Evergreen Brick Works has become one of Toronto’s most beloved event spaces, where you can find anything from outdoor winter markets to sunny eating experiences.
But this “former brick factory turned hidden gem,” as the website describes, was home to some large, semi-aquatic rodents that helped shape the area’s ecology — and no, it’s not raccoons in scuba suits.
Here’s a prehistoric look at what this Bayview beauty used to look like before it was the green space it is today.
Fossilized in time
While the rich history of the land we now know as Toronto spans over decades, the dig into what this land used to look like started with one geologist: Arthur Philemon Coleman.
In the late 1800s, he studied glacial deposits around the Don Valley Brick Works, uncovering a bedrock of slate at the base of the cliffs, dating back 450 million years.
But Coleman was more fixated on the cliffs, which held geological records of the last 135,000 years. That’s two whole Ice Ages’ worth of history. At the bottom of these cliffs, Coleman discovered a giant tooth, believed to belong to a giant beaver.
Chomping at the truth
During that era, Toronto’s climate was warmer, and the region was part of a larger glacial lake system. In fact, these cliffs along the Don Valley Brick Works are believed by some to have been the shallow waters near shore, though there’s still research to be done on this point.
Thanks to Coleman and his team, we know the lake was a wetland surrounded by woods and grasslands. While some of the trees and plants that still grow in Toronto could be found back then, like oaks, cedars, and maples, the fauna tended to be very different.
From the prehistoric ancestors of moose and bears to ancient bison, these were huge beasts that you definitely didn’t want to mess with.
Giant beavers were primarily aquatic, feeding on submerged vegetation, and, unlike modern-day beavers, didn’t have the stomach for wood.
Freezing out
Unfortunately, after around two million years of living the swamp life, the next Ice Age began, and the giant beavers were forced south. The giant beaver went extinct around 10,000 years ago, coinciding with the end of the last Ice Age.
A lot went on between then and now, as the Indigenous tribes formed cultures and communities. Beavers, now in their current evolution, have a long tradition in some Indigenous cultures.
But the Don Valley Brick Works we know today was developed due to the area’s rich clay deposits, which, in the 1880s, were discovered to be ideal for brick production.
Laying the foundations
It was in 1882 when William Taylor discovered clay along the Don Valley and soon tested its brick-making capabilities. The bricks he made from this clay turned out so red that many accused him of baking them cherry red.
Soon, this quality was well sought after, and in its time, Brick Works was the source of around 43 million bricks a year that literally built the fabric of Toronto’s houses and buildings.
These bricks contributed to iconic spots like Massey Hall, Casa Loma, the Ontario Legislature buildings, Toronto General Hospital, and Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto.
Going green
It was during the Great Depression, when non-essential building was put on pause, that the then Toronto Brick Company started to collapse — literally. One of the structures burned down after the war, and three of the four chimneys that displayed the words “Don Valley Brick Works” were torn down, with only “Valley” remaining.
The once rich resource of clay dried up in the area, and in 1987, the company was bought by what is now the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, and production of bricks shut down two years later.
But the city didn’t give up on the space, as the Evergreen organization worked to revitalize the area, planting trees and flowers to bring some of the original vibrant verdant life back.
Evergreen Brick Works officially opened to the public in 2010 after extensive redevelopment and is now a showcase of how green space can be incorporated into urban living.
And, of course, you can still catch very average-sized beavers swimming around the same waters their prehistoric ancestors did.
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