Sunday March 17
2-4 p.m.
Kensington Market tour featuring buried Russell Creek
Join us for a journey through the vibrant streets of Kensington Market! Discover hidden gems and hear fascinating tales.
Meet at the south/west corner of College Street and Bellevue Ave
Accessibility: mainly paved sidewalks
Please dress for the weather
Rain or shine
Walk Leaders: Helen Mills and Adam Wynne
Please Register Here
We will discover lost Russell Creek through stories and rumours of springs trickling through basements, sinking houses, an old brick sewer, and a brewery.
This was the first part of the city where working farms gave way to urban uses, and it is packed with history. The Market is a designated National Historic Site of Canada, for its unique architecture and streetscapes, and for the diverse ethno-cultural communities who came here in waves from all over the world. Behind this is the much older 11,000 year Indigenous history that goes back to the time that Russell Creek first began to flow.
On this walk, Adam Wynne will share his incredible research, and Helen Mills will talk about the origin story of the creek. You will hear stories of the colony, the gentleman farmers, the demise of the forests, the Churches and Synagogues, Red Emma and the Labour Lyceum, the Brewery, the Chicken Factory, the Amazon Workshop, Tiger’s Coconut Grove. As well we will have an update on the new Heritage Conservation District and the Indigenous Engagement process that the City of Toronto is undertaking and visit the latest proposed site for the Kensington Market Land Trust – part of the community response to intense development pressures.
Your Tour Guides:
Helen Mills is the founder and co-director of Toronto Green Community’s Lost Rivers program. Now in its 30th year, Lost Rivers has named and mapped hundreds of lost creeks and accumulated a treasure trove of information about Toronto’s water, land, people, ecosystems and neighbourhoods. Helen was the recipient of the Wellington Water Watchers Lifetime Water Protection Award in 2021.
and
Adam Wynne is the Interim Director of the Church-Wellesley Village BIA and the elected Chair of the Toronto and East York Community Preservation Panel. He was a 2023 nominee for the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario's Stephen A. Otto Award in Research and Documentary and is presently the historian for the Church-Wellesley Village Neighbourhood Association. He has some very interesting information about Kensington Market and Russell Creek.