Construction in the Port Lands will restore the mouth of the Don River to a natural, marshy outlet into Lake Ontario. To do this, we’re excavating 1.4 million cubic metres of soil. In the process, we’re uncovering some remnants of the area’s past.

Jump to: Excavation, Bottles, Household Objects, Photos by Vid Ingelevics and Ryan Walker

A Brief History of Fisherman’s Island

Going back thousands of years, the Don River and its outlet into the lake, Ashbridge’s Bay Marsh, was a gathering place and a source of food and water. The large sandbar that is now Cherry Beach was also a place of spiritual significance for many Indigenous people. Around the 1850s, this sandbar became known as Fisherman’s Island, where settlers established a commercial fishery and continued to live even as the marsh became polluted with refuse from the increasingly populated and industrialized city.

In the early 1800s, the Toronto Islands were part of a large sandbar that connected to the foot of present-day Woodbine Avenue. A major storm in 1858 displaced enough of the sandbar to create the Eastern Gap channel, establishing what is now the Toronto Islands in the west and what became known as Fisherman’s Island on the remaining sandbar in the east. The area between the sandbar, also called Fisherman’s Island, and the mainland, remained separated by the Ashbridge’s Bay marsh.

This map from 1911 shows the Keating Channel and the north end of Fisherman’s Island

Fisherman’s Island supported a community and had amenities such as this church.

This map from 1909 shows the breakwater and sandbar that was known as Fisherman’s Island.

Like the Toronto Islands today, people lived and worked on Fisherman’s Island, travelling to and from the city of Toronto by boat or by travelling over a breakwater that was built in 1882.

We unearthed a breakwater in September 2020. Read more about it here.

What comes out of a twentieth-century dump?

Archeologists from Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), along with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, are monitoring the excavation of the new river valley to identify and document items that may be of historical or cultural significance.

By the early 1900s, the Toronto Harbour Commission had filled in the marshland at the mouth of the Don River and around Fisherman’s Island to create an industrial district, establishing the Port Lands and Cherry Beach that we see today. Click here to learn more about the industrial history of the Port Lands.

Most of the objects found during our excavation to create a river valley through the Port Lands were deposited in the 1900s either as garbage or during lakefilling. We can’t retain any of these objects due to the contamination of the surrounding soils from industrial uses in the Port Lands. However, TRCA’s archaeologist’s have documented many recovered objects.

So what comes out of a twentieth-century dump? Check out the gallery below.

Exploring Toronto’s history through these objects

Bottles: the Battle for Ginger Ale Dominance

We found many bottles from soda pop proprietors Charles Wilson during the deep excavation of the river valley. His trademark squirrel makes them very recognizable! We also uncovered a number of bottles made by his rival, J. J. McLaughlin, the original maker of Canada Dry.

The history of soda pop in Canada has roots stretching back to 1820 when small businesses opened and began carbonating beverages and occasionally advertised them as tonics and medicinal elixirs. In 1875, Charles Wilson began bottling soda at his Sherbourne Street factory, just north of Wellesley Street. His most popular beverage quickly became Wilson’s Ginger Ale, which was often pitted against today’s well-known Canada Dry made by J.J. McLaughlin.

By 1929, Canada had nearly 350 beverage production plants that produced over $12 million in sales- $185 million today. Wilson’s son expanded factory operation in the early 20th century, but by 1985 the business closed.

This map from 1903 shows Wilson’s factory on Sherbourne Street

Wilson might have mostly been known for his ginger ale, but an ad in the Toronto Daily Star from 1907 indicated he also manufactured lemon sour, sarsaparilla, cream soda, birch beer, and raspberry phosphate.

Bottles carrying J.J. McLaughlin’s trademark were found in the Port Lands as well. His ginger ale was not marketed under the Canada Dry trademark until 1906, when it exploded in popularity.

J.J. McLaughlin is credited with introducing ‘Siphon Bottles’, like this one found in the Port Lands, to Toronto. The special nozzle preserves the bottle’s internal pressure and prevents the carbonated beverages from going flat.

A drawing of the J.J. McLaughlin factory in Toronto.

A newspaper ad for Canada Dry Ginger Ale from 1916 describes J. J. McLaughlin Ltd. as ‘Manufacturing Chemists” at a time when soft drinks were still sometimes considered health tonics.

Newspaper Fragments

We’ve come across lots of newspaper fragments with snippets of stories and ads. Often they’re degraded to the point where it’s nearly impossible to read the original newsprint. But sometimes they’re remarkably well-preserved, like this ad for Bredin Best Bread.

In 1883, Mark Bredin and his family immigrated from Ireland to Toronto, and soon after established a bread baking business with his brothers. These brothers managed an entire business from 104 Augusta Ave in Kensington Market before expanding locations to include Parkdale and later moving operations to 160-164 Avenue Road, near Davenport.

Mark Bredin laying the cornerstone at Toronto East General Hospital in 1927. (Photo: City of Toronto Archives)

A Bredin Bread Wagon at the corner of Bloor St. and Avenue Road in 1934.

Canada Bread Machinery in 1923 (Photo: City of Toronto Archives)

Woman Explorer’s Fate Eaten Alive by Wolves

This fragment from an unknown paper shares the story of Edith Chambers, a turn-of-the-century explorer who went to the Yukon during the gold rush. The headline is likely a little bit of an exaggeration, “Woman Explorer’s Fate Eaten Alive by Wolves.” She detailed the final weeks of her life in a diary that was later found and sent to her brother, Frank Hewitt.

Household Items

Like any dump, the Ashbridge’s Bay received unwanted household items. While these items aren’t of any historical significance, they do offer a snapshot of life in the 1900s.

This hat bears the mark of Giuseppe Borsalino, an Italian hat maker who began operations in 1857. His dedication to quality and ethical business practices led to the establishment of pension plans and health insurance for his employees.

When Borsalino passed in 1900, his business employed 1000 workers with an annual production of one million hats. His son expanded the business and the hats became fashion staples: Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman are wearing Borsalino hats in ‘Casablanca’.

It’s hard to tell exactly what style the hat we found would have been. This Eaton’s catalogue from 1908 gives some examples of fashionable hats of the day.

We found lots of shoes in various states of disintegration. On some of the shoes you can still see details like shoelace holes.

We found a few pairs of shoes, like those top left, but most shoes were found without their match.

This photo of the Eaton’s shoe department in 1905 shows some of the popular styles of the day.

This is a Chiclet Spoon, found in the Port Lands. It was an advertising gimmick from the early 1900s to introduce the new peppermint flavour of Chiclet gum.

The silver-plated spoons were used by shop owners to serve Chiclets to customers.

You can see two Chiclet spoons in the box on the left. The box describes the product as ‘A Dainty Confection Candy Coated Chewing Gum. Particularly desirable “after dinner”. ‘

This fragment of a children’s plate was made by Royal Baby as part of the Tiny Todkin’s series. This series was patented in Canada in 1903 and made available to tableware manufactures who printed them on their pottery. Unfortunately, the back of this fragment does not include a manufacturer.

An intact version of the plate shows the full image and text ‘The Tiny Todkins making hay, think work is better fun than play.” There are dozens of prints for the Tiny Todkin’s tableware series, all of which illustrate whimsical scenes of children at play.

While the materials used to make toothbrushes have certainly changed since the early 1900s, the general design remains the same, as shown by this one.

Photographs of Found Objects, by Vid Ingelevics and Ryan Walker

Assorted glass bottles and containers found in the excavation area south of Commissioners Street.

A collection of bottles and jars with a notebook for scale. The smallest jar holds 100-year-old pickles!

A newspaper from the early 1900s was surprisingly well preserved.

The most common items we find are glass bottles and ceramic jars.

Another snippet of newspaper with an exciting partial headline

The on-site archaeologist piecing together bits of newspaper.

Watch the photographers talk about what it was like to see the excavation of the breakwall up close.

This clip is from a webinar called “Nature’s Image in the City” hosted by Robert Burley, as part of a series related to the book, Accidental Wilderness: Accidental Wilderness – The Origins and Ecology of Toronto’s Tommy Thompson Park (robertburley.com)

Want to see more photos by our photographers Vid Ingelevics and Ryan Walker? Check out this page.

Found Objects in the Port Lands