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The Toronto Carrying-Place Trail, also known as the Humber Portage and the Toronto Passage, was a major portage route in Ontario, Canada, linking Lake Ontario with Lake Simcoe and the northern Great Lakes. The name comes from the Mohawk term toron-ten, meaning "the place where the trees grow over the water", an important landmark on Lake Simcoe through which the trail passed.
From Lake Ontario, the trail ran northward along the eastern bank of the Humber River. It forked at Woodbridge, with one path crossing the east branch of the Humber and running along the west side of the river to the vicinity of Kleinburg, where it crossed the river again. This trail was probably used during the seasons when the water was low enough to ford. The other path of the fork followed the east side of the river and angled cross-country to King Creek, joining the other fork before crossing the river near Nobleton, some 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of Lake Ontario. From there it runs north over the Oak Ridges Moraine to the western branch of the Holland River, and from there north-east into Lake Simcoe some 80 kilometres (50 mi) north.
A second route of the trail runs from Lake Ontario at the Rouge River, following the river northwest to the Oak Ridges Moraine. Crossing the Moraine it met the eastern branch of the Holland River near Aurora, Ontario. This arm appears to have been favoured by the French explorers in the area, without ever having seen the Humber arm. Near the mouth of the Rouge River, the Seneca had established a village by the name of Ganatsekwyagon. The Bead Hill site in Rouge Park is believed to contain the archaeological remains of the village. Traces of a village have been found on the Oakdale Golf & Country Club grounds, adjacent to the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail. [1]
Once into Lake Simcoe, known as Ouentironk among the First Nations people living in the area, the trail continues north through straits on the north end of the lake into Lake Couchiching. These straits, an important fishing area, gave rise to the name Toronto, as this is "the place where the trees grow over the water". The First Nations peoples had planted trees in the narrows between the lakes to act as a weir to catch fish. From there the trail follows the Severn River into Georgian Bay. Many of the major First Nations tribes lived in the area around and to the north of Lake Simcoe, which were easily reachable via the many rivers leading to the lake.
It is widely stated that the first European to see the Humber arm was Étienne Brûlé, who traveled it with a group of twelve Huron in 1615. However it is now believed that this is in error, and he actually traveled further west, to Lake Erie. [2]
Further French settlement used the Humber portion of the trail primarily. Near the mouth of the Humber and along the Toronto Passage was a trading post called Teiaiagon, where the French and English met with the locals for trading. The site is marked with a plaque, and the ruins of a 19th-century mill stood nearby until the year 2000, when it was demolished and replaced by a new hotel, built in the style of the existing adjacent Tea Room. This included the construction of three forts on or near the trail. The first of these, known as Magasin Royal or Fort Douville, was built in 1720 about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) north of Lake Ontario on the Humber. The second, Fort Toronto, was built in 1750 only a few hundred metres north of the lake, right on the trail. The final one, Fort Rouillé (but also known widely as Fort Toronto), was built about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) to the east of the river during 1750 and 1751, and the site lies near the current bandstand at Exhibition Place.
The trail was widely used by both French and English fur traders until Toronto started to be permanently settled in the early 19th century, bringing to a close over a millennium of use. The connection north to Lake Simcoe was then made along Yonge Street, constructed after Simcoe followed the eastern branch into Toronto.
Étienne Brûlé was the first European explorer to journey beyond the St. Lawrence River into what is now known as Canada. He spent much of his early adult life among the Hurons, and mastered their language and learned their culture. Brûlé became an interpreter and guide for Samuel de Champlain, who later sent Brûlé on a number of exploratory missions, among which he is thought to have preceded Champlain to the Great Lakes, reuniting with him upon Champlain's first arrival at Lake Huron. Among his many travels were explorations of Georgian Bay and Lake Huron, as well as the Humber and Ottawa Rivers. Champlain agreed to send Brûlé, at his own request, as an interpreter to live among the Onontchataron, an Algonquin people, in 1610. In 1629, during the Anglo-French War, he escaped after being captured by the Seneca tribe. Brûlé was killed by the Bear tribe of the Huron people, who believed he had betrayed them to the Seneca.
Lake Simcoe is a lake in southern Ontario, Canada, the fourth-largest lake wholly in the province, after Lake Nipigon, Lac Seul, and Lake Nipissing. At the time of the first European contact in the 17th century the lake was called Ouentironk by the native Wendat/Ouendat (Huron) people. It was also known as Lake Taronto until it was renamed by John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, in memory of his father, Captain John Simcoe of the Royal Navy. In Anishinaabemowin, the ancestral language of the First Nations living around this lake, namely Anishinaabek of Rama and Georgina Island First Nations, Lake Simcoe is called Zhooniyaang-zaaga'igan, meaning "Silver Lake".
Yonge Street is a major arterial route in the Canadian province of Ontario connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Upper Great Lakes.
The Don River is a watercourse in southern Ontario that empties into Lake Ontario, at Toronto Harbour. Its mouth was just east of the street grid of the town of York, Upper Canada, the municipality that evolved into Toronto, Ontario. The Don is one of the major watercourses draining Toronto that have headwaters in the Oak Ridges Moraine.
The Humber River is a river in Southern Ontario, Canada. It is in the Great Lakes Basin, is a tributary of Lake Ontario and is one of two major rivers on either side of the city of Toronto, the other being the Don River to the east. It was designated a Canadian Heritage River on September 24, 1999.
The Toronto waterfront is the lakeshore of Lake Ontario in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It spans 46 kilometres between the mouth of Etobicoke Creek in the west and the Rouge River in the east.
King's Highway 11, commonly referred to as Highway 11, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. At 1,784.9 kilometres (1,109.1 mi), it is the second longest highway in the province, following Highway 17. Highway 11 begins at Highway 400 in Barrie, and arches through northern Ontario to the Ontario–Minnesota border at Rainy River via Thunder Bay; the road continues as Minnesota State Highway 72 across the Baudette–Rainy River International Bridge. North and west of North Bay, Highway 11 forms part of the Trans-Canada Highway. The highway is also part of MOM's Way between Thunder Bay and Rainy River.
Teiaiagon was an Iroquoian village on the east bank of the Humber River in what is now the York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was located along the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail. The site is near the current intersection of Jane Street and Annette Street, at which is situated the community of Baby Point.
Fort Rouillé was a French trading post located in what is now Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Fort Rouillé was constructed by the French in 1751, building upon the success of a trading post they established in the area a year earlier, known as Fort Toronto. Fort Rouillé was named for Antoine Louis Rouillé, who at the time of its establishment was Secretary of State for the Navy in the administration of King Louis XV of France. It served as a trading post with the local indigenous peoples from the region.
Toronto was founded as the Town of York and capital of Upper Canada in 1793 after the Mississaugas surrendered the land to the British in the Toronto Purchase. For over 12,000 years, Indigenous People have lived in the Toronto area. The ancestors of the Huron-Wendat were the first known groups to establish agricultural villages in the area about 1,600 years ago.
Étienne Brûlé Park is located in the Humber River valley just north of Bloor Street West in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is named after Étienne Brûlé, an early French explorer in the Toronto area. It is believed that Étienne Brûlé was the first European to see Lake Ontario in 1615, from a high point of land beside the Humber.
King's Highway 93, commonly referred to as Highway 93, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. Located entirely within Simcoe County, the highway extends 23.9 kilometres (14.9 mi) from an interchange with Highway 400 in Springwater, just south of the community of Hillsdale, to an intersection with Highway 12 at the town limits of Midland. The route follows the historic Penetanguishene Road, an early colonization road which served to connect Lake Simcoe with Georgian Bay, thus providing an overland route from Lake Huron to Lake Ontario via Yonge Street.
The Queensway–Humber Bay, known officially as Stonegate–Queensway, is a neighbourhood in the southwest of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the southeast area of the former City of Etobicoke.
The Toronto ravine system is a distinctive feature of the city's geography, consisting of a network of deep ravines, which forms a large urban forest that runs through most of Toronto. The ravine system is the largest in any city in the world, with the Ravine and Natural Feature Protection Bylaw protecting approximately 110 square kilometres (42 sq mi) of public and privately-owned land. The ravine system has been presented as a central characteristic of the city, with the size of the ravine system leading Toronto to be described as "a city within a park".
The Aurora Site, also known as the "Old Fort", "Old Indian Fort", "Murphy Farm" or "Hill Fort" site, is a sixteenth-century Huron-Wendat ancestral village located on one of the headwater tributaries of the East Holland River on the north side of the Oak Ridges Moraine in present-day Whitchurch–Stouffville, approximately 30 kilometres north of Toronto. This Huron ancestral village was located on 3.4 hectares of land and the settlement was fortified with multiple rows of palisades.
Davenport Road is an east–west arterial road in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is believed to follow an old native trail along the foot of the scarp of the old shoreline of glacial Lake Iroquois. It currently runs from Yonge Street in the east to Old Weston Road in the west.
Bead Hill is an archaeological site comprising the only known remaining and intact 17th-century Seneca site in Canada. It is located on the banks of the Rouge River in Rouge Park, a city park in Toronto, Ontario. Because of its sensitive archaeological nature, it is not open to the public, nor readily identified in the park. It was designated a National Historic Site in 1991, eventually becoming a unit of the national park system in June 2019.
The Toronto waterway system comprises a series of natural and man-made watercourses in the Canadian city of Toronto. The city is dominated by a large river system spanning most of the city including the Don River, Etobicoke Creek, Highland Creek, Humber River, Mimico Creek and Rouge River.
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