Adjusting the pacifier of her four-month-old baby, Keren Lopez explained how walking through this park, in a corner of Toronto’s sprawling waterfront, feels like therapy.
“A very peaceful place,” she said. “A little space in the heart of downtown.”
There’s a bit of everything at Little Norway Park at the foot of Bathurst Street, including a playground, wading pool, softball diamond and Second World War memorial. For some, it is even the doorway to Toronto — the first thing they see as they step with their suitcases out of Billy Bishop airport and into the city.
That same airport could be the reason why part of this park disappears.
The province announced plans Thursday to expropriate up to a third of Little Norway Park in its efforts to expand the downtown airport, opening its runways to jets and more than doubling its annual passenger count. Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said it’s a bid “to unlock Billy Bishop airport’s full potential and support its long-term modernization and expansion.” The federal government still must give its approval before anything can happen.
Mayor Olivia Chow firmly opposed the move, calling it a “land grab” that would “uproot a complete community.”
The neighbourhood feels the same way.
“It’d be an atrocity if they did that,” said Shirley Hutchison, who has lived nearby for 37 years. “This is about the people who live here, and we can’t have jets coming in and taking away part of the park.”
The park has been here since the 1980s. Before that, it was an autowrecker’s yard and landfill site — and before that, a Norwegian air force base.
Norway’s air force built a base here in 1940 while Nazis occupied that country. Pilots trained at Billy Bishop, then known as Toronto Municipal Airport, and flew Toronto Flying Club planes before Norway’s own fleet arrived. Some of the young men stationed here fell in love with Toronto women. They fought the Nazis in Europe, then returned to live here.
In 1976, Norway gifted the city a boulder carved from the country’s south coast during the last ice age. It still sits in the park today. Engraved on the rock are the words, “In deep gratitude to Canada for her help and hospitality.”
When she first moved to the neighbourhood, Hutchison remembers the families of Norwegian pilots picnicking in the park every year. She brought her son to play in the wading pool when he was as young as four. Her grandkids, now 10 and 21, both grew up playing in the wading pool, too.
Little Norway is the preferred playground for many in the neighbourhood. Esmee is 16 months old; she loves the swing and the slide, her mother Miao Chen said, and has just started learning to climb. She’s met friends here and runs out her energy before heading back home.
With the dull rumble of regional turboprop planes taking off across the water, Chen laments what could be lost.
“It provides lots of value for the neighbourhood,” she said. “I will be frustrated.”
So too will Saurabh Madan, whose two-and-a-half-year-old daughter loves playing in the wading pool and riding down the slide. While this isn’t the closest park to Madan, who lives in Fort York, it is the best. It has a fence around it.
“With toddlers, it’s hard,” Madan said, “because they run everywhere.”
The park is home to softball and cricket through the summer months, hosting tens of teams and hundreds of people through local leagues. That includes the Downtown Softball League, which has nearly 1,000 players and a wait-list of more than 600. This park, the league’s commissioner Noah Parker said, is irreplaceable.
“It is the coolest park in the city,” he explained. “Nothing beats the smell of fresh grass and jet fuel at the same time.”
It is simultaneously home to dog walkers and joggers, families and picnickers. On Thursday, two girls bumped a beach ball back and forth as a dog and its owner played fetch nearby. Julia Kornilova and Amina Harbi took a 30-minute mental health walk to chat and sit by the water. Rashmi Sirkar wrangled her two poodle mixes on one of their many daily walks through the park.
Lopez, standing with a clear view of the CN Tower behind her, said moving near Toronto’s waterfront was the best choice she and her husband ever made. She’s at home all day with her baby, Valentino, and this is where she comes to get outside.
After hearing what might happen, she committed to bringing Valentino here to play — and “take a lot of pictures,” she said, so she can remember Little Norway, even if part of it is gone.
With files from Robert Benzie
