Toronto’s new artificial river just made its biggest breakthrough yet

Excitement continues to heighten for Toronto’s forthcoming human-made island, which is currently being formed in the Port Lands as part of a larger flood protection project that involves renaturalizing part of the Don River’s path to Lake Ontario.

Though we are still a few years away from the novel neighbourhood full of parks, condos, stores, offices and restaurants that will be created as a result, the development is progressing rapidly, with another huge milestone crossed this week.

Following the filling of the new river valley in February — reshaping the mouth of the Don to help preserve it and the city’s waterfront for generations to come — the waterway made a gigantic literal breakthrough when it was finally reconnected with the lake on Monday.

Authorities gathered to ceremoniously remove the last section of plug keeping the tributary from flowing into the lake via the Polson Slip this afternoon, with additional plugs elsewhere along the Don extension to be removed at a later date.

A second concrete barrier dividing the newly-routed portion of the river from the Keating Channel, then a third and final wall separating the new marshland of the Don Greenway from the Shipping Channel in the south, will be removed gradually to ensure minimal erosion and disruption to local plants and wildlife that are already returning to the area.

The new, kilometre-long segment of the river is set to be free-flowing and navigable end-to-end by kayak by next summer. 

The next step is embarking on the design journey to create a thorough blueprint for the Villiers Island precinct, down to the nitty-gritty details of the ambitious vision for the community will become a reality in the coming years.

In the meantime, residents can observe the progress from a number of new bridges, a lookout tower, stunning aerial videos and photos shared by Waterfront Toronto.