There are trendsetters, trend followers, and those who plant their feet and shout at trends until they go away. Over the years, with their solid sound and party-till-you-puke attitude, Toronto band The Pariahs have survived countless club scenes by screaming louder and longer than the competition. On October 18 and 19, the band will celebrate 20 years of ripping through the eardrums of clubgoers with two back-to-back shows at the Bovine Sex Club. Also... [continue]

Autumn is upon us, and with it the fall leaf colours that epitomize the season. It is said that the dry summer will dull the foliage this year, but that's no excuse to stay indoors. Elliott Katz's book, Great Country Walks Around Toronto, is packed with hikes of varying lengths in all areas of the city. One of the walks follows the Cedarvale Ravine. This easy 2.5 km walk over paved and packed-dirt trails... [continue]

Billiard balls in the mouth, eating live goldfish, sitting on flagpoles… people will go to great lengths just to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. Fortunately, unlike this guy, you don’t have to bowl for 100 hours or have a 126-member wedding party to get a shot at immortality. On October 3, Ontario is going to challenge current champs Western Australia for the World Record Walk. Last September, the Aussies got 100,915 people... [continue]

Beyond its picnic areas, tennis courts and manicured gardens, High Park is a thriving ecosystem. The Western Ravines and Beaches Discovery Walk explores some of the park’s wild areas, as well as some of the neighbouring regenerated wetlands. The walk starts at the Bloor Street entrance to High Park. Passing the picnic areas and a concession stand, the Discovery Walk signs lead you down into a ravine beyond the domain of cyclists (in theory)... [continue]

If you're downtown and looking for a lunch-hour chill-out tomorrow (Wednesday), head over to Indigo in the Manulife Centre at Bay and Bloor. At 12:15 p.m., Juno Award winner, Grammy recipient, Officer of the Order of Canada, and Canada's Walk Of Fame starholder Diana Krall will be sitting behind a piano and performing songs from her latest release, The Very Best of Diana Krall. If you didn't get your autograph fix during TIFF last week,... [continue]

On Sunday, as an unofficial kickoff to the Walk21 pedestrian conference coming to Toronto next month, the Walking Life exhibit opened at the Gladstone Hotel. The exhibit is an eclectic mix of paintings, maps, architectural drawings, collages and video. It represents images of urban walking from many different viewpoints, from the casual rambler to the urban planner. Highlights of the show include Adam Krawesky’s “Clockwork,” a digital composite showing pedestrians crossing to all four... [continue]

Toronto is a city of trees. From centuries-old native oaks in our parks to imported Norway maples planted on lawns, Toronto’s greenery may not always be evident, but it is an integral part of the city’s life and history. Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests (LEAF) and the Toronto Public Space Committee (TPSC) have come together to create a series of tree tours that explore the urban canopy. Toronto Tree Tours offers guided walks... [continue]

The city’s Discovery Walks program, while extensive, doesn’t cover every nook and cranny of Toronto. For instance, there is very little ground covered east of the Don River. Great Country Walks Around Toronto by Elliott Katz fills in many of those blanks. This pocket-sized guide covers parks and trails from the Humber River Valley to Rouge Beach, the Islands to Black Creek. This week, Torontoist follows Katz’s guide into Taylor Creek Park.... [continue]

From October 1–4, the Walk21 conference comes to Toronto. Keynote speaker Dr. David Suzuki will be joined by a host of academics, urban planners, elected officials and activists to discuss urban pedestrian issues. Lectures, discussions and workshops will cover the theme of “putting pedestrians first” in policies and infrastructure in order to make active transportation viable and attractive in increasingly dense urban areas. Running concurrent to Walk21, the YWALK youth forum is aimed at... [continue]

Old Mill station offers a brief respite from the dirty grey walls of the subway’s usual monotony of underground tunnels. Crossing over the Humber River, the windows of the station offer a view of daylight and trees in either direction. Not surprisingly, Old Mill station is also the start point for another of the city’s Discovery Walks: the Humber RIver, Old Mill and Marshes.... [continue]

Wireless number portability (WNP), the ability to keep your cellular phone number when you change service providers, came to Canada in March of this year. The masses of consumers looking to free themselves from their frustrating cell companies cheered. Those cheers turned to grumbles with the realization that the spiffy new phones received for “free” came attached to lengthy service contracts. Breaking a contract can make switching to (or from) the company with the... [continue]

There are more ways to walk and discover this city than just following the city’s Discovery Walk maps. There are an increasing number of guided audio tours that you can download from the Internet and pack into your digital music player before heading out on your expedition. One audio tour company, City Surf, has several neighbourhood tours available for about $10 each. Recently, City Surf teamed up with Waterfront Toronto to offer a free... [continue]

The Belt Line Railway opened in July 1892 to service the new neighbourhoods of Rosedale, Moore Park, Forest Hill and Swansea. A recession and competing rail services led to the railway’s closure only 28 months later. Parts of the railway were purchased and used by other companies over the years, but much of the old Belt Line sat abandoned for many years. In 1972, the city purchased a stretch of the railway east of... [continue]

In the summer heat, Toronto’s downtown can seem like a sun-baked, arid domain of asphalt and glass. Scattered throughout the concrete desert, however, are a few oases of green. The Downtown Discovery Walk links the squares, parks and parkettes that can be found in the city’s busy core. And don't worry too much about the heat; there are plenty of places to duck into for shade, refreshments, and air-conditioned comfort along this route. One... [continue]

Occasionally Torontoist gets bitten by the camping bug. Unfortunately, we don’t always have the extra vacation days or access to a vehicle required for a Kawartha Lakes getaway. Then, of course, there’s the environmental irony of loading the minivan full of camping gear and burning dozens of litres of gas in order to enjoy nature. Luckily, there’s a quick camping fix right here in town. The Glen Rouge Campground is accessible by bicycle (about... [continue]

Garrison Creek once ran through Toronto from its tributaries near what is now St. Clair West, to what was once the shore of Lake Ontario, past the northeast side of Fort York. Development polluted the creek as Toronto began to grow, and in the early 1900s, work began on the burial of Garrison Creek. Long since converted into a sewer, Garrison Creek has completely disappeared from view. It has not, however, been forgotten. Evidence... [continue]

You’ve probably seen them dotting the city: those Discovery Walk signs that seem to pop up when you least expect them. Torontoist has always wanted to explore these intriguing city strolls, and this summer will be taking readers along some of these routes that connect the city’s parks, green spaces and historical sites to the neighbourhoods we live in. A good place to begin is the Uptown Discovery Walk, partly because this route is... [continue]

There are things that go on in this city at night that are far weirder than the leather-clad teenagers on Queen West. Did you know that vampires stalk High Park? Or that Toronto Police Services crossed into another dimension to investigate a suspicious death? No? Then you should check out Karen Bennett’s Fantastic Toronto project. Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing drew our attention to Bennett's labour of love. Bennett, a writer, photographer, panelist, and... [continue]

Have you ever marvelled at the sheer partying power of a group of drunken bridesmaids? Now you can join those elite ranks without all the expense and bother of a wedding. Funkless.com presents the fourth incarnation of Bridesmaidmania this Saturday, May 5. Billed as “the city's weirdest and most entertaining pub crawl,” Bridesmaidmania IV participants (both male and female) will deck out in frilly, tacky, thrift-store bridesmaid dresses and descend upon a myriad of... [continue]

From pristine wetland to industrial transportation hub and the confluence of major urban expressways, the Lower Don Lands area has gone through many changes throughout Toronto’s history. The mouth of the Don River is about to change again. Back in February, the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation announced a competition to redesign a 40-hectare area located at the mouth of the river and the entrance to the Port Lands (pictured right). The teams invited to... [continue]