Discover the Humber River's Ancient Past
You now stand at the intersection of two ancient "shared paths", each thousands of years older than the nearby modern highways. One route travelled along the shifting shoreline of Lake Ontario. The second, a roughly 50 kilometre-long footpath known today as the Carrying Place trail - an ancient forerunner of Yonge Street and Highway 400 - ran north along the banks of the Humber River to Lake Simcoe.
Following natural contours, these trails were perhaps in use shortly after people first arrived in this area, about 11,000 years ago. Much later, ancestors of today's Huron-Wendat Nation, Six Nations of the Grand River, and Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation established communities along the Humber path.
In the late 1500s and early 1600s, fur-trading with newly arrived Europeans gave the Humber path even greater strategic significance. After 1649-1650, the Huron-Wendat lost this area to the Five Nations Iroquois, who built a well-defended village near today's Bloor Street crossing. By 1700, the Mississaugas had replaced the Five Nations village with their own. French trading posts at the mouth of the Humber River followed, the first being built in 1720. While people of Aboriginal, European and Métis descent continued to use the trail, a new era of European settlement began with the British founding of the Town of York (now Toronto) in 1793, not far from the mouth of the Humber.
In the 1800s, the river became a hub of water-powered industry, and agricultural and residential development followed. The Humber watershed was dramatically altered, with deforestation changing its water levels, pollution destroying its fishery, and landfill changing its river banks - including here at the river's mouth.
Fortunately, archaeological remains have survived to tell us of the river's vibrant, ancient history. Pollutants have been gradually reduced since the 1940s, causing natural ecosystems to regenerate in areas along its banks. In recognition of the Humber River's rich human history, it was declared a "Canadian Heritage River" in 1999.
Critical to our history, the Humber River is enjoyed today by people from all over the world. Walk or bike north along the Shared Path to discover the river's rich history.
Plaque via Alan L. Brown's site Toronto Plaques. Full page here.