The Humber, as seen from a point near the northern border of Toronto. The Humber River is one of two major rivers on either side of Toronto, the other being the Don River to the east. The Humber collects from about 750 creeks and tributaries in a fan-shaped area north of th city. One main branch runs for about 100 km from the Niagara Escarpment to the northwest, while the other major branch starts in the Lake St. George in the Oak Ridges Moraine near Aurora, Ontario to the northeast. They join north of Toronto and then flow in a generally southeasterly direction into Lake Ontario at what was once the far western portions of the city. Jump to: navigation, search {{Hide = {{{Disable Motto Link}}}}} Motto: {{Unhide = {{{Disable Motto Link}}}}} Diversity Our Strength {{Canadian City/Location Image is:{{{Location Image Type}}}|[[Image:{{{Location Image}}}|thumbnail|center|250px|City of Toronto, Ontario, Canada location. ...
The Don River is one of two rivers bounding the original settled area of Toronto along the shore of Lake Ontario, the other being the Humber River to the west. ...
Rattlesnake Point near Milton, Ontario. ...
The Oak Ridges Moraine is a geographic area in southern Ontario, Canada stretching from Milton to Rice Lake, near Peterborough. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Aurora (2001 population 40,167) is a town located roughly 40 kilometres north of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ...
Lake Ontario seen from near Wolcott, New York Lake Ontario, bounded on the north by Ontario and on the south by Ontarios Niagara Peninsula and by New York State, is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. ...
The Humber has a long history of human settlement along its banks. Native settlement of the area is well documented archaeologically and occurred in three waves. The first settlers were the Palaeo-Indians who lived in the area from 10,000 to 7000 BC. The second wave, people of the Archaic period, settled the area between 7000 and 1000 BC and began to adopt seasonal migration patterns to take advantage of available plants, fish, and game. The third wave of native settlement was the Woodland period, which saw the introduction of the bow and arrow and the growing of crops which allowed for larger, more permanent villages. The Woodland period was also characterized by movement of native groups along what is known today as the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail, running from Lake Ontario up the Humber to Lake Simcoe and eventually to the northern Great Lakes. Archaeology or sometimes in American English archeology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Archers in Competition Archery is the practice of using a bow to shoot arrows. ...
The Toronto Carrying-Place Trail, also known as the Humber Portage, was a major portage route in Ontario, linking the Lake Ontario with Lake Simcoe and the northern Great Lakes . ...
Lake Simcoe is a lake in southern Ontario, Canada, the fourth largest lake in the province. ...
Jump to: navigation, search The Great Lakes from space The Great Lakes are a group of five large lakes on or near the United States-Canadian border. ...
Étienne Brûlé was the first European to encounter the Humber while travelling the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail. Brûlé passed through the watershed in 1615 on a mission from Samuel de Champlain to build alliances with native peoples. The Trail became a convenient shortcut to the upper Great Lakes for traders, explorers, and missionaries. A major landmark on the northern end of the trail in Lake Simcoe was used to describe the trail as a whole, and eventually the southern end became known simply as "Toronto" to the Europeans. Jump to: navigation, search Étienne Brûlé (c. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Samuel de Champlain by Théophile Hamel (1870) Samuel de Champlain (c. ...
A fort, Fort Toronto, was constructed about 1 km inland from the mouth of the Humber to protect the Trail, which eventually became the modern city of Toronto. During the 1660's this was the site of Teiaiagon, a permanent settlement of the Seneca used for trading with the Europeans. French missionaries used the area for many years, including Jean de Brébeuf and Joseph Chaumonot in 1641, Louis Hennepin in 1678, and Rene-Robert Cavelier de La Salle in 1680. Teiaiagon was a Seneca village on the east bank of the Humber River in Toronto. ...
Jump to: navigation, search The Seneca are a Native American people, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois League. ...
Jump to: navigation, search St. ...
Louis Hennepin, baptized Antoine, (12 May 1626 Ath, province of Hainaut, Belgium - 1705?) was a Catholic priest and missionary of the Franciscan Recollect order (French: Récollet) and a French explorer of the interior of North America. ...
However, no permanent European settlement occurred until the arrival of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (not the famous author) in the late 1700s. Rousseau piloted John Graves Simcoe's ship into Toronto Bay to officially begin the British era of control in 1793. Most of the British attention was focussed to the east of the Humber, around the protected Toronto Bay closer to the Don River. Settlement was scattered until after the War of 1812 when many loyalists moved to the area, who were joined by immigrants from Ireland and Scotland who chose to remain in British lands. Jump to: navigation, search John Graves Simcoe (February 25, 1752 – October 26, 1806) was the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada (modern-day southern Ontario plus the shoreline of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior) from 1791-1796. ...
Jump to: navigation, search The War of 1812 was a conflict fought on land in North America and at sea around the world between the United States and United Kingdom from 1812 to 1815. ...
Timeline of Scottish history Caledonia List of not fully sovereign nations Subdivisions of Scotland National parks (Scotland) Traditional music of Scotland Flower of Scotland Wars of Scottish Independence National Trust for Scotland Historic houses in Scotland Castles in Scotland Museums in Scotland Abbeys and priories in Scotland Gardens in Scotland...
As the Toronto area grew, the lands around the Humber became important farming areas and were extensively deforested; in addition, some areas of the river's flood plain were developed as residential. This led to serious runoff problems in the 1940s, which the Humber Valley Conservation Authority was established to address. But in 1954, Hurricane Hazel raised the river to devastating flood levels, destroying buildings and bridges; on one street, Raymore Drive, 60 homes were destroyed and 32 people killed. Flood Plain along Lynches River Johnsonville, South Carolina Showing high water mark on tupelo and cypress trees In geography, a flood plain is a plain formed of sediment, typically dropped by a river. ...
Jump to: navigation, search 1954(MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Hurricane Hazel was the worst hurricane of 1954 and one of the worst hurricanes of the century. ...
Jump to: navigation, search A log bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a gorge, valley, road, railroad track, river, body of water, or any other physical obstacle. ...
The Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority succeeded the Humber Valley authority in 1957 (the word "Metropolitan" was dropped in 1998). More recently, a task force within the TRCA was formed to further clear the Humber as a part of the Great Lakes 2000 Cleanup Fund. The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was the name of the highest level of municipal government in the Toronto, Ontario, Canada, area from 1954 to 1997. ...
The Humber as it exits into Lake Ontario. The bridge carries a cycling path over the river, and is the same path as in the image above, some 20k to the south. Unlike the Don to the east, the Humber remained relatively free from industrialization as Toronto grew, mainly because it is much flatter and does not provide a large river valley to build in. Since Hurricane Hazel showed the land to be unsuitable for housing, it has been largely developed or redeveloped as parkland, with the extensive and important wetlands on its southern end remaining unmolested. Whereas the mouth of the Don is often clogged with flotsam and is obstructed by low bridges, the Humber is navigable and a major sporting and fishing area.
Today the majority of the Toronto portion of the Humber is parkland, with paved trails running from the lakeshore all the way to the northern border of the city some 30 km away. Trails following the various branches of the river form some 50 km of bicycling trails, much of which are excellent. Similar trails on the Don tend to be narrower and in somewhat worse condition, but the complete set of trails is connected along the lakeshore, for some 100 km of off-road paved trails. Cycling is a recreation, a transport across land. ...
See also
See also: Rivers in Canada Tributaries of Hudson Bay Rivers in Canada alphabetically Rivers of the Americas This is the list of rivers situated which flow through Ontario. ...
External links - The Humber Watershed, the TRCA's site for the Humber Watershed Task Force
- Flooding events in Canada - Ontario, an Environment Canada page
|
Feeds |
Contact