The Globe and Mail

Seems my walk is timely. This from July 23 Globe and Mail in the News / Heritage section covers the ancient ground nicely:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/history-runs-deep-in-torontos-humber-river/article2107315/

The trail is called Toronto Carrying Place, a portage and canoe route that followed the Humber River from Lake Ontario to Lake Simcoe and the upper Great Lakes.

Ms. McDowell reads from fur trader Alexander Henry’s diary from 1765 as he crossed the height of land to enter the Humber watershed.

“At [Lake Simcoe’s] farther end we came to the carrying-place of Toronto. … The woods and marshes abounded with mosquitoes. … The whole country was a thick forest, through which our only road was a foot-path.”

Ms. McDowell explains the footpath would have been well worn even then.

The Huron and Petun First Nations established fishing camps in the young Humber Valley as the ancient Lake Iroquois receded 12,000 years ago. Archaeologists have unearthed 4,000-year-old spear tips just a kilometre away at James Gardens, where Black Creek meets the Humber.

Corn has been grown here for 1,600 years, according to archaeologist Ronald Williamson, author of Toronto: a Short Illustrated History of its First 12,000 Years. By the beginning of the 13th century, the migrant camps along the Humber had become small permanent settlements. By the early 16th century, they were home to 2,000 people.