culture
Everyone You Will Meet in Trinity Bellwoods Park This Summer
No trip to Trinity Bellwoods is complete without a slackliner sighting.
Relief Line is your not-so-serious glance at the city we love.
There are few summer rites of passage as predictable as going to Trinity Bellwoods Park. Sure, it might be difficult to find your friends there, but there’s the dog bowl, that weird house, and out of place bridge. It has everything.
It also has certain types of people (and animals) that you can expect every time you visit. To help you navigate the characters who make up the wonderful world of Trinity Bellwoods, Relief Line put together this handy guide.
The Loose Puppy
The highlight of the afternoon is when a loose beagle puppy or wiener dog tears through your picnic and knocks over your drink and licks your toes. For a brief moment everything is perfect. Then he bounds away as quickly as he arrives and, to be honest, it’s all downhill from there.
The 47-Year-Old Dude with a Ponytail Who’s Really, Really Good at Frisbee
First of all, he calls it a “disc”—not a Frisbee. Second of all it’s not a ponytail, it’s a “Tibetan Spirit Braid.”
The Group Who Have Established a Semi-Permanent, Self-Sustaining Settlement
Arriving like a circus caravan that is setting up shop for the season, these people are equipped for the long haul: blankets, chairs, coolers, yurts, a butter churner, portable wind-turbines, livestock enclosures, a fully functioning anarcho-communist system of government, and bocce balls.
The Five-Year-Old Kid on a Tricycle Who Doesn’t Give a Shit
Ripping through picnics and slamming into bikes without apology, this five-year-old on a tricycle is literally using the park as his personal playground. And even though there are hundreds people in the park who’ve decided to spend an afternoon relaxing and enjoying themselves he’s the only one who’s truly, fully doing it. Sadly, the person least enjoying themselves in the park is the exhausted mom trailing after him, half-heartedly pleading, “Corey, please be careful.”
The Slackliners
These daredevils combine all the fun of walking back-and-forth in a straight line with the thrill of being elevated slightly above ground.
The Couple Who Are Drinking a Bottle of Wine Out In The Open Like They’re in Europe or Something
Who do they think they are!? They’ve cracked a bottle of wine and now they’re sipping it from champagne flutes! Out in the goddamn open! Like this is Parc des Buttes Chaumont or something! Sure, getting drunk is fine—encouraged even—but drinking in Trinity Bellwoods should be done by covertly sneaking in your alcohol in thermoses and red cups. At the very least you should be hiding your tall can under a bag or large hat in between hurried gulps on the off-chance a cop shows up. This is Canada, not Luxembourg or whatever.
The Stoic Head of Simon Bolivar
Nothing says an afternoon of fun in the sun more than the watchful gaze of the great South American liberator.
The Nauseatingly Perfect Young Family
The Mother: draped in a beautiful sundress and flowing locks shimmering in the sun, she pushes young Hyacinth (six months) in the stroller while enjoying a rare day off from modelling/running an independent health food store. The Father: framed by a manicured beard that highlights his flawless jawline, he cradles Caleb (38 months) in his muscular forearms while discussing the new home he’s building for his family from lumber recovered from a river bed. You: drunk, alone, and lying in the dirt, wondering if you’re too old to be adopted.
The 47-Year-Old Dude with a Ponytail Who’s Really, Really Good at Devil Sticks
Wait, it’s actually just the same dude who was tossing the “disc” around earlier.
The Hipsters Complaining about How “There are Way Too Many Hipsters Here.”
It’s time to accept the Hipsters are victorious. You’re one. I am one. We’re all one. Now set down your fixed-gear, crack a Lowenbrau, and let your eclectic collection stick-and-poke tattoos get some rays.
The Guy on a Phone Looking for his Friends
“No I can’t see you? What do you mean you’re ‘near the big tree’? There are literally hundreds of trees. Maybe you should stand-up and wave? No, I still can’t see anything. Stop saying ‘near the big tree’! That’s not helping! Okay, I am close to some guy with a ponytail playing with devil sticks. Can you see him? What do you mean, ‘Which one’? How many dudes are playing with devil sticks!? Goddammit! You know what, this place is way too crowded, I am leaving…oh, wait, there you are.”
The Bongo Players
What is this, Montreal?