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Outer Harbour East Headland The Outer Harbour East Headland, more commonly known as the Leslie Street Spit, is a man-made peninsula in Toronto, Canada, extending from the city's east end in a roughly southwesterly direction into Lake Ontario. It is about 5 km long. Its common name is technically incorrect, since it is not truly a spit, but Torontonians almost never use the official name. The common name will be used throughout this article. The road running along the peninsula is a southern extension of Leslie Street, hence the popular nickname. Construction and evolution The Toronto Harbour Commission (THC) began construction of the peninsula in the late 1950s. Its originally foreseen purpose was to provide a breakwater for Toronto's Outer Harbour, which itself was expected to be necessary to handle the increase in shipping on the Great Lakes after the Saint Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959. However, the need for an outer harbour never arose, and all cargo ships calling at Toronto still use the Inner Harbour, while the Outer Harbour sees only pleasure boat traffic. The need for the headland, however, did not disappear. In the 1960s and 1970s, development in Toronto proceeded rapidly, and the Leslie Street Spit was a convenient place to dump the endless supply of rubble and earth generated by all the building projects in the city. Originally a long, slender finger of bare land stretching out into the lake, the headland eventually developed several lobes enclosing small bays, and was eventually colonized by a variety of plant life. Cottonwood and poplar forests now cover much of the headland, and it has become a fine example of the development of pioneer plant communities and ecological succession. About 400 species of plants have been identified on the Leslie Street Spit. The Leslie Street Spit's evolution into an urban wilderness was never in the city's plans. Indeed, the spit's status as such was secured by a number of organizations, with the citizens' advocacy group known as Friends of the Spit possibly being the most important. One development plan involved an "aquatic park" which would have included a hotel, an amphitheatre, government docks, private yacht clubs, parking for 2,000 cars, a waterskiing school, and camping, among other facilities. In 1968, the Toronto Harbour Commission envisaged building yet another "spit" further west, and creating a huge residential area, complete with a new airport. These plans were debated at length, but as they were, the previously lifeless Leslie Street Spit was coming to life, and many Torontonians decided that they liked the idea of having a wilderness right in the city. Important Bird Area Quite a number of bird species are also to be found on the Leslie Street Spit. More than 290 species of migratory birds are to be found, 45 of which actually breed on the headland. Among the birds that may be observed on the headland are the ring-billed gull, the black-crowned night-heron, the double-crested cormorant, the common tern, the Caspian tern, and the herring gull. Owing to the Leslie Street Spit's importance to so many bird species, it has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by the Canadian Nature Federation (CNF) and Bird Studies Canada (BSC), which are BirdLife International's partners in Canada. Friends of the Spit was founded in 1977. Its original members included people as varied as birdwatchers, naturalists, and cyclists. The Friends' goals, quite simply, are to keep the Leslie Street Spit open to the public (The THC had not even allowed public access until 1973), and to keep it in its natural — or perhaps more accurately naturalized — state. Thus far, all development plans have come to naught, and the spit is still open to the public. Along with the IBA, there is also a park in the Leslie Street Spit, Tommy Thompson Park. The Leslie Street Spit is a car-free area. The spit's outermost end is known as Vicki Keith Point, after a famous Canadian swimmer. There has been an automated lighthouse there since 1974. Sources External links *Vicki Keith Point
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