Garrison Creek, Toronto

Toronto, Canada is often compared to New York based on its diversity, street grid and downtown. Its grid is laid out atop numerous buried streams that have a devoted following that follows their courses. One of those streams is Garrison Creek, named after the fort where the city began.

As the stream’s name indicates, in the early years of Toronto, it had a close connection to Fort York, the military base near its mouth that was built to repel an American invasion. It had a key role in the development of the city as the source of its water. With industry encroaching, pollution drove the stream beneath the surface, but a revival of sorts in now underway.