Lake Ontario's Woodbine Beach is the largest of the four beaches in the Beaches in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located along Lake Shore Boulevard at the foot of Woodbine Avenue, it is next to Ashbridge's Bay and Kew-Balmy Beach. Woodbine beach is the westernmost beach in the Beaches, and the series of beaches extend east until the RC Harris Water Treatment Plant. [1] The beach runs parallel to the boardwalk and the Martin Goodman Trail and is part of Woodbine Beach Park. [2]
The area around Woodbine Beach was once a cottage community in a similar style to the communities on the Toronto Island, today it is a popular beach. [1] Until Lake Shore Boulevard was extended to Woodbine Avenue in the 1950s, Woodbine Beach was not a bathing beach, but rather a wooded area known as 'The Cut'. Woodbine Beach and neighbouring Ashbridge's Bay are a popular place to visit to see the fireworks for Victoria Day. [1] There are over 90 volleyball courts, and various outdoor leisure activity rentals, such as bicycles, canoes, kayaks, and standup paddle boards. Next to the beach is the Donald D. Summerville Outdoor Olympic Pool, an outdoor elevated Olympic-sized swimming pool, overlooking the beach. Construction for the pool started in 1961, and it was designed to add temporary scaffolding for the spectator seats in the event Toronto was to ever host the Olympics. [3] The Martin Goodman Trail runs along the boardwalk.
Woodbine Beach and Kew-Balmy Beach are Blue Flag certified for cleanliness and are suitable for swimming, [4] with this distinction being awarded to Woodbine since 2005. [1] The beach is maintained by Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation. Since 1990, the quality of the water and sand has improved dramatically. [5] The water quality at the beach is tested daily, and is clean to swim on most days, including after storms. [5] In addition, the sand is machine groomed daily. [5] Besides, the terrain is gentle to far offshore, and there is not much seaweed, which is ideal for swimming. However, water temperature can be highly unpredictable. While warm water around 20C can often be experienced from July to early September, occasionally water temperature can drop to the lower teens celsius for days, due to upward swirl of chilly deep-lake water known as upwelling, which is driven by strong westerly wind (thus unrelated to air temperature). [6]
Marilyn Grace Bell Di Lascio is a Canadian retired long distance swimmer. She was the first person to swim across Lake Ontario and later swam the English Channel and Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Greenwood Raceway was a horse racing facility in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
The Beaches is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is so named because of its four beaches situated on Lake Ontario. It is located east of downtown within the "Old" City of Toronto. The approximate boundaries of the neighbourhood are from Victoria Park Avenue on the east to Kingston Road on the north, along Dundas Street to Coxwell Avenue on the west, south to Lake Ontario. The Beaches is part of the east-central district of Toronto.
The Leslie Street Spit, or officially the Outer Harbour East Headland, is a human-made headland in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, extending from the city's east end in a roughly southwesterly direction into Lake Ontario. It is about 5 kilometres (3 mi) long. The Spit is the result of five decades of lakefilling by the Toronto Port Authority. It was conceived as an extension of Toronto Harbour, and has evolved into a largely passive recreation area. Naturalization had not been planned but the process is now actively managed by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. A large portion of it is classified as an Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) and it is recognized as an Important Bird Area.
Lake Shore Boulevard is a major arterial road running along more than half of the Lake Ontario waterfront in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Prior to 1998, two segments of Lake Shore Boulevard were designated as part of Highway 2, with the highway following the Gardiner Expressway between these two sections.
Sunnyside is a lakefront district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It includes a beach and park area along Lake Ontario's Humber Bay, from west of Exhibition Place to the mouth of the Humber River. The area has several recreation uses, including rowing clubs, sports clubs, picnic areas, playgrounds, a nightclub, a bathing pavilion and public pool. The area is a 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) long strip along the lakeshore, bounded by the Gardiner Expressway and rail lines, which separate it from the Parkdale, Roncesvalles and Swansea neighbourhoods to the north. The name originates in a local farm owned by John Howard, which was situated just to the north, on the location of the current St. Joseph's Health Centre hospital.
Stretching over 3600 km from Prince Township, west of Sault Ste. Marie, to the Quebec border, the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail is a signed route of interconnecting roads and off-road trails joining over 150 communities and First Nations along the Canadian shores of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. A celebration of nature and culture, the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail is part of a strategy to protect and connect people to the largest group of freshwater lakes on earth. It is a legacy project of the Waterfront Regeneration Trust, a charity, and its community partners. Through Toronto, the trail is called the Martin Goodman Trail. The Waterfront Trail is also used by commuters in parts of Southern Ontario.
The Port Lands of Toronto, Ontario, Canada are an industrial and recreational neighbourhood located about 5 kilometres south-east of downtown, located on the former Don River delta and most of Ashbridge's Bay.
The Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant is the city of Toronto's main sewage treatment facility, and the second largest such plant in Canada after Montreal's Jean-R. Marcotte facility. One of four plants that service the city of Toronto, it treats the wastewater produced by some 1.4 million of the city's residents and has a rated capacity of 818,000 cubic metres per day. Until 1999 it was officially known as the Main Treatment Plant. The plant has a 185 m (607 ft) high smokestack which is visible from most parts of the city.
Kew Gardens is a large park in The Beaches neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The park stretches from Queen Street East to Lake Ontario at Kew Beach.
Sunnyside Amusement Park was a popular amusement park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that ran from 1922 to 1955, demolished in 1955 to facilitate the building of the Metro Toronto Gardiner Expressway project. It was located on the Lake Ontario waterfront at the foot of Roncesvalles Avenue, west of downtown Toronto.
Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion is a landmark public pavilion in the Sunnyside lakefront area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Built in 1922, its original function was to provide changing facilities for swimming in Lake Ontario, however lake conditions were often too cold and an adjoining public swimming pool was built in 1925. The Pavilion was renovated in 1980 to provide updated changing facilities and a café along the beach and a garden.
Woodbine Avenue is a north–south arterial road consisting of two sections in Toronto and York Region in Ontario, Canada.
East Bayfront, or the East Bayfront Precinct, is an emerging neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is currently undergoing a transformation from industrial use to mixed-use as part of Waterfront Toronto's plans to create a residential and commercial district urban core near the lake.
The Martin Goodman Trail is a 56 km (35 mi) multi-use path along the waterfront in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It traverses the entire lake shore from one end of the city to the other, from Humber Bay Arch Bridge in the west to the Rouge River in the east. The Martin Goodman Trail is part of the 730 km Waterfront Trail around Lake Ontario.
Marie Curtis Park is a public park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located at the mouth of the Etobicoke Creek on Lake Ontario in the Long Branch neighbourhood. Marie Curtis Park was built after the devastating floods of Hurricane Hazel in 1954 destroyed 56 homes and cottages on the site, leaving 1,868 persons homeless and 81 dead. It is named after Marie Curtis, the reeve of Long Branch at the time of its construction. Long Branch at the time was a separate village; it's now amalgamated into the City of Toronto government.
Ashbridges Bay is a bay and park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located along Lake Shore Boulevard next to Woodbine Beach in the Beaches. The Martin Goodman Trail and boardwalk run through the park along the bay. The boardwalk runs 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from Ashbridges Bay in the west to the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant in the east along Lake Ontario. It was once part of the marsh that lay east of Toronto Islands and Toronto Harbour.
