Preserved Stories Blog

Etobicoke Creek thousands of years ago gave rise to what is now an underwater valley

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Jaan Pill

At a presentation I attended in Mississauga of an underwater valley — now located south of teh current shoreline of Lake Ontario — associated with an earlier stage in the history of Etobicoke Creek.

We know from geological evidence that, during its Glacial Lake Iroquois stage, the water level of Lake Ontario was higher than it is now.

There’s a road in Oakville, north of the Queen Elizabeth Way at Trafalgar Road, that is conveniently named Iroquois Shore Road. The road indicates where the Glacial Lake Iroquois shoreline used to be located. Evidence of the shoreline is visible across Mississauga and Toronto as well.

For example, the old shoreline is indicated by a hill that one encounters when travelling north along Avenue Road or Yonge Street when approaching St. Clair Avenue West. Similarly a hill, with a less abrupt slope is encountered, as I recall, in Mississauga when travelling north along Hurontario Street north of Dundas Street West.

An excellent account of the rise and fall of this lake is provided by John Chapman and Donald Putnam in their classic and authoritative text, Physiography of Southern Ontario, 3rd Edition (1984).

Thereafter, the water level went much lower than it is now, during what is called the Lake Admiralty phase of Lake Ontario.

During the time Lake Ontario was at a lower level, Etobicoke Creek formed a valley which is now underwater.

I look forward to learning details about this valley

In an earlier version of this blog, I wrote:

“The map below, which I’ve created to show the configuration of Etobicoke Creek in the years before and after it was channelized, provides useful information concerning the direction in which the creek would likely have flowed during the thousands of years when the water level of the lake was lower than its current level.”

The text above is based on an incorrect assumption on my part.

That is, it’s not likely that the creek has flowed in a westerly direction for thousands of years. In fact, as I understand, the flow might have been in all manner of directions over such a period of time.

We owe thanks to Robert Lansdale for sharing the fact — based on his knowledge as an engineer with direct experience with the physical features of Lake Ontario — that one cannot make the assumption that I have made in the above-noted earlier version of my text.

Robert Lansdale notes that Etobicoke Creek and the surrounding lands have changed drastically over thousands — and even over hundreds — of years.

“The spit where Lake Promenade and the cottages were located,” he comments, ”was mostly created via sand being dumped in this area from the Lake Ontario beach currents, such as from the Sunnyside areas and easterly. That’s what most likely caused the creek to have become diverted. ”

Configuration of Etobicoke Creek prior to its channelization

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The shelter at the Long Branch TTC Loop was built in 1928, the year Mickey Mouse made his on-screen debut

Posted on May 20, 2012 by Jaan Pill

Long Branch TTC Loop shelter building was built in 1928

The previous blog post mentioned Mickey Mouse and 1928.

Walt Disney cartoon characters have been characterized as colonizing the minds of movie-goers worldwide since the 1920s in a process known as Disneyfication, which has parallels with the McDonaldization of society.

A reference to McDonaldization brings to mind several authors dealing with a wide range of qualities and aatributes associated with instrumental reason, rationality, and modernity including Charles Taylor.

Endless propaganda (Rutherford, 2000)

The concluding chapter in the book referenced in the previous blog, Endless propaganda, seeks to contrast contemporary democracy with what it would look like in an ideal world as characterized by Jürgen Habermas among others.

In an ideal world as characterized by Habermas and others, “ordinary people would engage in rational debate about common issues, and do so as equal and impartial participants who could transcent self-interest and their initial preferences.”

In such a utopian democracy, one would have what’s described as a classic public space in which the focus, according to Paul Rutherford, is on “debating and deliberating rather than buying and selling.”

Rutherford refers to three aspects of civic advocacy — a term that he uses interchangeably with civic advertising — that are characteristic of affluent societies from 1970 to 2000, the period of history that his study focuses upon.

1. Ideas are communicated by a relatively small circle of interests including public-interest groups.

The author also brings attention to civic advocacy by the Canadian government in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1971, for example, Health Canada started Participaction, which channelled vast amounts of money toward advertising aimed at promoting physical fitness among Canadians.

Participaction received extensive exposure through a commercial claiming that the average sixty-year-old in Sweden had the same level of physical fitness as the average thirty-year-old Canadian.  Although the claim was an exaggeration, the message had a strong impact at the time. The results of the message, however, as Rutherford adds, were not long-lasting. If you want advertising to work, you have to keep on repeating it, and you have to keep on changing the ads, given that in time they ‘wear out’ because people stop taking notice of them.

2. There’s been a partial retreat of the state from civic advocacy

The emergence of a privatized form of civic advocacy in the United States and elsewhere is an illustration of a concomitant trend associated with the partial retreat of the state from this form of advocacy.

3. Issue or advocacy advertising has emerged as a key element in national politics

In the above-noted form of civic advocacy, a new series of non-public authorities has emerged. In the United States, these agents of advocacy have included, by way of example, champions of handgun control, nuclear energy, pro-pife and pro-choice positions, seniors, tac reform, the American flag, the Sierra Club, the Teamsters, and the AFL-CIO. Such agents have focused on the broadcasting of issue ads to influence the national debate.

Having money made civic advocacy easier for some groups than others. In the absence of vast amounts of money, alternative means — such as moral weight or expert status — were used by some groups to establish a presence.

Rutherford adds that during the period covered by his study, the notion of television as an open forum “energized some groups such as Adbusters and cultural jammers generally, there was little prospect that their hopes would be realized. Extremists and outcasts, labelled as such by the media, were often censored, their images kept hidden and their voices silelnecd.”

The endless propaganda to which the title of the book refers emphasized “both hierarchy and exclusion, establishing that a very few voices would be far more significant than the rest.” Rather than open debate, there was competition among opinions.

“Marketing was,” notes Rutherford, “among other things, a technology of managing opinions. Marketing encompasses the two modes of visual power: polling constitutes surveillance, just as advertising becomes spectacle.”

As he approaches the end of his concluding remarks, Rutherford adds that:

 ”Propaganda [that is, civic advocacy as Rutherford defines it] can set the agenda (determine what issues are of importance), prime discussion (determine what critera are used to assess a person or issue), excite controversy (where newsoutlets take differen stands).”

“Advertising as propaganda has colonized the public sphere with styles of rhetoric and imagery”

Advertising as propaganda — that is, civic advocacy — has, Rutherford concludes, “colonized the public sphere with styles of rhetoric and imagery, a way of perceiving problems and solutions, derived from the operations of the marketplace.”

Many things have been commodified, including politics, leisure, art, learning, and dissent, asserts the author.

As well, “civic advertising has also worked to subject its products, both public goods and social risks, to a moral logic, a calculus of right and wrong. That has proved the most effective way to package the sell, because a moral logic reaches across boundaries of class, gender, race, and belief. Issues, politicians, ideas, policies, and behaviours are all transformed into moral commodities. The results have been so promising that the practice of moralizing has begun to condition the selling of private goods as well.”

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Mickey Mouse made his on-screen debut in 1928

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Jaan Pill

This blog post is concerned with advocacy — what it is, and how it functions.

In Estonian, the word for lawyer is advokaat.

Synonyms for advokaat in my Estonian-English Dictionary (Saagpakk: Yale University Press, 1982) include:

  • barrister
  • attorney
  • counselor
  • counsel
  • pleader
  • advocate

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, Second Ed. (Barber: Oxford University Press, 2004) speaks of an advocate as a

  • person who supports or speaks in favour
  • person who pleads for another
  • lawyer

The noun ‘advocacy’ is defined in the Canadian Oxford Disctionary as

  • public support for or recommendation of a cause, policy, etc.
  • the function of an advocate

It can be argued that one can advocate without being labelled as an advocate.

Supporting or speaking in favour can take many forms.

A federal government message attacking the role of advocacy groups can be viewed as a form of advocacy.

Advocacy can take many forms, including advocacy that attacks advocacy, as in the illustration just noted.

When one speaks of advocacy it’s useful to be aware of what advocacy entails.

Endless propaganda: The advertising of public goods (Rutherford, 2000)

I borrowed this book after an online search at the Toronto Public Library website of items related to advocacy.

In his study of advocacy in contemporary affluent democracies, Paul Rutherford posits that advocacy advertising has “colonized the political, social, and moral realms of the public sphere in the affluent democracies during the past three decades” (p. xiii).

The decades he refers to are the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

Colonization can function as metaphor or descriptive noun

Colonization in Rutherford’s passage, quoted above, is treated as a metaphor. 

Colonization is a concept one encounters in many contexts — as metaphor or as descriptive noun.

For example, after the last ice age, over the past 10,000-plus years North America was colonized by large (now extinct) mammals, a wide range of plants, and by humans. Colonization is used in this illustration as a descriptive noun.

Mickey Mouse was first featured as an on-screen cartoon character in 1928. A book about the history of film animation speaks of the Walk Disney Company as serving to colonize the minds of movie-goers around the world starting in the 1920s.

The shelter at the Long Branch TTC Loop was built in 1928. In the same year, Mickey Mouse made his on-screen debut.

In this usage, colonization is a metaphor. When we picture this process, the first thought that comes to mind might involve the image of vast expanses of empty mental spaces being colonized by Mickey Mouse and his cartoon peers.

In oral history interviews with people in their eighties and nineties who grew up in Long Branch, I’ve encountered detailed and evocative descriptions of social life on the streets and porches of Long Branch before the advent of television. Minds were not empty prior to the arrival of Mickey Mouse.

The metaphor of colonization may, however, be apt as a way to describe Disyneyfication. Mickey Mouse and his friends may, it can be said, have colonized minds in the sense that they pushed aside some of the other things that had populated our minds before Walt Disney appeared on the scene.

Emergence and expansion of civic advocacy

Paul Rutherford’s study is organized into five parts describing the emergence, expansion, and genres of civic advocacy until 2000. In the final chapter he discusses how “the prominence of civic advocacy has affected the practices and even the character of democrary”  (p. xiii).

Rutherford describes his book as belonging to a school sometimes called New Cultural History. He emphasizes the importance of language as it’s used in discourses that express relations of power.

This approach to history presumes that language shapes human beings through discussion, texts, and images, “often in ways which suit the needs of authority: language fashions our worlds, our desires and fears, our identities, and our enemies. That presumption justifies a close attention to the career, the styles, the imagery, the messages, and so on, of advocacy advertising as a specific technology of power” (p. xiv).

Paul Rutherford offers a 10-point conceptual framework describing civil advocacy

Rutherford offers a conceptual framwork which can be summarized as follows:

  1. The public sphere is a utopian space where private people gather to discuss shared concerns. Ideally, what should prevail is rational discourse.
  2. The instruments of colonization were corporate, social, issue, and political advertising — in the form of publicity dealing with behaviours, feelings, beliefs, policies, political parties, and politicians.
  3. The process of colonization took off after the mid-1960s in the United States and spread rapidly in a process closely linked to the advance of television.
  4. This propaganda worked to fashion and to popularize new public goods, such as clean air, and to warn against social risks, such as environmental disaster.
  5. Civic advocacy is an instrument of elites who have the money or the connections to hire experts as well as to secure time or space on the mass media.
  6. Civic advocacy constitutes a discourse which represents the world of affairs as a gathering of problems, products, and solutions, always to suit the purposes of selling, though some realities, such as war,  are rarely performed in its theatre of display.
  7. This propaganda has created a special rhetoric of authority, often grounded in a moral logic or point of view, that has conditioned the behaviours of actors in the public sphere.
  8. Civic advocacy has subjected politics, social behaviour, and public endeavour to the philosophy and discipline of marketing.
  9. Civic advocacy has penetrated people’s bodies and minds.
  10. A public sphere has emerged in the form of marketplace of goods and risks where citizens act as consumers and where participation (or non-participation) expresses an aesthetic response.

 

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How do you make a Jane’s Walk into a conversation?

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Jaan Pill

During planning for the May 6, 2012 South Long Branch Jane’s Walk, local resident David Switzer pointed out for us a distinction between a Jane’s Walk and a Heritage Walk.

We’ve also heard that every Jane’s Walk will be different, depending on who’s involved with it.

Thus it may happen that occasionally a Jane’s Walk may be similar to a Heritage Walk in some respects.

A key difference, however, is that a Jane’s Walk will be more in the nature of a conversation and a Heritage Walk may — as I understand — be more of a top-down dissemination of information about a neighbourhood.

The concept that a Jane’s Walk is in the nature of a conversation had a strong impact on the planning of our recent Jane’s Walk in Long Branch.

How do you make a Jane’s Walk into a conversation?

We planned from the outset that two Jane’s Walk Guides would lead the walk — in this case Mike James and Jaan Pill. They took turns at the microphone during the walk. Sometimes they had a brief conversation, passing the microphone back and forth between them.

We also made a point to welcome any walk participant to step forward, at any point, and speak to the audience.

Several speakers responded to the call for guest speakers.

Ward 3, Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Toronto District School Board Trustee Pamela Gough speaks near the Mississauga-Toronto border on May 6, 2012

Ward 3, Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Toronto District School Board Trustee Pamela Gough and several other speakers shared valuable information with us during the walk.

This made for an interesting and balanced way to share information. It’s great to hear more than one point of view.

After the walk, when I visited Mike James in the older part of Brampton where he’s lived for close to thirty years, he mentioned a drawback of having eighty people at a Jane’s Walk. There are fewer opportunities for a walk participant to share information by speaking with a smaller group of other attendees.

On a future occasion, we would plan to have two or more portable amplifiers with us, and would possibly break into two or three smaller groups.

Routes can be planned beforehand, so that if a larger group breaks into two or three smaller groups, the groups would not be running into each other.

By way of planning for the 2013 Jane’s Walks, I’ll be interested in having further conversations with Fanny Martin, Jane’s Walk Event Manager, and other organizers, to generate ideas on how to include additional opportunities for conversations as part of Jane’s Walks.

How can we work with insights from Jane’s Walks?

Fanny Martin has mentioned that it would be a great idea to get a sense of the insights and reflections that emerge among participants in a Jane’s Walk.

I look forward to learning how to gather such insights.

For a start, when we contact people who shared their emails with us during the South Long Branch walk on May 6, 2012, we’ll ask them to share their insights and reflections.

A formal evaluation form, distributed at the end of a walk, may be another way to gather views from all participants.

Conversation 

A conversation can be compared to a tennis match, in which turns are taken. The ball goes over the net. The opposing player hits the ball back over the net, and so on.

In a presentation that is proceeding smoothly, the speaker is tuned into the body language of the audience, and makes subtle adjustments in speaking style and content is response to cues from listeners.

The choice of words, and the delivery of them, can be viewed as part of an ongoing conversation — part of an ongoing tennis match, so to speak.

If a speaker seeks to deliver a stream of words with barely a look at the audience, we can say that it’s a one-sided form of conversation. However, that’s a form of public speaking that will work great if a person is getting used to speaking in front of an audience.

One needs to start somewhere. Just getting started in public speaking, if one has not engaged in it very much before, is a tremendous achievement and warrants celebration. In that regard, I speak from my own experience over the years.

The ideal content, in my experience — as a speaker and as a listener — for an event such as a Jane’s Walk, consists of brief, well-chosen sounds bites from a variety of speakers.

The nonverbal communication — eye contact, smiles, nods, gestures — between speaker and listeners is qualitatively different from the nonverbal communication that occurs when an audience encounters a ‘grocery list’ style of speech, in which massive amounts of text wash over an audience.

May 2012: Five key messages about South Long Branch

For the May 6, 2012 South Long Branch walk, the key sound bites (which I rehearsed, and in some cases have used in previous presentations) were as follows:

Jaan Pill (holding microphone) explains, at start of the Jane's Walk, that Lake Promenade used to extend far beyond the point where it currently ends. Mike James is standing next to Jaan Pill. Click on photo to enlarge it. Click again to enlarge it further. Photo credit: Peter Foley

(1) Lake Promenade used to extend a significant distance west of where it now terminates, at Forty second Street.

(2) The western branch of Etobicoke Creek ran on the west side of the island that used to be located directly west of the current channelized version of Etobicoke Creek.

(3) The two branches of Etobicoke Creek joined to create a stream of water which entered into Lake Ontario roughly where Applewood Creek is now located.

(4) On August 25, 2011, Etobicoke-Lakeshore MPP Laurel Broten announced that the province would provide $5.2 million to ensure that Parkview School remains in public hands.

(5) After military service with the Queen’s Rangers in the American Revolutionary War, Colonel Samuel Smith applied for and was granted a large tract of land in 1793 in Etobicoke. Originally a log cabin to which extensions and siding were added, the colonel’s house was in continuous use for about 152 years from 1797 until about 1949. When the house was demolished in 1955, the original log cabin was discovered inside the building.

These sound bites provided new information about Long Branch for a good number of the May 6, 2012 walk participants.

May 2013: Draft of five key points about South Long Branch

In a subsequent Jane’s Walk, we may review some of these points but the key sound bites will be different. Among other things, these points might include these facts:

(1) Palaeo-Indian nomadic hunters arrived in this area about 10,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

(2) The shoreline of Lake Ontario has wandered north of the current location during the Glacial Lake Iroquois phase when the lake expanded, and south of it during the Admiralty Lake phase when the lake contracted.

(3) An underwater valley associated with Etobicoke Creek exists south of the current shoreline, dating from when Lake Ontario was significantly lower than it is now.

(4) The evolving concept of ‘cottage country’ in the history of Southwestern Ontario

(5) Turrets, verandas, and porches: An overview of  ‘cottage country’ architectural styles dating back from the creation of Long Branch Park in the 1880s

Rehearsal

For a typical speaking situation, I’ll prepare a text in 14-point font, widely spaced, and will print it out on card stock paper. I’ll refer to that text when I rehearse and when I make the presentation.

I like to be familiar enough with a text so that if I read from it, I barely look at the words.

I like to spread out rehearsals — typically spending short blocks of time rehearsing a text over a period of many weeks or even months — rather than trying to do all of the rehearsing in a shorter period of time.

Sometimes I’ll speak from a list of key words. At other times, I ensure there is plenty of time for ad lib (spontaneous, off the cuff) remarks so that what I say is a combination of a prepared text and additional remarks that I make up as I go.

I learned to really focus on the body language of the audience only within the last year. Prior to his talk at a meeting of the Long Branch Historical Society, I met Honourary Colonel Gerald Haddon and interviewed him. He spoke to the society on March 20, 2012 at a meeting that was moved (because we knew there would be an overflow audience) from the Long Branch Library to James S. Bell Junior Middle School.

Honourary Colonel Haddon is the grandson of J.A.D. McCurdy, Canada’s first aviator. We look forward to completing the editing of a video of his presentation (and of the earlier interview) and posting it on Vimeo.

In the interview prior to the presentation, Gerald Haddon remarked that sometimes when he speaks, the lights for video equipment many be  set up in such a way that when he looks out at an audience, he sees the lights, and cannot see the faces of people in the audience.

In such a situation, he explained, making the presentation can be a challenge — because he’s used to reading facial expressions and body language as a way to gauge how he’s doing in delivery of his content.

That comment is what has prompted me to pay much more attention to body language, in the audience, in my own presentations, than would have been the case in the past.

There’s a lot that we can learn about public speaking, and in preparing for media interviews. Fortunately, there are many ways in which each of us can improve our skills in these areas of communication.

Posted in Jane's Walks | Heritage Walks | Heritage Rides, Long Branch and beyond, Media relations, Toronto | Leave a comment

Publicity for the South Long Branch Jane’s Walk took many forms — and we began publicizing long before the event

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Jaan Pill

The large turnout for the May 6, 2012 South Long Branch Jane's Walk can be credited to word-of-mouth advertising; a well-designed poster featuring a 1920s photograph of children in a boat; detailed information on the Jane's Walk website; notices in Ward 6, Etobicoke-Lakeshore Councillor Mark Grimes' newsletter; articles in The Lakeshore Villages, The Etobicoke Guardian, and The Toronto Star; and other forms of publicity. Photo credit: Peter Foley

Publicity for the May 6, 2012 South Long Branch Jane’s Walk took many forms, was prepared with close attention to detail, and began months before the event.

The office of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ward 6 Councillor, Mark Grimes suggested that we organize this walk in the first place, and provided extensive publicity for it through the Councillor’s newsletter.

An early source of additional publicity involved an article that appeared in The Lakeshore Villages newspaper, distributed widely in the Lakeshore communities.

For the latter article, we provided extensive information to Lindsay Howe, a writer for the newspaper, about the walk.

We also provided photos from the 1920s and later decades that we’d come across over the past year in the course of oral history interviews that we’ve been recording for several years with long-time Long Branch residents.

Some days before the Jane’s Walk on May 6, 2012, we received further publicity in The Etobicoke Guardian, in an editorial which highlighted all of the Jane’s walks in South Etobicoke.

As well, around that time The Toronto Star, in an article about the Jane’s Walks in the Toronto Area, selected the South Long Branch Jane’s Walk as one of the walks that warranted particular attention.

Part of the material for Lakeshore Villages included a Question and Answer interview that Jaan Pill conducted with Daryl Pantel, a local accountant who is Treasurer of the Long Branch Historical Society.

An early version of the interview is posted below.

Jane’s Walk – Q & A from Lakeshore Villages newspaper

The following is an excerpt from an interview conducted by the May 6, 2012 South Long Branch Jane’s Walk co-leader Jaan Pill, in conversation with Daryl Pantel, CMA, treasurer of the Long Branch Historical Society.

Jaan: Tell me, are you looking forward to the Jane’s Walk?

Daryl: Yes, actually I am looking forward to it — and I was wondering if I could invite some friends on the walk from other neighbourhoods that are hoping to come explore Long Branch, and see how the Jane’s Walk works.

Jaan: Absolutely. We welcome people from outside the neighbourhood, because they turn up, they’re keen, they talk about the neighbourhood, and they raise our profile. They can help to preserve what’s left of our heritage.

Jaan: What are some of the features of Long Branch, if we start at Marie Curtis Park, and walk all the way to New Toronto, where the Lakeshore Hospital Grounds are located, that would appeal to you, in a walk?

Daryl: Well, some of the history of some of the older houses, what happened in these areas, and how the cannon landed up on the beach at Marie Curtis Park. From the park all the way along Lake Promenade to Twenty Third Street, there is a lot of older, refurbished houses along there. I’d like to know: Which ones are historical? Why are they historical? What happened in what’s left of Long Branch Park?

Additionally, what happened down along Dominion Road, and why everyone wants to ‘rejuvenate’ it, by reconstructing it instead of maintaining what we have?

We need to recognize the tradeoffs that people are facing, and the governments are facing, to keep and maintain a heritage culture. By the same token you have to have progress, in order to survive, and our neighbourhood, I think it’s becoming very ‘up and coming’ right now.

It’s been quite quiet and stagnant — which has been lovely for us that live here. However we do need to have an economy to sustain our neighbourhood. I think we have to learn how to do that and still maintain our integrity.

Cloverdale Mall event, and mentions in Etobicoke Guardian and Toronto Star

Side-by-side maps: Mouth of Etobicoke Creek in 1936 and 2012. Cloverdale Mall, February 25, 2012

Poster for May 6, 2012 Janes Walk, featuring mid-1920s photo of children in boat near mouth of Etobicoke Creek

The Long Branch Historical Society had a display table at the 7th Annual Government and Community Services Fair held at Cloverdale Mall on Saturday February 25, 2012.

The Cloverdale event was a wonderful occasion for networking and publicity. We distributed large numbers of May 6, 2012 Jane’s Walk posters, and met the father (Bob Lansdale) of the computer specialist (Robert Lansdale) who’d used PhotoShop to enhance the photo, from the mid-1920s, that we used on our poster.

Robert Lansdale subsequently provided us with tremendously valuable information that played a key role in the research that we did about changes at the mouth of Etobicoke Creek between the 1920s and 1950s.

The Toronto Star mention was based on the Jane’s Walk profile that we had posted to the Jane’s Walk website early on in our publicity efforts.

The profile included the mid-1950s photo that we used in our poster, as well as a brief but detailed overview of highlights of the walk.

The description of the walk, at the Jane’s Walk website, was based on extensive consultation with Fanny Martin, Jane’s Walk Event Manager, who provided advice on how best to go about creating a description for the South Long Branch Jane’s Walk.

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May 6, 2012 South Long Branch Jane’s Walk began with extensive planning

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Jaan Pill

We’re delighted that our recent South Long Branch Jane’s Walk was a success.

Eighty people turned up, and the feedback has been positive.

A great event often starts with great planning

In 1995, I was involved in planning a three-day national conference in Toronto. In those years, my volunteer work that did not involve heritage preservation or related topics.

The 1995 conference, for a national non-profit organization of which I was a co-founder in 1991, had over 200 attendees. The high attendance figure was the result of extensive publicity  — which in those days included mailouts of information using Canada Post.

I’d been involved in planning of smaller events in Toronto and elsewhere for several years before that.

On the opening day of the 1995 conference, I remarked to fellow organizers that, “We’ve done a great job of organizing this event. Now that we’ve done our work, we can relax and have a good time.”

Things turned out as predicted. Everyone enjoyed a great conference.

That’s how we’ve learned to approach all of the events we’ve been involved in planning, since the late 1980s.

The planning is the foundation. It’s the structure that you build before the event takes place. The thought that goes into the planning is manifested in the final product.

If the planning has been done well, there will be room for spontaneity and serendipity during the event. The latter ingredients are also essential. As Mike James likes to say, it’s not a good idea to ‘overplan’ an event.

The archaeological remains of the Colonel Samuel Smith homestead are located on the school grounds of Parkview School at 85 Forty First Street. The Ontario government announced on August 25, 2011 that it would provide $5.2 million in funding to enable the school to stay in public hands. A new French elementary school is slated to open on the site in 2013. The sale of the school has turned out to be a 'good news' story thanks to the efforts of Etobicoke-Lakeshore MPP Laurel Broten (now Minister of Education); Ward 3, Etobicoke-Lakeshore TDSB Trustee Pamela Gough; Toronto Lands Corporation officials; large numbers of people who wrote letters in support of keeping the school in public hands; and several key individuals who shared strategic advice. Photo credit: Peter Foley

The planning begins months before the event

For the South Long Branch Jane’s Walk, the planning began several months before the event.

That gave us plenty of time to publicize the walk and develop a clear picture of what we’d be talking about.

It also gave us time to visit the site several times, to help us in picturing how best to organize each stage of the walk.

This was the second Jane’s Walk that Mike James and I have been involved with.

We also had brief speaking roles at a Jane’s Walk in Mimico the day before, on May 5, 2012.

I’ve also attended a Heritage Walk and a Tree Walk. As a result, we had a good idea of how such events are structured, and how a person attending such an event will experience it.

In the next few blogs we’ll discuss aspects of the planning process, based on our experience with the May 6, 2012 South Long Branch Jane’s Walk.

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Do you have a success tip as a Walk Leader that you’d like to share with others?

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Jaan Pill

South Long Branch Jane's Walk, May 6, 2012. In this photo the walk is heading toward the Mississauga-Toronto border, which is based on where Etobicoke Creek used to run before it was channelized. Walk participants received a colour map, printed on cardstock, showing where the two branches of Etobicoke Creek used to run and where the creek used to flow into Lake Ontario. Photo credit: Peter Foley

Fanny Martin, Jane’s Walk Event Manager, has asked 2012 Jane’s Walk leaders three questions, which I have included as headings for this blog post.

“If you have a moment,” she has said, ”I’d love to have your input, especially but not exclusively on these points.”

I would like to invite you, as a visitor to this website, to share your own reflections regarding these questions.

You can send us an email or post a comment in the Comments section at the end of this blog post. We can usually get around to approving items for posting within twenty four hours or less.

1. Do you have a success tip as a Walk Leader that you’d like to share with others?

As I begin to work on my own answer to these questions, I’m aware I’ll be working on my responses over several days.

The most important thing is to ensure that the walk leader(s) connect with the audience. That to my mind is the No. 1. Key to Success.

Many things are involved in establishing that connection. Some experience in public speaking is helpful — and it’s always well worth underlining the fact that one can get better at public speaking, if one has the motivation.

Mike James and Jaan Pill, the co-leaders of the May 6, 2012 South Long Branch Jane’s Walk, have experience as public speakers.

That experience manifests itself in a variety of ways:

(a) If we’re speaking to a large group, we make sure we have a microphone and amplifier in place. If your audience can’t hear you, or if you have to shout each time you speak, your connection with the audience might be less than ideal.

(b) Base what you say on accurate and balanced information. It’s easy to tell stories, but if you’re telling stories related to history, it’s useful if the stories are based on archival and historical evidence. Dates and information on the Internet may or may not be accurate. My own inclination is to go with archival evidence and people’s first-hand accounts of life experiences, and to have evidence from more than one source. I like to engage in extensive fact checking.

(c) Maintain eye contact with your listeners. Use the body language and facial expressions of individuals in the audience to gauge how you’re doing as a speaker. Public speaking is an interactive process. Truly, one can look at it as as a conversation.

(d) Choose a number of key things that you want to get across. Choosing what is salient and relevant takes a lot of work. It requires that a person knows a topic well. Often it can take more time and mental effort to extract the kernel of a story, as compared to telling the story from start to finish. If you wish to connect with the audience, make the effort to say what you have to say in a brief amount of time.

By way of illustration: If a speaker has a long grocery list of facts, and is convinced it’s important to cover every detail, is not speaking loudly (either by raising one’s voice or using a microphone) enough to be heard, is speaking too fast to be understood, or is looking to the side while speaking, then it may be likely that the speaker is not connecting with the audience.

I began to develop my own skills as a speaker when I made my first keynote presentation. On that occasion at a conference in New Jersey in 1993, I launched into an overview of an abstract topic that fascinated me but (as I could see) bored my audience. I switched to a story about myself, about a personal experience that changed the direction of my life.

It was clear the second story of more interest to the audience than the topic I had originally chosen to talk about.

That early encounter with a bored audience taught me how to connect with an audience.

I think of public speaking as a skill akin to learning to ride a bike or learning to skate. One gets better with practice.

You can find more tips about public speaking of you click on the ‘Public speaking’ category on this website.

2. What can the Jane’s Walk organizers do to better help you, throughout the year?

The Jane’s Walk organizers such as Fanny Martin can help those of us who are planning walks by keeping up the conversation throughout the year.

I am delighted that Mike James and I became involved with co-leading Jane’s Walks this year. The planning process began long before May 2012. We look forward to being involved with Jane’s Walks next year.

We look forward to continuing the conversation with Jane’s Walks organizers over the coming year.

3. What has the Jane’s Walk experience meant to you?

The most important meaning that I’ve derived from the South Long Branch Jane’s Walk, and from other walks I’ve been associated with, is related to the power of an idea.

Jane Jacobs said, in so many words, that if you want to know how a city works, and how to make it work better, walk around the city and think about what you obesrve.

I know a lot about the area close to where we live. I’ve been accumulating evidence about it for several years.

Archival and documentary evidence that Bert Crandall, Michael Harrison, Robert Lansdale, and others have shared has been very helpful.

Books from the Toronto Public Library that I’ve read have been helpful.

Oral histories that I’ve been conducting with long-time residents have been highly valuable.

I’ve gained much from networking with, and talking with, a wide range of people.

I look forward to learning much more, including from other people, and sharing with others what I’ve learned.

We learned many things on our South Long Branch Jane’s Walk

Going for a walk with eighty people, as we did on May 6, 2012 in South Long Branch, is such a wonderful way for all of us to:

(a) Share what we’ve learned

(b) Walk along the actual lots and streets (and in some cases remains of streets) that we’re talking about and

(c) Generate questions that will lead to further conversations — conversations that are a source of enjoyment for all participants, and that we remember long after the walk has been completed.

Posted in Jane's Walks | Heritage Walks | Heritage Rides, Lake Promenade, Lakeview Legacy Project, Long Branch and beyond, Long Branch Historical Society, Samuel Smith | Leave a comment

I much enjoyed the May 7, 2012 Gems of the Lakeshore presentations at the Assembly Hall

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Jaan Pill

I’ll have more information about this event.

Etobicoke-Lakeshore MPP (and Minister of Education) Laurel Broten distributed the Gems of the Lakeshore certificates and awards.

Three judges were also at the table on the stage, helping out with proceedings.

Such an event serves to highlight the work of independent businesses on the Lakeshore, as well as the work of community and service organizations.

Events such as the May 7, 2012 meeting at the Assembly Hall serve two main purposes.

They are great for (a) networking and (b) celebration of the great work that people are doing in the community.

I’m delighted that I had the opportunity to attend.

The event helped me to place my own efforts on behalf of the community within the context of all of the other great work that a large number of people are doing, day in and day out, in serving their local community.

Posted in Long Branch and beyond | Leave a comment

South Long Branch Jane’s Walk went beautifully

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Jaan Pill

Mike James speaks at Parkview School at site of Colonel Samuel Smith's cabin, built in 1797

We had a great Jane’s Walk in South Long Branch on Sunday, May 6, 2012 — about eighty people (conservative estimate) were there.

The weather was great, and our portable amplifier from Long & McQuade worked beautifully.

We owe many thanks to Councillor Mark Grimes’ office for suggesting that we organize Jane’s Walks in Long Branch this year.

We also owe thanks to staff at Heritage Toronto who have mentioned to us in the past that such walks bring much of value to local communities. As well, Fanny Martin, Jane’s Walk Event Manager, provided us with helpful advice throughout the planning process; Ruth Grier shared with us her notes from the 2010 Long Branch Jane’s Walk; and Denise Harris, President of the Etobicoke Heritage Society, provided valuable advice based on her experience in the leading of Heritage Walks.

We owe thanks to all the great people who attended, and to all the great people who worked to ensure that the event was well planned and well publicised.

We were delighted that the event received publicity in The Lakeshore Villages, The Etobicoke Guardian, The Toronto Star, and elsewhere.

Mike James

We owe thanks to Mike James for his knowledgeable commentary about local history, and for the excellent commentary and text readings by several highly talented guest speakers.

We’ll have the details on the latter speakers once we have our social media updates in place.

People gasped audibly when we pointed where the western branch of Etobicoke Creek used to run, and when we pointed to where the southern part of the creek used to run into Lake Ontario at the Mississauga border.

We distributed a ‘before and after’ map of Marie Curtis Park as a handout. This and other handouts are incldued as links at the end of this blog post.

The visit to Parkview School went beautifully.

Pamela Gough, the school Trustee for Etobicoke-Lakeshore with the Toronto Public School Board, spoke about Marie Curtis Park’s environmental story (she has a background in environmental science) and also spoke at Parkview School.

Along with Etobicoke-Lakeshore MPP Laurel Broten, and the large number of residents who wrote letters, Pamela Gough was a key player in ensuring Parkview School remains in public hands.

It was a highly successful walk. We got great feedback and comments

We did extensive audio and video recording. We’re looking forward to getting the recordings online.

May 15 meeting at Long Branch Library; May 16 talk at Mimico Centennial Library; June 2 Heritage Bike Ride

We’re looking forward as well to the May 15 meeting of the Long Branch Historical Society (discussing Marie Curtis Park capital improvements) – and to the June 2, 2012 Heritage Bike Ride for which Mike James and Jaan Pill will share information related to local history.

Details about the May 15, 2012 meeting are included as part of links at the end of this page.

We’ll post details about the latter bike ride soon.

A reminder as well that Denise Harris will deliver a highly engaging and well-researched talk about Etobicoke and the War of 1812 on May 16 at the Mimico Centennial Library. Please refer to link at the end of this page.

Please note also that the May 8 talk at the ROM is sold out.

Seating is limited for these events. Please ensure you check first to ensure that seats are available.

Below are PDF files of handouts from May 6, 2012 South Long Branch Jane’s Walk

As well, for your convenience, we’ve also attached a membership form for the Long Branch Historical Society. We welcome new members, wherever in the world you may live.

May 15, 2012, 6:30 pm Long Branch Library – Marie Curtis Park capital improvements

Etobicoke War of 1812 lecture – May 16 2012 – Mimico Centennial Library

War of 1812 series of talks – Please note seating is limited, in many cases.

Marie Curtis Park, before and after (1920s c.f. 2012)

Long Branch subdivisions (showing years in which subdivisions were formed)

 Long Branch Historical Society – Membership / Membership Renewal form

The archaeological remains of the Colonel Samuel Smith homestead are located on the school grounds of Parkview School in Long Branch. The Ontario government announced on August 25, 2011 that it would provide $5.2 million in funding to enable the school to stay in public hands. A new French elementary school is slated to open on the site in 2013. The sale of the school has turned out to be a 'good news' story thanks to the efforts of Etobicoke-Lakeshore MPP Laurel Broten; Ward 3, Etobicoke-Lakeshore TDSB Trustee Pamela Gough; Toronto Lands Corporation officials; large numbers of people who wrote letters in support of keeping the school in public hands; and key individuals who shared strategic advice. Photo credit: Peter Foley

Posted in Etobicoke Creek, Jane's Walks | Heritage Walks | Heritage Rides, Lake Promenade, Long Branch and beyond, Long Branch Historical Society, Military history, Mississauga waterfront, Samuel Smith, Toronto waterfront | Leave a comment

You’re most welcome to attend the Lake Shore Reunion on June 9, 2012, even if you did not attend these schools

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Jaan Pill

I’m very pleased to have this opportunity to share information about the Lake Shore Reunion on June 9, 2012.

Phil Gray, who forwarded the information, reports that while looking for photos , he uncovered some interesting history about these schools. “All 3 schools grew over the years,” notes Phil Gray, “as new sections were added to suit their needs. It’s interesting to see the contrast between the old and new construction. I found the older buildings were made to last longer, with better quality materials, and classic style.”

Because he couldn’t find a usable photo of Alderwood Collegiate, he took that one himself. “It’s the site of Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies TV series. I’d be interested to know more about how Spielberg ended up there.”

Alderwood Collegiate, as it appers in 2012

Here’s how to order tickets

New Toronto High,1966

LAKE SHORE REUNION, SAT, 9 JUNE 2012

FOR MIMICO HIGH SCHOOL, NEW TORONTO SECONDARY SCHOOL, & ALDERWOOD COLLEGIATE SCHOOL, IN SOUTH ETOBICOKE

Gayle Thomas is organizing her second Lake Shore Area Reunion for Sat, 9 June 2012, at the Long Branch Legion. The party goes from 5:00 pm until midnight. Tickets are $30, and that includes a catered barbecue dinner. Donnie Meeker and the Blues Lemmings will be rockin’ the house with classic R&B, and special guest appearances.

Gayle’s previous reunion drew over 1500 revelers, so we have reserved both floors of the hall for this special occasion, and both bars will be in service.

If you attended one of the three original south Etobicoke high schools – Mimico High, New Toronto Secondary, and Alderwood Collegiate — you do not want to miss this party! It is also open to the general public. We expect the Lake Shore Area Reunion to sell out, AGAIN!

WHEN:  Sat, 9 June 2012, 5:00 pm – 12 midnight

WHERE: Long Branch Legion (branch 101), 3850 Lake Shore Blvd West, Etobicoke (west of Brown’s Line)

TICKETS are $30 each, includes a catered barbecue dinner.

Contact the Legion at (416) 255-4535, Tue – Thur, 12 noon – 5 pm …

Or mail a cheque (with return address) to Gayle Thomas, 42 Exmoor Dr, Etobicoke ON M8W 1R5 …

Or contact Gayle at (416) 901-5757…

Or email thomasgayle@hotmail.com

Posted in Long Branch and beyond, Mimico | 2 Comments

The retired heavy gun on the beach at Marie Curtis Park was earlier located at Riverdale Park

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Jaan Pill

We owe thanks to Malcolm Archer, a member at large with the Long Branch Historical Society, for bringing our attention to the August 2005 issue of The Fife and Drum, the newsletter of the Friends of Fort York and Garrison Common:

The Fife and Drum newsletter, August 2005 (includes article on of heavy guns)

Ken Purvis refers in the article to heavy guns, such as the long gun located at Marie Curtis Park, as “a quintessential symbol of Canada’s colonial past.”

He also refers to the Motto of Britain’s Royal Artillery. The motto is ‘Ubique,’ the Latin term for “Everywhere.”

After years of action, a cannon’s barrel would be reduced in thickness, making it potentially dangerous to a gun crew. In their retirement phase, such guns would occasionally end up mounted on plinths (bases) in parks.

The cannon, said to be a 32-pounder, at Marie Curtis Park was one of five retired heavy guns that had been sent to Riverdale Park, a park on the Lower Don River, after a Toronto alderman had in 1881 requested some cannons to decorate the park. The person who had granted the request was A.P. Caron, Minister of Militia and Defence, who had visited Toronto in that year.

The cannons had been transported from Quebec City. One of the heavy guns, manufactured by the Carron Company of Falkirk, Scotland, eventually found its way to Marie Curtis Park.

63662 Carron 1803

Posted in Etobicoke Creek, Jane's Walks | Heritage Walks | Heritage Rides, Long Branch Historical Society, Military history, Samuel Smith, Toronto waterfront | Leave a comment