8-year indigenous parks naming saga headed for city council
· Toronto Sun
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That the City of Toronto has been stuck in a quagmire for eight years in its search for an indigenous name for a cluster of parks appears to be, in the view of local politicians, entirely unremarkable.
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Councillors at Tuesday’s meeting of the economic and community development committee chose not to discuss — much less debate — the city’s inability to confirm a name for a collection of green spaces and trails around the Lower Don.
In 2018, some of those same councillors had endorsed “Wonscotonach Parklands” as a collective name for a handful of public parks along the Don River. However, a report prepared for the committee meeting says that eight years later, no one can agree on how to spell Wonscotonach or what it means.
That eight-year search for a name, which the report recommends continue until at least 2027, comes even though city hall’s parks and rec division has what appears to be a million-dollar-a-year fund for indigenous renamings.
Report to be considered at end of month
The report will be considered by city council at the end of this month.
The initial city council vote on the Wonscotonach Parklands naming in April 2018 was unanimous. Paula Fletcher, in the only remarks about the naming at that meeting of council, called it a “great initiative.”
Alejandra Bravo, who chairs the committee, said at the start of Tuesday’s meeting that she was holding back the vote on the report on Fletcher’s behalf. That would allow Fletcher, who is not a member, to speak about the idea and publicly ask questions of city bureaucrats.
Strangely, while Fletcher was in the room, the report wasn’t discussed and she left shortly after it was rubber-stamped. Bravo — dressed in a black T-shirt featuring a mock music concert motif and the letters “ECDC,” for the committee — only asked for a quick show of hands, not a recorded vote.
“I was holding it on behalf of Councillor Fletcher, but she has had all, everything dealt with,” Bravo told the committee.
Fletcher’s office opted not to comment on the Wonscotonach report last week when contacted by the Toronto Sun , and did not respond to a followup about her appearance at Tuesday’s meeting.
‘Waasayishkodenayosh?’ ‘Waussaeishkstaenaeyaush?’
The report recommends council sign off on another year of the “indigenous-led” naming process, followed by another report in mid-2027 “with a chosen Anishinaabemowin name for the Lower Don parkland system and trail, along with an interpretive narrative for public use.”
Funding for “continued indigenous engagement, research” and related work is to come out of parks and rec’s indigenous place-keeping capital reserve.
The process is expected to include a visit by the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation — who are leading the naming “in accordance with recommended cultural protocols,” per the report — to the parkland system this summer.
The Sun has asked the City of Toronto for details about the parks renaming fund, but has yet to get a response.
While the fund isn’t mentioned in parks and rec’s 2026 budget documents, an appendix on its 2025 capital budget suggests more than $1 million has been allocated to the division’s “reconciliation and indigenous place-making program” for 2026.
That document suggests at least $1 million will go toward that program every year until at least 2034.
An earlier city report , dating to March 2018, says the parks of the Lower Don should have a collective name as they are “connected and contiguous, (but) these connections are not well-known by most park users.” The parkland includes Don Valley Brick Works Park, Todmorden Mills Park and Riverdale Park, both east and west.
But that report couldn’t say for sure what Wonscotonach means.
“Wonscotonach is understood to be the Anishinaabe place name for the Don River and likely translates to ‘burning bright point,’” a possible reference to nighttime salmon spearfishing, the 2018 report says.
Meanwhile, the more recent report says research by Alan Corbiere, an associate professor at York University’s history department, “has revealed that considered translations and spellings may not be accurate.”
Alternative spellings include “Waasayishkodenayosh” and “Waussaeishkstaenaeyaush,” the report says.
While renamings aren’t being considered for the individual parks themselves, the report says, a new collective name could appear on about two dozen signs.
That the Lower Don report got an easy ride at the committee was not a shock, as most of its members — such as councillors Bravo, Shelley Carroll, Ausma Malik and Chris Moise — are close allies of Mayor Olivia Chow and regular supporters of city hall’s recent work to rename its public assets.