In 1908, Toronto was a booming metropolis. More than two hundred thousand people called it home. It was expanding quickly, swallowing up neighbouring villages. The first skyscrapers towered above the downtown core, streetcars rattled through rush hour, and horses were just beginning to give way to cars. Construction was everywhere: new train tracks, telephone wires, sewers and street lamps were being installed. And at the bottom of the harbour, eleven metres beneath the surface of the water, city workers were putting in a water pipe.
But one winter day, not long before Christmas, they came to a sudden halt. They’d found something remarkable down there on the bottom of the lake, just to the east of Hanlan’s Point, near the Toronto Islands — something that had sat there, undisturbed, for thousands of years.
In an instant, those construction workers were transported back in time. Eleven thousand years ago, Lake Ontario was much smaller than it is today. The water level was considerably lower, so the shoreline was five kilometres farther south. The area where Toronto now stands was a vast plain of subarctic tundra and spruce forest. The last ice age had just ended, and as the enormous continental glacier that covered the land retreated, great prehistoric beasts moved in. Mammoths and mastodons, ancient caribou, muskox, and bison roamed where lawyers, accountants, and shopkeepers do today. With them came the Paleoamericans, ancestors of today’s Indigenous Peoples, nomadic hunters with stoned-tipped spears. Archaeologists believe they were the very first human beings ever to set foot on that land.
And on one particular day, all those thousands of years ago, a family walked across the place where a city of millions would eventually be built. They were heading north from the lake toward what’s now downtown Toronto. They were wearing moccasins, and, for at least a few steps, they walked through clay, leaving their footprints behind.
Over the next few thousand years, the lake grew, filling with water until it became the Lake Ontario we know today. And those hundred footprints, preserved in that clay, were hidden from view. That is, at least, until 1908, when those city workers discovered them.
It was easily one of the most spectacular archaeological finds in Toronto’s history, quite possibly the earliest evidence of humans ever found in the city. “It looked like a trail,” a city inspector told the Toronto Evening Telegram. “You could follow one man the whole way. Some footprints were on top of the others, partly obliterating them. There were footprints of all sizes, and a single print of a child’s foot.”
Many think of history as a dry list of dates and events; too often, that’s the way it’s presented. But the discovery of those footprints on the bottom of the lake provided a visceral reminder of the truth, an instant connection to people who lived and died thousands of years before the modern city was founded. People who might have lived in a world of mammoths and spears, but who seem to have been a family — who surely loved each other as we do, felt the same feelings we feel today.
Toronto, as it so often is, was in a rush in 1908. The city wanted to build a tunnel, and it didn’t want to slow down. So, the workers kept going. They simply poured concrete over the footprints and continued on with their work. After being miraculously preserved for eleven thousand years, the precious evidence of those human lives was gone in an instant.
Toronto has earned its reputation as a city that doesn’t always appreciate its past. Throughout the twentieth century, as the city grew into a metropolis filled with millions of people, much of its heritage was lost. Victorian storefronts were brought down to make room for parking lots. Whole neighbourhoods were razed for new developments. Thousands of precious archaeological sites were dug up and destroyed.
As a result, Toronto is a place where it can feel especially difficult to connect with the past. And yet, it still surrounds us. As I wrote in The Toronto Book of the Dead, there’s no escaping it: the city of today was created by all those who have come before us. We live in their houses. We drive on their roads. We’ve inherited their traditions and institutions. Toronto — like every city — is a city of the dead.
And while it can sometimes be hard to remember in a city that doesn’t have the romance of cobblestone streets and ancient monuments, those ancestors were more than just names on a page. They were, of course, people much like us. Victorian teenagers got jealous, stodgy old politicians felt joy, and the most reserved gentlewoman could feel heartsick with longing or giddy with the rush of a new crush. Settlers fought duels over salacious insults, and fur traders shared tender moments on their wedding nights. Even centuries ago, Wendat hunters felt the excitement of a first kiss. And that ancient nomadic family, walking through soft clay in their moccasins, knew what it was to fall in love.
Love stories are one of the most powerful ways we have to connect with those who have come before us. An anecdote about how our parents met. A grandmother’s engagement ring or an old photo from a wedding day. A dusty love letter dug out of an attic or found stashed away in a shoebox hidden at the back of a closet. These treasures have been passed down through generations, along with the stories connected to them, a way of knowing more about who we are and where we came from.
The city has its own heirlooms. Toronto has been the scene of countless romances, and no matter how many old buildings come crashing to the ground, the evidence is all around us. The city’s love stories can be found in a forgotten monument, or an old poem, or the name of a west-end street. They are kept inside a lovingly carved box and the glow of a neon sign. You can smell them in the fragrance of a garden that blooms every spring. Through them, the dead can be brought back to life, passions resurrected as their blood flows again in tales of romance, marriage, and scandal.
And in sharing those love stories, we learn more about ourselves and our city. No love story is just a love story. It’s a reflection of a time and of a place. Through tales of infatuated rebels, lustful clowns, and heartbroken spies, we can learn more about how our modern metropolis came to be. About the passionate, romantic, scandalous events that made the city the place it is today.