Love stories unlock city’s light
Adam Bunch (the Toronto Dreams Project, “The Toronto Book of the Dead”) is a man on a mission. In his second book, he unlocks the secrets of city fathers and mothers, unspooling tales of courtship, love, lust and scandal, from early Indigenous societies through war, rebellion and post-Confederation Toronto, up to the present day.
Among this rich smorgasbord of stories are some real shockers. Well before Toronto’s founding in 1793, Samuel de Champlain, intent on claiming the “new world” for France, found himself in dire need of financing, so he returned home and married a girl with a healthy dowry. He was 40. She was 12. He promised not to assert a husband’s rights until she was 14.
The relaxed, respectful courtship traditions of the Indigenous Huron/Wendat people expose the European approach to marriage as especially repellent. After the British conquest, John Graves Simcoe founded York (the name changed back to Toronto in 1834), immediately imposing British civil law. How refreshing, then, to learn about Mrs. Simcoe’s delight in “exploring the wilderness, eating raccoon meat, painting her watercolours on birch bark, and setting her fires.” Elizabeth Simcoe also adored riding her horse on what would become Toronto Island, with her husband’s secretary, the dashing Thomas Talbot, at her side.
Bunch’s many tales about early love and lust feature a duel, an adulterous liaison at Osgoode Hall, and a mayor who owned a Queen Street oyster house/brothel. Passions often ran amok, despite stern efforts at social control by British moralists. Love may not always conquer, but neither does bigotry — at least not every time.
Extreme devotion flourished. Prominent reformist lawyer, politician, poetry lover Robert Baldwin not only insisted that he be buried beside his long-dead wife, their coffins chained together, but
also that his corpse be cut open, scarring his body to resemble the C-section that had hastened her death. Gulp.
As fresh details emerge from the dustbin of history, much delight is found in less familiar tales. It was 1831 when Thornton Blackburn and his beloved wife Ruthie made their harrowing escape from slavery in Kentucky, sparking riots in Detroit along the way. Upper Canada legislators refused the Americans’ extradition request, and Thornton and Ruthie — who changed her name to “Lucie” — flourished in their new home. Lifelong community and political activists, they helped found Little Trinity Church, supported the 1837 rebellion and established York’s first horse-drawn taxi, called “The City.” Its “red and yellow paint job” later inspired the colours of the Toronto Transit Commission.
With an unmatched flair for storytelling, Bunch infuses Toronto history with fresh life. Mixed-heritage poet Pauline Johnson appears, alone and vulnerable, onstage in 1892, reading a passionate poem about Indigenous people “starved, crushed, plundered” by white men. Silence, then her rapt Toronto audience
bursts into applause, calling out for more. Irish immigrant Kit Coleman, a woman who “smelled of ammonia” and had big feet, not only wrote the city’s first “advice for the lovelorn” column, but also became the first “female war reporter,” admired for her dispatches from Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Incidentally, she married three times — the last one was happy — despite her big feet.
Love occurs in its many guises, as “Toronto the Good” (Mayor William Howland’s slogan) slowly yields to Toronto the tolerant. The reverend officiating at the groundbreaking 2001 same-sex church wedding of the “two Michaels” wore a bulletproof vest, due to bomb threats. In 2011, while Chris Kay Fraser rode on the Queen streetcar, gazing at the grey spring day, she recognized the spot where she once experienced “a ground-shaking kiss.” If only she could always see the city that way. Hours later, the writing teacher had created a Google Map to document her most memorable Toronto kisses, inviting others to contribute. The Toronto Kiss Map was born.
Like that moment on the streetcar, Bunch’s stories shake us awake, not only from our collective pandemic stupor, but also from our long-held preconceptions about Toronto’s essential boringness. Listen to Bunch. We are not a dull people.