Toronto, ON

July 11, 2018

Day 6

Weather: Hot

Having taken care of Cameron's list of things to do in Toronto yesterday, today we took a trip out to the Toronto Islands.

We rode down to the ferry terminal at 10 a.m. and caught the ferry to Centre Island. The islands are all interconnected and have three ferry terminals so we just caught the first ferry out there.

Once on Centre Island we rode west towards the Gibraltar Lighthouse.

Gibraltar Lighthouse

In 1793, John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, moved the province’s capital from Niagara on the Lake to York, now known as Toronto.

At the time, a long peninsula created a natural harbor. Fort York was built on the mainland and a blockhouse was placed on the tip of the peninsula, which Simcoe named Gibraltar Point.

In 1803, the Canadian Government authorized the construction of three lighthouses; one on Gibraltar Point (1808), one on Mississauga Point (1804) at the mouth of the Niagara River, and one on Simcoe Island (1833) near Kingston.

With the demolition of the Mississauga Point Lighthouse in 1813, Gibraltar Point Lighthouse became the oldest standing lighthouse on the Great Lakes.

Gibraltar Point was completed in 1808 with a limestone tower hexagonal in shape and fifty-two feet tall.

In 1832 the lighthouse was raised another thirty-feet to stand at eighty-two feet tall.

A bell tower was erected in 1872.

The lantern room was replaced in 1878 and a new resolving light apparatus was added in 1878.

In 1885, a fog signal replaced the bell. The fog signal was moved to East Gap in 1905 to mark the east entrance to the harbor.

The lens was replaced with a fourth-order Fresnel lens in July 1915 and a year later the lighthouse was electrified.

The last lighthouse keeper was at the station until 1957.

The light was deactivated in 1959 and replaced by a metal tower.

After cycling to the end of the island we headed back to catch the ferry from Ward Island.

On the way back to the hostel we rode some of the protected bike lanes. Toronto has an extensive network of protected bike lanes and they are well used. There were bike stands with bikes locked to them everywhere.

We also stopped to take a photo of the CN Tower.

Arriving back around noon we had lunch at the hostel then planned our afternoon. Cameron had requested we go up to the top of the CN Tower so we walked over there passing the Blue Jays stadium on the way.

The wait to ride the elevator in the CN tower wasn't too bad at 45 minutes. Soon we were whisked to the top where we got a great view of Toronto and beyond.

View east. We are heading this way tomorrow.

View south out to Toronto Islands and Lake Ontario.

Afterwards we headed back to the hostel picking up some groceries on the way for our dinner.

After dinner, Cameron hung at the hostel while I rode out to Tommy Thompson Park.

The land for the park was created by dumping fill dirt into Lake Ontario to build a peninsula to protect an outer harbor for Toronto. By the 1970's the project stalled and the land was eventually used as a park.

On the tip of the peninsula is the Toronto Harbor Lighthouse, built in 1974.

It was a nice ride out to the lighthouse on traffic free roads. The park is under developed and nature was taking over.