Scarborough Bluffs - the view from the top
Scarborough Bluffs - the view from below
Although the prospect of spending a long weekend in Toronto instead of being At Large did vex me for a while, I finally conceded that I had a lot of things to do and a three-day weekend was the best time to do it. The Disappearing Long Weekend is one of the unfortunate conditions of freelancing that I deal with in my own way, namely by squandering all that theoretical work time, eg., by going to an NBA game, an NLL game, brunches, dinners, and shooting outside.
This is how I know I’d make a terrible academic: don’t make me sit through a class, I need to be out in the field!
This morning I got up before dawn and about an hour after the sun rose, took my camera to the Scarborough Bluffs, where I tried to go last weekend except the weather did not cooperate. This morning it most certainly did.
People, I haven’t been to the Scarborough Bluffs since I arrived in Toronto in 2006. At least I went twice that first year, but I didn’t even own a DSLR back then, that’s how long it’s been. But I don’t want to be one of those Torontonians who can’t be bothered to venture to the opposite side of Yonge Street unless it’s for a good reason — I’ll go anywhere, anytime. This time nature called, and if there’s one thing I miss about BC, it’s nature. So I answered the call, even if it came from the other end of the Gardiner Expressway.
The distinct advantage of going to the Bluffs on a holiday Monday morning is that I had the place practically all to myself. It was peaceful and calm.
Peaceful and calm enough that the wildlife didn’t get scared away.
Can you ID this critter? It was rustling around in the pampas grass for ages while I stood and waited for it to appear. By all the crashing around I thought it was a deer, so imagine my surprise when this little thing emerged like a drunken sailor who just peed in the bushes. When I first caught a fleeting glimpse in the grass I thought “muskrat?” but then I saw its rather small head and thought “marmot?”. But then I looked up marmot and it hardly resembled a marmot. My friend Kevin says it’s a mink and I’m inclined to agree. I did a rather extreme digital crop to show him/her better.
After about an hour of shooting at lake level, I decided to venture back up to street level to see if I could find the entrance to reach the top of the bluffs. It didn’t take long before I found an opening to Bluffers Park at Chine Road and I walked to a vantage point at the western end of the bluffs. There I had a long conversation with a guy about camera equipment while he played fetch with his dog. (My main tip for hobbyists is to always buy equipment used. There is really no need to buy anything new unless money is burning a hole in your pocket.)
I knew there would be more scenic spots along the bluffs and continued along the fence until I found an opening with the most warning signs to keep away from the edge. Because that’s how you know you’re in the best spot — it’s the most dangerous!
Honestly, that edge gave me serious vertigo. I could even hear the cliff eroding; there were rocks falling every couple of minutes. I imagined the chunk of earth beneath me give way, and the thought of it made my palms clammy.
The signs are necessary, it’s a long way down to the bottom…
This was the closest I got to the edge — there was no way I was hanging over it to look down, it reminded me too much of when I was in San Francisco in 2008, shooting at the Marin Headlands with Kevin. He was looking through the viewfinder of a Hawkeye Brownie, then suddenly let out a bloodcurdling scream that nearly sent both of us off the edge. Turns out he was so intent on peering through the viewfinder (with Brownies you have to look straight down into the camera) that he didn’t realize how close he was to the edge. When he finally looked up, he was practically there and freaked right out. I would’ve, too, but he nearly gave me a heart attack! Here we are nearly four years later and I can still remember that scream. Have camera need railing, I say.
The best I could do this morning was to lean up against that last tree to take these pictures, hoping the tree wouldn’t pick that moment to fall into Lake Ontario.
While I was taking photos a woman walking her dog informed me that two people fell off the bluffs last year, and a dog went over, too. That’s enough to make shivers go up your spine, even if you don’t get vertigo.
At any rate, that’s enough vertigo for me for one day. Scratch that, it’s enough vertigo for another YEAR. Let’s have some pictures after all that mind-over-matter.
full-screen slideshow
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– or a smaller slideshow below:
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It’s probably funnier if you live in Toronto because there are lots of reference jokes, but I’m sure you’ll get most of them whether you live here or not.
