Some streets are like time machines, and St. Andrews Rd. in Scarborough is one of the best. Running between Brimley and McCowan Rds., it begins and ends its short length in a typical postwar suburban setting of single family homes. But, in between, it goes back a century and a half, transforming into a narrow 19th-century road following the contours of one of Highland Creek’s tributaries, along the way passing by some bits of old Scarborough.

Running across the forested top of Thomson Memorial Park, St. Andrews Rd. is a little quieter than the rest of Scarborough and the pace is slower, perhaps because the cars can’t go as fast on the narrow road and our sense of city-speed is so attuned to automobile velocity. On a ridge above the road sits the Scarboro Centennial Memorial Library, Scarborough’s first public library erected in 1896 on the centenary of the settling of the area. It stands next to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, built in 1849 but with a congregation that goes back to 1818. The church cemetery is here too, the final resting spot of some of Scarborough’s earliest European founders, including the Thomson family from Scotland, for whom Thomson Park is named. The sexton’s house, adjacent to the cemetery, is still occupied. Apart from some telephone poles, a walk in this area probably feels a lot like it always has.

Like the old-time spelling “Scarboro” that still appears on plaques and old business signs in the area, these bucolic pockets of Scarborough are not uncommon. This is a part of Toronto that is at once old and new, with historical traces that are deep but with a modern landscape that is only 50 years old. So much of Scarborough was farmland after the Second World War, save for small villages and hamlets here and there.

Scarborough also has some rather dramatic natural landscapes on which the modern city was grafted. At the southern end of Brimley Rd. the pavement roller coasters its way through a ravine down to Bluffers Park at a grade so steep that it prompted the installation of Toronto’s only runaway vehicle lane, a safety feature usually found in much more mountainous places. Like St. Andrews Rd., Brimley here quickly transitions from typical Scarborough to wild territory.

Military Trail has a similar transition in northeast Scarborough. Just north of Ellesmere Rd. it plunges deep into a branch of the Highland Creek ravine as a two-lane blacktop that seems far away from the city and then climbs up into another quiet neighbourhood. Here Military Trail brushes the Gatineau Hydro Corridor that runs diagonally through much of Scarborough. Under the high tension power lines this wide swathe of prairielike land is an unofficial linear park, sometimes with intermittent bicycle paths. These should be continuous to turn this corridor into an alternate transportation route in a part of the city where biking on fast arterial roads keeps many people off two wheels.

A few kilometres northeast of here, on the other side of the Malvern neighbourhood, is the wildest part of Toronto. Rouge Park takes up much of this corner of the city. Find Old Finch Ave. in this semirural setting — there are farms nearby — and cross the one-lane metal bridge that spans the Rouge River. Further east, Twyn Rivers Dr. is another road that plunges deep into a ravine before continuing up into Pickering. After visiting these places you’ll add wild, historic, and steep to your list of words that describe Scarborough.

Shawn Micallef writes every Friday about where and how we live in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicallef

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