Travel News

Witness the new allure of the unpredictable, sometimes strenuous, adventure vacation – hiking, canoeing, cycling, setting sail for the far horizons of the possible, accompanied by knowledgeable, literate guides who don’t survive on kickbacks from the local souvenir shop. There’s growing clamor among sophisticated Torontonians for experiences that will rock them to their foundations – and a proliferation of travel firms promising adventure vacations that will do just that.

One of the city’s many such firms is Butterfield & Robinson , which organizes cultural pilgrimages for a battalion of clients including members of the Royal Ontario Museum. “Perception is the essence of adventure,” says George Butterfield , president of B & R, and veteran leader of cycling tours through the vineyards of Burgundy. Another is Blyth and Company, whose president, Sam Blyth, observes, “The difference between tourism and travel is that one’s a business and the other’s a way of life.” Blyth’s travel company is scheduling a tour to the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan this October, in company with that seasoned Asia hand, Pierre Trudeau.

As two of Canada’s most successful gentlemen adventurers, Blyth and Butterfield have discovered a secret: the art of turning a prepackaged trip into a mind-expanding odyssey lies not in the destination but in the eye and soul of the traveller. Ah, but to convince less-travelled folk of that truth it will take a very special adventure. With that in mind, TORONTO’s editors threw Butterfield and Blyth one of the most demanding challenges of their careers: we asked them to pull their sights away from Patagonia and concentrate on home, to help us imagine Toronto as an adventure destination with an original itinerary and appropriate guides.

The delightful results follow. Butterfield & Robinson has designed a celebration of the city’s peculiarities and delights, Blyth a marathon of physicality. And if the proposed adventures have any value, beyond that of dream stuff or parlor games, it lies in their confirmation of the poet’s wisdom: that at the end of all our journeys we must return to the place where we began and know it for the first time. THE HEART OF THE CITY TOUR DAY ONE MORNING Check in at the Windsor Arms Hotel. Trekkers enjoy a WASP welcome in the hotel lounge: a Pimm’s No. 1 Cup refresher and crustless sandwiches. Satiated, they take an antique trolley car along Queen Street to the magnificent, if Stalinesque, R.C. Harris Water Filtration Plant. There author Michael Ondaatje reads from g is novel In the Skin of a Lion (which climaxes in a scene at the plant). A private tour of the plant follows. AFTERNOON Trekkers then move westward to Ashbridge’s Bay, to board a charter boat for a sunset sail to a Toronto islands marina. At a wooden cottage dating from the islands’ 1930s heyday as a summer retreat, they sit down to a candlelit repast. Their Thirties-style dinner, including sole Veeronique, lemon-herbed asparagus and a dessert of strawberries Romanoff, is catered by that deft purveyor of fine foods to central Toronto, David Wood. As night falls, the group takes a water taxi toward the lights of Harbourfront and then travels on to the Windsor Arms for a soothing nightcap (Ovaltine and biscuits). Those who wish may drop out at this point. The hardiest travellers then don polyester for a late evening tour through Yorkville. There, in the precincts of The Copa, PWD and finally Bemelman’s, they salute the district’s 1960s glory days, and its passage from a joyous jumble of down-at-the-heels coffee houses populated by free spirits and folk-singers to its glossy present incarnation. Guides wear medallions, Nehru jackets and Paul Godfrey perms. DAY TWO Two options before breakfast: a 12-kilometre group run along the old railroad bed, which winds through Forest Hill, or an equally invigorating dip in the neo-Romanesque pool at the YMCA on Grosvenor Street. MORNING After breakfast at the Courtyard Cafee, trekkers face a choice of tours. Tour a) Beautiful Laundrettes: a bicycle tour with City of Toronto archives curator Heather Hatch. Highlights include stopping by a laundromat that dispenses cappuccino and pain au chocolat before an unfolding spectacle of spinning bvds; visiting a genuine Chinese laundry in Chinatown; going for a whirl on the Zamboni ice-cleaning machine at that sweaty cathedral, Maple Leaf Gardens; and finally, observing the unsung heroes who polish the brass on Bay Street. Tour b) Dome Is Where the Heart Is: a tour of Toronto’s newest monument and product of its collective obsession with world-classness, with SkyDome President Chuck Magwood; possible side trip to see the Jays going through their paces. LUNCH Over to Clinton Street’s Trattoria Giancarlo for lunch in the heart of Little Italy. While trekkers dine on salad and grilled fish, architect Jack Diamond, whose firm won a Governor General’s award for designing the YMCA building on Grosvenor Street, explains why he thinks the city works. Next, a stroll over to the Sicilian Ice Cream Company Ltd. on College Street for gelato and a close-up look at the street fashions worn by the kids playing hooky from summer school. AFTERNOON Another choice of tours: Tour a) Magnificent Obsessions – proving that Torontonians can be as eccentric as the next guys. A visit to the weird and wonderful private collections – toy soldiers, china pugs, antique commodes, angels and squeezy toys – housed in some of the city’s most intriguing dwellings. A stop is made at Norman Elder’s museum of shrunken heads and collection of snakes and other exotica on Bedford Road. Guide is art writer and cultural critic Ross Skoggard, who writes a local newspaper column, “The Collector.” Tour b) Spadina: Writer”playwright Rick Salutin and author”curator Rosemary Donegan (her book Spadina Avenue was the result of an exhibition she created at A Space gallery) head a walk south of Spadina Crescent to Wellington Street. Between them, they know the avenue’s history, from its Jewish garment-district days to its Chinese theatres of the present. Tour includes a refreshment stop at Grossman’s. TEA Over to the India Bazaar at Donlands and Gerrard Street East. Trekkers wander from shop to shop nibbling tikka and kebab amid silks and bargain bangles, and take in a classical Indian dance concert in Monarch Park. LATE EVENING The Wild West: a pub crawl down Queen Street west of Spadina takes in the Cameron, the Squeeze Club, the Slither Club and a retreat to the safety of the Rivoli. Then, after-hours jazz and select refreshments at a certain late-night venue. Sunrise coffee at Fran’s. DAY THREE Before breakfast (always optional) trekkers bike westward along the Martin Goodman Trail to High Park for an up-and-down road race on the circular road. The winner celebrates with champagne and orange juice, and muffins from the Mars “Out of This World” diner on College Street.

Sleepyheads will breakfast at their leisure in the Courtyard Cafee. MORNING Tour a) Explore the Scarborough Bluffs on foot with poet and geologist Chris Dewdney. Tour b) The First Scarberians: expert canoeist and novelist M. T. Kelly ( A Dream Like Mine) guides canoes along the relatively flat Rouge River, past lost villages and burial grounds, to bring the great Indian trading post that was Toronto back to life. LUNCH A gourmet picnic on the bluffs over-looking the lake. AFTERNOON The Things I Love, the Things I Hate: at last, a bus tour safe for snobs.

Toronto urban planner Paul Mailer, veteran of several major downtown and waterfront projects, starts things off at Union Station, the hub of Toronto’s public transit system and Canada’s rail system – and a perfect place to talk about the city’s position as the transportation centre of the country. From there, trekkers visit the city’s deepest construction sites; the city’s ugliest works of public art; the collegiate oasis around the University of Toronto; and the downtown financial district. COCKTAILS Adventure tours have a healthy, outdoor image. But there’s more to life than healthy fun – so on to a private Rosedale mansion, where the group is served martinis, sidecars, Singapore slings and zombies. Of course, they’re all doubles. EVENING Travellers take in the view, and the dinner, at Scaramouche off Avenue Road’s steepest hill. A prelude to their subsequent journey to Richmond Hill’s David Dunlap Observatory for Champagne with the Stars. Last year, astronomer Ian Shelton scanned the heavens from an observatory in Chile and became the first to sight the brightest and closest supernova seen in four centuries. Shelton leads a tour through the David Dunlap Observatory. Built in the 1930s, now part of the University of Toronto, it contains a two-metre telescope through which trekkers peer between sips of Champagne. The sight sternly reminds them that, contrary to popular belief, Toronto is not the centre of the universe. DAY FOUR MORNING A bike trip eastward along the Martin Goodman Trail to watch the sandpipers, terns and peewees at the Leslie Street Spit with Graeme Gibson, novelist ( Perpetual Motion) and self-described “amateur birder.” Sandwiches provided. AFTERNOON Bus back to Union Station to board Via Rail 13:40 for a trip to Grimsby on the Niagara Peninsula. Bicycles are picked up at the Grimsby station for a leisurely tour of the country roads. Clues, planted in churchyards and old homesteads, lead the way to the dinner location, an Ontario Gothic house along Grimsby’s main street. En route, frequent breaks are scheduled so that trekkers may dismount from their bicycles and enjoy samplings of the regional wineries. THE BOUND FOR GLORY TOUR DAY ONE MORNING Check in at Sutton Place Hotel Kempinski, and proceed directly to the hotel’s Stop 33 to receive trip tickets, safari bags, Michelin’s green Tourist Guide Canada, down-filled gear and a hat.

Four-wheel-drive Range Rovers navigate the leafy, mysterious back streets of Rosedale northward to Moore Park, finally traversing the 401 at high noon. Champagne is served to celebrate the feat. AFTERNOON Arriving at Gormley, trekkers board waiting hot-air balloons and sail over a spirited chukker of polo at the Toronto Polo Club’s playing field. The ballooning, organized by The Bombard Society – a French-based club that boasts the largest private collection of balloons in the world – is headed by pilots Buddy Bombard and Posy Chisholm, whose aeronautic work includes flights in such diverse places as India, Egypt, France, Austria and Italy.

Once the intrepid are back on the ground, a citation is awarded for the highest flyer of the day. Then, participants enjoy a gourmet picnic catered by Chris Klugman, chef of the brand-new Bistro 990, who works his usual magic on local ingredients: a cold soup of wild leek and Jerusalem artichoke with elder flowers; a venison pie with morels; black-mustard dressing on a wild salad of lamb’s-quarters, rocket (a peppery wild green similar to arugula), day-lily shoots and milkweed blossoms; a terrine of lake trout and yellow pickerel; and for dessert, hickory-nut wafers with maple ice cream. Then, back to Toronto for an overnight stay at Sutton Place. DAY TWO MORNING After breakfast, travel by Range Rovers to Streetsville, an hour’s drive west of Toronto, for a journey by canoe and raft on the Credit River, in search of Lake Ontario. Lightweight waterproof gear is issued, and river pilot Matthew Swan, who once ran operations for the Ottawa White Water Rafting Company and now organizes Canadian expeditions for Worldwide Adventures Co., instructs his charges in survival techniques. Trekkers should be warned: after heavy rains the modest little Credit can become positively challenging in places. And even when gentle it offers much distraction, wending its way past grand houses, lush golf courses, swamps teeming with ducks, Canada geese and blue heron – and enthusiastic salmon fishermen, whose fishing lines may prove to be the journey’s greatest hazard. AFTERNOON Trekkers pause for a picnic lunch along the banks of the Credit. Then onward, until Lake Ontario is breached. A private motor launch then sweeps contestants on a brisk two-hour ride across the heel of Lake Ontario to Niagara-on-the-Lake. Following hot showers at the Prince of Wales Hotel is a performance of You Never Can Tell at the Shaw Festival Theatre. After the show, a private reception and wine tasting hosted by Donald Ziraldo, president of Inniskillin Wines.

Return sleepily to Toronto by launch for an overnight at Sutton Place. DAY THREE MORNING Continental breakfast at the hotel followed by: a) Skydiving. Private limousine transfers to Buttonville Airport. On-the- ground instruction is provided by Lieut. Eileen Vaughan. Vaughan is a member of the Canadian Parachute Team and one of Canada’s top three women jumpers. b) Rock-climbing. Limousines depart for the Niagara Escarpment’s Rattlesnake Point, for an introductory rock-climbing session on the Conservation Area’s vertical limestone cliffs led by Laurie Skreslet. Canada’s premier mountaineer, Skreslet was the first Canadian climber to reach the summit of Mount Everest. c) Hang-gliding. Range Rovers take trekkers to Purple Hill near Port Perry. Chief instructor is Michael Robertson. This spring he and fellow daredevil Mark Bourbonnais flew hang-gliders from the CN Tower. Their feat, the world’s highest launch from a man-made structure, earned the pair Guinness Book of World Records status. Each intrepid novice hang- glider is teamed with an instructor in a two-person hang-glider. They are towed to 1,000 feet and then released to circle giddily back to earth. AFTERNOON Lunch – and knot-loosening massages for all participants. Then activities resume: rock-climbing, hang-gliding or skydiving. A Cessna takes skydivers to 8,000 feet for their first jump. Once in the air, assuming weather conditions permit, skydivers are able to see from Hamilton to Oshawa and across into Rochester, N.Y. But magnificent views are obscured by the neophytes’ attention to detail and terror.

All survivors return to Sutton Place. DINNER A banquet, titled Dim Sum . . . And Then Some, is served in the mid- Victorian splendor of St. Lawrence Hall. The menu features a mosaic of dishes reflecting the city’s multiculturalism, including Thai noodles, Korean barbecue, seafood paella, Jamaican jerk pork and ice creams based on tropical fruits. Sparkling dinner conversation is provided by the expert guides who, so far, trekkers have been too busy to talk to. DAY FOUR MORNING Depart for the site of the historic Ashbridge Estate excavation on Queen Street East. There, site director Ellen Kraemer from the Toronto Board of Education’s Archeological Resource Centre has found 1850s bullets and clay pipes; she offers trekkers guidance on how to dig. AFTERNOON Trekkers gather at Scarborough Bluffs for a gourmet picnic catered by Arlequin. After lunch, a concert by guitarist Liona Boyd. Then, a choice of: a) Caving. Range Rovers depart for Rattlesnake Point on the Niagara Escarpment, where Kirk MacGregor, president of the Toronto Caving Group, serves as guide. Wear old clothes: crawling is required to explore caverns 20 metres down. b) Sailing. From Ashbridge’s Bay marina, hoist sail aboard a sloop for a point in the lake 13 kilometres offshore of Port Dalhousie, where in 1813 two Yankee warships, Hamilton and Scourge, went down in a freak windstorm. The trekkers’ vessel drops anchor near the site, while Canada’s foremost undersea explorer, Dr. Joe MacInnis, discusses the cannons, cutlasses and sailors’ bones visible at the world’s best preserved fresh- water shipwrecks, 88 metres below. EVENING Return for a barbecue and late-night campfire stories on Toronto Island.

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