Years ago I had heard that the word Toronto is an Indigenous word, translating roughly to “Place where trees stand in the water.” This definition made me think about how much the city’s waterfront has changed over the centuries. In my head I would refer to Toronto as “Place where not so many trees stand in the water.”
Recently I learned that this definition did not refer to living trees, but to logs dug down into the lake bed to make fishing weirs. These weirs were used at the mouths of the Humber River, Credit River and Rouge River.
COMMON (Fish found in the Humber River):
Pumpkinseed
Emerald Shiner
Fathead Minnow
Bluntnose Minnow
Spottail Shiner
White Sucker
Alewife
Common Shiner
Common carp
Chizzard Shad
