The Toronto Islands | Mnisiing
The Toronto Islands are a chain of fifteen small sandbars that sit between the Toronto Harbour and Lake Ontario in Toronto, Canada. The Islands are home to several hundred acres of City parkland, public beaches and gardens, a children’s amusement park, sailing clubs and a marina, an airport, and a year-round residential community of approximately 750 people. A short ten-minute ferry ride from Jack Layton Ferry Terminal transports passengers to one of Toronto’s favourite recreational destinations.
Indigenous peoples have used the Islands as a sacred gathering place for thousands of years. Pregnant mothers would often travel to the Islands to birth to their children, elders and the sick would stay on the Islands for periods of deep healing, and the Anishinaabe would harvest wild rice and whitefish in the wetlands. First Nations communities would regularly gather on the island for ceremonies. The Mississaugas of the Credit named the landmass, Mnisiing, meaning “on the islands.”
The Toronto Island residential community is the largest car-free community in North America. Islanders travel on foot or by bicycle. Visitors often note how quiet the Islands are, and how fresh the air feels, in the absence of cars. With wide open spaces and numerous environmentally protected areas, the Island is a refuge for migrating songbirds, birds of prey, and other wild animals such as beavers, raccoons, and mink.
There are no retail shops or grocery stores on the Toronto Islands, so Island residents can often be seen transporting supplies from the city with carts, wagons, and shopping buggies of every variety. In our Nature Kindergarten, we get to take a ferry each day instead of a school bus!
