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Lecture 1
Lecture 1
Drumlins
• Drumlins are elongated, teardrop-shaped hills of well sorted and stratified sand and
gravel and glacial till, and typically occur behind well defined morraine formations
• The elongated end is point in the direction of the ice flow
• Formed by the streamlined movement of glacial ice sheets across rock debris, or till
• They can be up to 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) long
Toronto Islands: A Sand Spit
• The islands were originally a 9 kilometres (5.6 mi)-long peninsula or sand spit extending
from the mainland
• A sand spit is a small sandy point of land projecting into a body of water from the shore
• The islands are composed of alluvial deposits from the erosion of the Scarborough
Bluffs, carried by a current flowing from east to west
South-Central Ontario
• Toronto has been the site of human habitation for over 10,000 years
• 11,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age
• Downtown Toronto was under the water of Lake Iroquois
• Mammoths and mastodons were here!
• You can see the old shoreline today, along Davenport Road and the Scarborough
Bluffs
Colonists/Indigenous Perspectives
• The colonists spoke of “owning the land”
• Indigenous peoples believe that they are “caretakers of the land”, interconnected with
all of creation
• By prioritizing the Mississauga agreement with the Crown and assuming that the
Mississauga “own” this territory as a result, we reproduce the idea that it is possible
(and desirable) to own creation
Pre-European Societies
• The fact is, prior to European contact, Toronto has played host to:
• At least three distinct peoples (the Huron, the Haudenosaunee, and the
Mississauga)
• Two different cultures (Iroquoian and Algonquian)
• Was the site of many trade gatherings and inter-tribal ceremonies
Ancient Toronto
• After the glacial ice retreated, Lake Iroquois drained out the St. Lawrence, causing the
shoreline of ancient Lake Ontario to be about 20 kilometres south of modern Toronto
• Around 10,500-11,000 years ago, a small number of people moved into the cold sub-
arctic landscape of ancient Ontario from the south to pursue the big game animals that
preceded them
• Many of the campsites of these people are now lost to archaeologists (under the lake)
• From other sites in Ontario, we know that these early inhabitants fished and gathered
but relied mainly on hunting caribou, as well as mammoths, mastodons, and smaller
animals, in a region consisting of tundra and boreal forest
• During the course of each year, they travelled across large distances in family-sized
bands to sustain themselves
Fort Rouille
• The last French post built in present-day Southern Ontario to help strengthen French
control of the Great Lakes
• Hostilities between the French and British increased in the mid-1750s, and Fort Rouillé
was destroyed by its garrison in July 1759
• After the destruction of Fort Rouille no attempt was made to re-establish a settlement in
the vicinity until more than thirty years later, when British Governor Simcoe laid down
the foundations of York in 1793
Ishpadinaa
• From 2012 to 2015, new street signs were put up by a pair of aboriginal scholars and
activists who have been pasting Ojibwe words across the city in an attempt to bring the
city’s indigenous heritage to public attention
• The project was run by Hayden King, Director of the Centre for Indigenous Governance
at Ryerson, and Susan Blight, Student Life Co-ordinator at the University of Toronto’s
First Nations House
• Inspired by the Idle No More movement in December 2012, they set out to remind the
city that it stood on aboriginal land, and that it still has a vibrant aboriginal community,
often overlooked in discussions of Toronto’s past and modern identity
Williams Treaties First Nations vote to approve $1.1-billion settlement proposal (July 1, 2018)
• Seven First Nations outside Toronto have voted to accept a $1.1-billion settlement deal
with the federal and provincial governments to resolve a long-standing treaty dispute
• The Williams Treaties of 1923 are different than others in Ontario because they were
signed in the 20th century and pertained to land that Chippewas and Mississaugas had
never agreed to relinquish, but was already occupied by settler homes, mines and
lumber mills