The Fort York Foundation
250 Fort York Boulevard M5V 3K9 Toronto, ON, Canada

We mark the passing of Galen Weston Sr., chairman emeritus of George Weston Ltd. and Loblaws and former chair of The W. Garfield Weston Foundation (now the Weston Family Foundation), and survived by his wife of 55 years, Her Honour Hilary Weston, Ontario's 26th Lieutenant-Governor. The Weston Family Foundation provided the Fort York Foundation's largest grant, $1,000,000, in 2011, which was supplemented by additional smaller grants by individual family members. These grants ...not only allowed the revitalization of Garrison Common to proceed, it gave the City the confidence to build on this initial grant, including building the Garrison Crossing pedestrian/cycle bridge. We remain deeply grateful to the Weston Family Foundation and to the individual members of the family whose foresight and generosity have been so important to the ongoing revitalization of public realm lands and open space at Fort York National Historic Site. https://www.thestar.com//w-galen-weston-a-giant-of-canadia

Master of the Monument: the Genius of Walter S. Allward -- a new book by Philip Dombowsky, Archivist at the National Gallery of Canada: https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/walter-allward/biography/ Allward, creator of the Vimy Memorial, sculpted the "Old Soldier" bust on the War of 1812 memorial (1903-7) in Victoria Memorial Square, which is today part of Fort York National Historic Site in Toronto.

"Born in Greece, a country riven by civil war in the aftermath of The First World War, Philip grew up stateless and poor in a splintered family in which one of his disaffected parents spent time in an asylum and the other frequented the gaming tables at Monte Carlo." We know the story from watching "The Crown." Today we honour his memory and part in upholding the constitutional monarchy, integral to our parliamentary system of governance: https://www.theglobeandmail.com//article-prince-philip-wa/

Upper Canada's parliament buildings site at Front and Parliament Streets and Fort York are said to "bookend" the old City of Toronto. The First Parliament site is at risk to be expropriated by Metrolinx to facilitate the building of the Ontario Line. Transit expansion is critical, but should not come at the expense of preserving and celebrating the cultural heritage of the City of Toronto. Residents and community leaders have been engaged in the assembly of land and the design of the First Parliament Master Plan for a number of years. Learn more and attend a publicv meeting on the future of the First Parliament site on Thursday 15 April at 6 pm via zoom, register here: https://www.firstparliament.to/

We welcome the RCAF Foundation, launched today... https://rcaffoundation.ca/

How our border with the U.S., which was tested during the War of 1812, represents demarcation and permeability at the same time, by the author of Borderlands: Riding the Edge of America: https://www.theglobeandmail.com//article-in-the-time-of-p/

Portaits of Remembrance for 11 November... from the Art Gallery of Ontario... https://ago.ca/agoinsider/portraits-remembrance

Remembrance Week 2020: there are no public gatherings for ceremonies this year, but the City of Toronto has provided a number of ways to commemorate online: https://www.toronto.ca//toronto-r/upcoming-commemorations/

Have you seen the City's new "Toronto History Museums Artifact Collection" website? https://toronto.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll

Toronto has a shocking history of neglect and carelessness when it comes to saving and repurposing our historic places. The University Avenue Armouries could easily have been re-purposed as a market, today. The unaccountable demolition of this magnificent structure, almost 60 years ago, and its replacement by a deeply mediocre courthouse, is still felt. The Architectural Conservancy of Ontario was founded in 1933 -- almost a century ago! -- because it was felt, even then, th...at Ontario, including Toronto, had a great architectural heritage that was being squandered by careless people. We still have Fort York because private citizens banded together to lobby the government to save it as early as the 1880s. Fort York may be safe, but many fine buildings and public spaces in Toronto have been lost in the meantime. Read it and weep... https://www.blogto.com//the_top_10_buildings_lost_to_demo/ See more

Native meadow perennials on the new earthen berm, including (possibly) black-eyed susan, helenium, and globe thistle; east side of parking lot at 800 Fleet St, part of Fort York National Historic Site...

View of Fort York and Toronto from the New Fort, 1840, by Captain Coningham Sterling, 73rd Regiment of Foot, in the July issue of The Fife and Drum, just published... www.fortyork.ca

As of today, Fort York is back... on a pre-booked tour-only basis. Fort York's hours are Wednesday to Sunday, 11-5 PM, with the last tour starting at 3:30. For more information and to "book your visit" please see https://www.toronto.ca/museums This year marks the 65th anniversary of the Fort York Guard (guard infantryman, below, by Sid Calzavara, courtesy of Friends of Fort York).

Explore the City of Toronto's online collection including 150,000 artifacts, 1.1 million archaeological specimens, and 3,000 artworks at this new website... https://toronto.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll Historic artifacts (e.g., maps, photos, portraits, furniture, clothing) that help to enhance and interpret the history of Fort York are acquired and conserved by the City of Toronto Museums with the assistance of the Stephen Anderson Otto Fort York Fund in the Fort York Foundation. You can help us by donating to this fund: https://www.fortyorkfoundation.ca/acquisition-fund/ (this image, an example from the database, is "A Map of the Province of Upper Canada" drawn in 1800 and can be found here: https://toronto.minisisinc.com//MWIM/164053931/2/10/29009 )

Fort York Armoury, home to Canadian Reserve Forces Queen’s York Rangers, and the parking lot at 800 Fleet St are both part of Fort York National Historic Site. Near this spot, closer to today’s Princes’ Gates, was the Western Battery, which blew up during the Battle of York on 27 April, 1813, causing allied forces to fall back to the garrison (today’s Fort York). The 43-acre National Historic Site is now dotted with these helpful interpretive wayfinding stations. The Fort Yor...k Foundation, which fundraises for Fort York, was the recipient of a $1 million gift from The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, which has paid for many improvements to the site, including these wayfinding stations. Also seen is the softening of the parking lot with meadow grasses and forbs, the first step in naturalizing and reclaiming this part of the site, which has been asphalted for many decades, as parkland. Both Fort York and The Bentway are beneficiaries of this urban renewal. See more

One of many gradual improvements by Fort York management, with the help of the Fort York Foundation, to the 43-acre national historic site is the softening of the parking lot at 800 Fleet St west of the Fort York Armoury, seen here. Meadow grasses and wildflowers around the edge and the addition of City bikes (Bike Share Toronto) help to reclaim this site for a variety of users, and not just cars.

Here's a remarkable connection to Elizabeth Simcoe (who lived at York, 1793-6, and sketched the garrison, today's Fort York)... "Canada's oldest stained-glass window designed by the artist, diarist and ecclesiastical designer Elizabeth Simcoe... and made in 1844 by her daughters who were stained-glass artisans." From the Spring 2020 edition of Acorn magazine (journal of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario). Photo of Sibbald Memorial St George's Anglican Church, designed by Gaviller & Thomsonj Architects, built 1877, Sibbald Point, Lake Simcoe.

The Friends of Fort York and the Fort York Foundation are one of the organizations that submitted a project to the list of "shovel-ready projects" that could be advanced by federal funding. The heritage sector wants investments in heritage projects to be front and center in economic stimulus programs post-COVID-19. As a first step, the National Trust for Canada and over two dozen other partner organizations sent a letter to federal ministers recommending $200 million in feder...al stimulus funds be earmarked for projects at heritage places. The Fort York Visitor Centre suffered cost-cutting "value-engineering" when it was built in 2012-14. This meant the loss of the eastern section of the steel escarpment that should form an important interpretive and erosion-prevention element along the south slope of Garrison Common, formerly the bluff of Lake Ontario, an integral part of the overall Governor-General's Medal-winning design of the building. The City, which owns the building, is unable to finance the completion of the Visitor Centre. It's up to volunteers to advocate for its completion. You can help by not letting the City of Toronto and senior levels of government forget that the Fort York Visitor Centre, a community resource and interpretive hub for the entire 43-acre national historic site, remains today, six years after it opened, an unfinished project. https://nationaltrustcanada.ca//8-shovelreadyheritage-proj

The argument for a new mandate for the Reserve Forces... and how our experience and perspective of the U.S. Civil War put us off-side on the question of how to respond to disaster at home (including pandemics) versus expeditionary (international) military needs: https://www.theglobeandmail.com//article-canada-must-divi/

If you like reading The Fife and Drum, please get on our mailing list here: https://www.fortyork.ca//subscribe-to-the-fife-and-drum.ht Please also consider joining The Friends of Fort York by becoming an annual Friend... https://www.fortyork.ca/j/become-a-friend-of-fort-york.html

"An early modern view of the fort's barracks" by Bob Kennedy, and many more offerings in the Spring issue of The Fife and Drum, just released, www.fortyork.ca... ('The Old Fort' by Katherine A. Clarke, 1913; Baldwin Collection, Toronto Public Library 939-1-6 fra)

More on past pandemics, specifically cholera (see last post), and the role of the British Empire in spreading, and then stemming, it... https://www.theguardian.com//cholera-and-coronavirus-why-w

Dr Kamran Khan, infectious disease expert and creator of BlueDot, a global early warning system for pandemics, is recognized as a pandemic hero by Toronto Life magazine this month. A few years ago, Kamran, who lives in the Fort York precinct, was co-author, with Stephen Otto, of "Cholera Epidemics in York [Toronto] in 1832 and 1834", published in The Fife and Drum quarterly December 2013 issue, which you can link to here: https://www.fortyork.ca/resources/newsletter-archive....html Pictured, next to Dr Khan, is Dr John Shortt, medical doctor to the 79th Reg't (Cameron Highlanders), who was a pandemic hero during the 1832 cholera outbreak in the Town of York (Toronto). His quick "precautions to isolate the garrison, enforce hygienic measures, and care promptly for those who contracted cholera" ensured that very few died from it. Credit: City of Toronto, Museum Services, 1971.42.160. See: https://torontolife.com/city/the-pandemic-heroes/