Theres a certain sense of peace and comfort staring back to the city lights. It was about 10 PM on July 17th when I came to this realization. It was a sweltering day on the water for my sailors and I, and we were returning from a long day in Port Credit at a regatta. Exhausted from the day, I decided to tow our boats back home. With the sun down, the heat soon fell away and all you could hear in the immense void of the lake was the rhythmic hum of the outboard powering us home and the city lights slowly illuminating more of your vision. Yet as those lights grew brighter and the skyline began to dominate my vision, the comfort I felt in the moment brought to bear the fragility of it all. It wasn’t a realization born from a single night, but built over countless years. This summer, I spent 45 full days on Lake Ontario—just over 12% of my year—working as a sailing instructor.
When you spend that much time on the water, you begin to notice how vulnerable the seemingly all encompassing and massive Lake really is. Long gone are the days where Toronto would have just existed on the Lake, now the Lake exists next to Toronto. Speeding boat traffic in the harbour, gasoline slicks, floating litter, sewage discharges, and mysterious soapy foam along the shoreline are all a daily fact of life. This is without adding the recent runway expansion proposal to Billy Bishop – a project which the provincial government still continues to push for despite federal disapproval.
It does not have to be this way. A growing city does not require a degraded waterfront. Instead of choosing to treat Lake Ontario as a dumping ground or place to expand into, it should be viewed as a piece of vital infrastructure in itself requiring our care.
I remember when I started sailing, I was 11 and deathly afraid of capsizing. The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t swim, but that I was afraid of getting stuck under the hull, or being chopped up by a propeller, or carried into the middle of the Lake and becoming lost at sea. Deeply irrational fears, but fears that my poor coach had to put up with none the less. Then one day it happened. As I was crossing the bow of my small opti through the wind, my sail was overpowered and caused the boat to begin to uncontrollably roll. In an instant I was jettisoned from my boat and ejected into the Lake. But I didn’t drown or get lost at sea, I simply bobbed to the surface in my lifejacket. Floating next to my overturned boat, that fear evaporated and was replaced with trust. That trust was replaced with a lifelong appreciation for the water.
Looking back from my coach boat on that cool July night towards my sailors, I saw the same love of the lake in them. The lake gave me a place to grow up, face my fears, and find an oasis in nature just minutes from the city. It has carried Torontonians for generations – and now it it is our turn to shepherd it.
The Blue and White 