What's On at the Library

Riverdale Branch, October 12, 7 p.m.

If anyone knows the Don River, it is Jennifer Bonnell, who has been researching the river’s history, going back to the earliest days of Toronto and York, in the 18th century. She has mapped it, written about it and given talks on the multiple uses (and at times abuses) of this remarkable body of water. The cast of characters who have lived in the area or used it is extraordinarily interesting, too: Roma travellers and squatters who took refuge there in the late 1800s and early 1900s; the unemployed of the Great Depression in the 1930s. If you have crossed the valley by subway, car or bike, you get a sense of both the beauty of the valley, and the enormous variety of human activity that goes on there. You can read Jennifer’s essays (see Bringing Back the Don: Sixty Years of Community Action) or take at look at the Don River Historical Mapping Project which Jennifer and U of T Map Librarian Marcel Fortin put together. But even better, come and hear Jennifer Bonnell bring this fascinating history to life at the Riverdale Branch tomorrow, Wednesday night.

Jennifer Bonnell. At left, a map showing Don Valley, from the Don Valley Historical Mapping Project.