Toronto's three rivers start here — but you’d never know it
The headwaters of the Rouge, Don and Humber begin at a non-descript intersection in suburban Richmond Hill

TheStar.com
Oct. 29, 2016
Alex Ballingall

Considering how the intersection of Bathurst St. and Jefferson Sideroad is one of the region’s chief hydrological landmarks, the spot itself is remarkably unremarkable.

There’s a bus stop and a traffic light; patches of grass on the road’s shoulder. Zoom out and you’ll see rolling farmland and woods across from an enclave of two-storey homes with many of the familiar trappings of suburbia: uncracked sidewalks, lawn sprinklers and front doors with home security stickers.

But if you dump a bucket of water at the aforementioned crossroad, which is in Richmond Hill, the liquid will seep into the moraine underfoot and eventually trickle into one of Toronto’s major waterways. It’s here, in other words, where the Don, Rouge and Humber rivers are born; the high watermark of Toronto’s river system.

You wouldn’t know it, though, unless somebody told you — somebody like Dena Lewis, senior manager of planning ecology at the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. “The three important rivers that centre the GTA, this is where they come together,” she told the Star recently.

“A functioning landscape ecologically and hydrologically is something we take for granted and don’t even realize,” she said. “You drive through that (and) you don’t really realize how this landscape is working for all of us.”

The City of Toronto is in the throes of creating a strategy for how it watches over and protects the ravines and rivers of the country’s biggest metropolis, which actually cover 17 per cent of municipal territory. The idea is to make a cohesive guideline that pulls together the patchwork of regional bylaws and policies across the region. Yet even as the city pushes to better plan the local ravine network, Lewis and others acknowledge that sometimes there’s a dearth of awareness about the natural landscape of the places we live.

Janette Harvey, a natural environment specialist with the City of Toronto, is working to change that as part of the ravine strategy that looks at improving access and understanding of parks and ravines in the area. The plan at this point is to make a bunch of signs that give people accurate directions along trails while also explaining significant cultural and natural history, Harvey said.

The first phase of the plan will be implemented in spring, when several tall totem-like signs are put up in the Lower Don trail and Riverdale Park.

“Right now in some cases signage is lacking completely,” Harvey explained, adding that there are also signs that contradict information on other signs nearby. “People have commented quite a bit that we need to improve that people know how to navigate through ravines.”

Lewis of the TRCA agreed there could be improvements to raise awareness of certain areas. The intersection of the three major watersheds, at the Bathurst and Jefferson Sideroad intersection, is a good example. A quick stroll around the area provides no clue to the spot’s significance. One can see a weathered silo and a barn with a green roof on the west side of Bathurst, vestiges of the Richmond Hill of yore. Across the street it’s the 21st century, a typical neighbourhood of the 905, with two-car garages and newly laid asphalt and rows of recycling bins that run the sidewalks of cul-de-sacs and winding streets.

A woman swings open a clouded glass front door and briefly pulls a cordless phone from her ear to field a question about the watershed intersection directly behind her house. Bemused, she shrugs and says: “We don’t like strangers,” and asks the questioner to come back later, when she’s not on the phone.

The home next door yields similar confusion. A woman there shakes her head, mutters “my employers aren’t home” and retreats from the front entrance into the cavern of an expansive house.

Finally, someone is down to talk. Raymond Leung has lived just off the intersection in question for 10 years, and said he loves the neighbourhood. He’s familiar with the fact that he lives in the Oak Ridges Moraine, the high ground north of Toronto from which the city’s rivers are supplied with water. But he never dreamed that the intersection behind is house is the moraine highpoint, where the watersheds of three rivers collectively begin.

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said with a short chuckle. “It’s obviously good to know, but will it change my life?

“I don’t think so.”