Georgie asks: if anyone has extra sedums in their gardens, could they bring a few divisions to the park? (We trade sedums for park oven bread!)
Surprise Skateboarding
posted June 8, 2006
Unexpected Skateboard Park Arrives
The skateboard park at Scadding Court (Bathurst and Dundas) had to be removed for the summer because the ice rink there is being torn up and replaced. So all the wooden forms were set up at Christie Pits on the rink there. But Christie Rink has no drainage, so with the first big rain it turned into Christie Lake. The skateboard ramps began to swell from sitting in three inches of water, and it became clear that if the equipment wasn’t moved soon, it would be seriously damaged. But where to move it in the west end? Wallace Rink is also going to be torn up this summer; Campbell Rink is not supervised against vandals. Dave Hains, the Recreation supervisor in charge of the skateboard equipment, talked to Tino DeCastro, the Recreation supervisor for the west. They made an emergency decision to move the equipment to Dufferin Rink just for this summer. After the rain damage is repaired, some of the equipment will be set up on the western two-thirds of the pleasure-skating rink. That leaves the east part of that rink for the basketball-players at the two new hoops.
The bad news is that there may some extra noise. However, once the set-ups are done, park staff will lock the gates at night and also monitor noise complaints closely. To report problems, leave a message on the park phone: 416 392-0913, or e-mail staff@dufferinpark.ca.
The good news is that kids’ skateboard camps come with the set-up, for children aged 8-12. They are two 5-day sessions (July 17 and July 24) with half the day at the skate park and the other half spent swimming at Alex Duff pool and play games at Bob Abate CRC, for $128. There’s also one ten-day session starting July 31, for $230. From their brochure:
“Responsible skating is stressed in every lesson. Beginners will learn skate boarding mechanics and basic skills such as balance, carving, riding transitions, and dropping-in. Advanced skaters learn grinds, ollies, and airs and have a chance to learn on the larger ramps. Skaters are assessed on the first day.”
For more information or to register, call the Bob Abate Community Recreation Centre at 416 392-0744.
There’s also plenty of time to use the skate park unscheduled. But nobody gets in there after 11 p.m.
Park News
posted June 8, 2006
3-1-1 And Tracking Park Maintenance Problems
There’s a new structure in the Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division. It’s a “structure by function” system, with each park maintenance request, large or small, going through the recreation supervisor as the point of entry, then streamed to various other supervisors, then followed up. In the spirit of this new style of monitoring and follow-up, all Dufferin Grove Park maintenance requests and responses are now posted on the park web site's maintenance section:
This way of posting is also a way of anticipating the City's 3-1-1 program. The program will eventually allow citizens to report problems (potholes, street lights out, garbage not picked up) by calling one central number (311) and then tracking the problem’s follow-up via the internet. Meant to begin in December 2005, the program has now been postponed until 2007. But it's easy to implement this as a test on a very small scale (just one park). So Dufferin Grove Park can be a cheap pilot for the proposed electronic-post-and-follow-up element of 3-1-1 -- another way in which the park functions as a research laboratory. Park friends: if you see a problem, send it to maintenance@dufferinpark.ca. It will be forwarded to the recreation supervisor and then you can track it on the maintenance page of the park web site.
posted June 8, 2006
Food In The Park
Pizza days
You make your own, oven staff supply dough, sauce and cheese for $2
Sundays from 1 to 3,
Tuesdays from 12 to 2,
Wednesdays resuming in the third week in June, also from 12 to 2.
Friday night suppers
Weather permitting, every Friday from 6 to 7.30
$1 off the meal if you bring your own dishes and take them home to wash. Same low prices as last year – or free if you want to do swaps (e.g. park garden help, dishes, park clean-up). Contact park staff if you want to make this arrangement – no documentation is necessary, just your willingness to swap something the park needs (like your skills).
The food cart
It’s at the playground on all warm days
Serving coffee, juice, and good plain bake-oven food, mostly organic. This year there will be ice cream and juice popsicles too.
posted June 8, 2006
GST On Park Food
The park’s food, despite being pretty cheap (cheaper if you can’t pay), is bringing in enough money now that it supports some park extras – not only some special park programs, but also the web site, the newsletter, extra supplies and repairs, and bits of research about City funds. For the moment, administering the food funds is the task of the CEntre for LOcal research into public Space (CELOS). This little research group, started at Dufferin Grove Park but not limited to that one place, received its “letters patent” as a non-profit corporation on September 21, 2005. A non-profit has to begin paying GST at the $50,000-earnings mark (that was around the end of May). That doesn’t mean the food brought in $50,000 profit (most of the park food earnings go to buy more groceries to make more park food), but profit is not the point. Paying GST is the law, even for charitable groups (which CELOS is not – no group doing research into government accountability can get charitable status).
Loaves of bread and other groceries are GST-exempt, so that means no GST for farmers’ market bread nor for pizza days (people buy the raw materials and make their own pizza, so it’s like buying groceries). But any bit of prepared lunch, even a 25-cent slice of bread-and-butter at the zamboni café or the cob snack bar, will have 6% GST on it. That provides a great math opportunity for all the park kids (!), and a formidable math opportunity for the CELOS person keeping the park accounts.
CELOS can administer the funds because its mandate includes “practical and theoretical research into parks and public space.” Figuring out how food can add to a park is practical research, for sure. Much of that research has already shown results. Now the goal of CELOS is to collaborate with City park staff at all levels, over the next two years, to find the best way for park staff to administer park food funds in the long run. The Dufferin Grove Park staff are remarkable – they’re people our taxes pay for, who take charge and make the park work well. Whether the City management can absorb the new ideas coming out of this particular park and these staff people, remains to be seen.
posted June 8, 2006
Dufferin Grove Farmers' Market
Every Thursday 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
All the farmers have now returned to the market for the season and every week brings new requests by other vendors to join. Market manager Anne Freeman reported at a recent market vendors meeting that she gets about 30 new requests a month. Anne recently went to a North American farmers’ market conference in Los Angeles, where the question of “the right mix of vendors” was much discussed. Markets like ours, that seek to support local family farms, are a delicate balance of friendly competition and protection. Anne is involved in helping to spread the wealth – working with other neighborhoods (South Etobicoke, Withrow Park) which want to start a farmers’ market.
Meantime, the Dufferin Grove market is raising the table fees slightly to cover the staffing costs for set-up and clean-up. The idea is for the vendors to cover the whole market cost without any outside subsidy. That works well. But the vendors give us more than a place to shop for good food. As a social space, the market is unsurpassed. And people are gradually getting better at remembering their vegetables after ten minutes of chat with long-lost friends whom they ran into at the market. It’s an art, buying food like that.
Neighbourhood News
posted June 8, 2006
Neighbourhood events, June 2006
FISHING TRIP: Wednesday June 7, 7-9 p.m.
The Mount Dennis Residents’ Association has invited Dufferin Grove Park users to come to a show-and-tell hiking/fishing expedition at Eglinton Flats (Jane and Eglinton). The huge complex of sports fields and naturalized areas was a market garden until the 1970s, and there was also a natural spring on one quadrant. The spring was dammed up and turned into a pond, which has been stocked with fish. The association has fishing poles and fishing programs for kids in the area. They also maintain the area around the pond, and log the many different kinds of birds and dragonflies attracted to this urban wildlife oasis. They want to share their knowledge with friends of Dufferin Grove Park – everyone welcome. (By the pond, at 7 p.m.)
BIG PARADE: Saturday June 10, 11 a.m.
The annual Portugal Day Parade. Location: down Lansdowne from Bloor to Dundas, along Dundas to Trinity-Bellwoods Park. Portuguese are famous for the ingenuity of their parade floats. This parade has a historical theme and it includes giant boats with medieval sailors, wine-making, lace-making, and bread-baking floats, floats with real chickens and goats, depicting farm life, dancers and musicians in the various costumes – a feast for the eyes and ears.
JANE JACOBS: Monday June 12, 7.30 p.m.
St.Paul’s Anglican Church at Bloor and Spadina: John Sewell hosts a celebration of the life of Jane Jacobs. There will be readings from Jane’s work by Max Allen, Anne Collins, Ken Greenberg, Anne-Marie MacDonald, Vince Pietropaolo, Mary Rowe, John Sewell, R.H. Thomson, and others. The Dufferin Grove bakers are baking 140 loaves of bread for the celebration. Jane Jacobs loved the park bread, and so does John Sewell. This former mayor of Toronto bought a loaf of park bread from the food cart years ago, when the park oven was still new. The next day he called up to ask if he could broker an anonymous grant for $10,000 to help the oven programs grow. The check was in the mail a few days later. We still don’t know the donor – John has never told – but now, when there are two ovens, a farmers’ market, and many other food-related things in the park, it’s our chance to bring bread to the Jane Jacobs celebration: an honour.
Credits
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Newsletter prepared by: Jutta Mason Illustrations: Jane LowBeer Web Site: Henrik Bechmann Park photographer: Wallie Seto |
Park phone: 416 392-0913 Web address: www.dufferinpark.ca E-mail: dufferinpark@dufferinpark.ca |