1. Before the City

Toronto Public Library E 1-33b & On This Spot Enterprises

1930

Toronto's story begins at the end of the last ice age some 13,000 years ago, when the earth warmed and the kilometre thick glaciers that blanketed southern Ontario retreated to the north. Archaeologists think that about 2,000 years after that, the first family-sized bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers followed the herds of caribou and mammoths into the region, and passed through the area of modern-day Toronto. At that time, Lake Ontario's water level was about 100 metres lower than it is today, so the lake's shoreline was actually about 20 kilometres south of Toronto, which is where most of these people camped. Over the millennia that followed, the climate warmed and the lake's level rose, reaching its current level approximately 2,000 years ago. Fishing became increasingly important in the way of life of these first peoples, and technologies such as bows and pottery were introduced (most likely via trade). The populations remained small, and it is estimated that 1,500 years ago (500 CE), the entire population of southern Ontario was only around 10,000. The area around Toronto was inhabited by the Iroquois-speaking Wendat, and there were about 500 from each living on the banks of the rivers Don and Humber.xx1 It is around this time that southern Ontario started to be incorporated into the vast trade network that exchanged goods and ideas between First Peoples from across North America. Important crops like maize (corn), squash, tobacco, and beans were introduced from Mexico and the southern United States, and the people of this region gradually became farmers. The shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture is a revolutionary transition in every society and Southern Ontario was no different. Farming meant that the food supply became more reliable and plentiful, which led to population growth, and increased cultural complexity. By 1300 CE, most people had given up their nomadic lifestyles and began to live in longhouses in semi-permanent villages. More mouths to feed increased competition for resources and land, and this likely led to warfare and raiding. Many of these villages studied by archaeologists, such as the 15th Century Parsons site just south of York University, were sited on easily defended hilltops and surrounded by palisades. The bands began joining together into confederacies to trade and aid each other when attacked. From the 1300s to the 1500s most of the Wendat peoples living around Toronto relocated north to join the Huron Confederacy. This was done for military reasons--their fierce rivals the Six Nations Iroquois moved into the region afterwards--or perhaps because the fishing was much better around Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay. Nevertheless the Wendat maintained close ties to the region, and used a well-established trade route (also known as a portage route) from Lake Simcoe to the mouth of the Humber River, now in downtown Toronto. Those fishing opportunities might be where the name 'Toronto' originated. The Hurons with whom the Wendat confederated with called the channel from Lake Simcoe to Lake Couchiching "tkaronto." In the Mohawk language this means "where there are trees standing in the water," which is a reference to poles staked into the riverbed to create fish weirs (a structure made of, in this case, wood, to direct fish to a specific area in the river). It appears that this name then lent itself to the portage route to Lake Ontario, which became known as the Toronto Passage.xx2 When French fur traders began penetrating the region in the mid-1600s, they used the Toronto Passage to reach the Hurons. Their maps labelled the entire region between Lake Simcoe and Lake Ontario as 'Toronto'. The route became so popular that in the 1700s they established several small forts near the mouth of the Humber, one of which was called Fort Toronto. The French were mostly interested in fur trading, and made little effort to settle the area. So it remained until Britain took control of Canada from the French during the Seven Years’ War and the French forts in this region were abandoned. The American Revolution that followed, would initiate the next phase of Toronto's story.