A new island community floats in the heart of Toronto

Written By Peter Allan

Visualization of Toronto's David Crombie Park by Danish design firm SLA. SLA’s “Growing Streets” concept is at the heart of the streetscape being designed for the new island community of Ookwemin Minising in Toronto. Photo courtesy: SLA

By Jay Cockburn

It’s hard to overstate how much of a triumph Biidaasige Park is. Even though the Don River that flows through it was only rerouted in late 2024, this entirely artificial creation feels like it has been a part of the city forever. The park’s huge 40-hectare area is crammed with indigenous plant life threaded by water, walkways and gathering places.

It’s a bold statement of what’s to come on the new island community of Ookwemin Minising, “the place of the black cherry trees” in Ojibwemowin. The park’s name, Biidaasige, means “sunlight shining toward us” in Anishinaabemowin, and is pronounced “bee-daw-si-geh.”

The park is the culmination of decades of work to restore the Don River, which used to meander through bends and dead-ends, filter through wetlands and eventually drain into Lake Ontario in a marshy delta. In the 1880s, the river was straightened to promote industrial development. Wetlands were paved over, but the river bucks against its confines, becoming a regular source of flooding in the city. In July 2024, a storm burst the Don’s banks, putting heritage site and nature reserve Evergreen Brickworks underwater. Abandoned cars were strewn across the flooded Don Valley Parkway.

Today, the mouth of that river is surrounded by brand-new, absorbent marshland. Around that marshland, though, is a construction site.

This blank slate is an opportunity to create a new type of neighbourhood: one which works in tandem with indigenous flora and fauna to protect its inhabitants from the worst effects of climate change.

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Peter Allan
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