Emory Creek – Weston Wastelands

There are parts of the city that are wastelands, and the Emery creek corridor is probably the least attractive  of them all.  A hydro corridor runs close to a highway, and a rail line also runs North through the area into a light industrial area.  An abandoned mall sites empty on a huge lot next door as well. Emery creek also runs through the area and is partially buried as it runs underneath an apartment complex. It is a part of the humber watershed.  I’m not quite sure why the buildings are built right onto a watershed, but it accounts for the large size of the culvert, one of the largest in the city, and certainly the only one that  is made of corrugated metal.

I’ve visited this several times and have always found it photogenic and enjoyable. Its pretty short at around 700m but has a few changes in it where it goes from corrugated metal to a mix of concrete and cmp and concrete before going back to concrete and cmp again.  The scale of the culvert is what I liked about it the most. You don’t generally see something quite this short, and large very often. The first time I went in via the outfall and decided to leave via the inlet we emerged from the valley all we saw were dead logs, heavy machinery and random bits of junk.  We had no idea where we were! We even discovered that we had good cell phone reception inside the drain itself and met up with some other drainers in the pipe. The city of York has a pretty interesting topography, and although I’ve never been found of seeing houses built right next to industry, or apartments directly on watersheds, it makes for some interesting photography.

Further reading :

AOTU

Photos by Kathy.

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Mullet Creek

Located  in Streetsville and running along side a very active rail line (four trains went by while we were around) is a concrete channel that is hidden gem for graffiti writers from all over the Golden Horseshoe.

Half Life

Over the past few years the walls seem to be overrun by new writers who are regularly painting. The massive canal was bone dry when we went, but the debris here seem to indicate that some massive water flow occurs here during flash floods. The feeling here is very post-apocalyptic and strangely silent, almost unsettling.

The actual channel runs for almost a kilometer and half west as a slopped, steep concrete canal that I’m sure the local kids also like to make use of for skateboard and bmx tricks aside from graffiti. The wall not only is right surface to paint on, its located right across from an active rain line and not too far from a local train station. This canal eventually leads you to a large culvert (4 meters) that is pretty mundane and featureless that runs for a few hundred meters after which you will be rewarded with one of the most interesting outfalls I’ve ever seen to the Credit River.

Yellow Creek

Yellow Creek flows  through the vale of Avoca, and run adjacent to the Park Drive Reservation as well. It is a well known Toronto drain that carries part of Yellow creek from another well known drain that runs under the belt line trail commonly referred to as (Belt Line Drain) that starts just a bit North of Eglinton and Spadina. I looked forward to doing this drain on a leisurely afternoon because it was quite short, and was a rectangular box the whole way.

Once you drop into the inlet under a large metal gate you’re immediately rewarded with a cool breeze from inside the drain. The drain runs fairly straight under a stretch of empty parkland until you reach Mt.Pleasant where it takes an east turn and you arrive at what appears to be an older inlet grill smashed around two tunnels where a fair bit of debris blocks your way further. We spent a few minutes moving logs, branches,odd bits of metal, and a shopping cart that looked like it had been turned inside out to gain further access. The one thing that struck me about this drain was how water was seeping in from every imaginable place, more so then I have seen elsewhere, giving you a skanky/musty feeling that seemed more cave like then drain.

After navigating the obstacle and going down a little slide we noticed that the makeshift rope someone attached to the smashed grill had obviously been cut by the maintenance workers who seemed to have been doing some very recent work here that included caulking the joints of the drain further down by the actual steps. This was the last stretch of tunnel before you reach the ‘window’ which acts as an overflow device which empties into the ravine. You can hear the outfall of the much larger Park Drive Drain / Spadina Storm trunk sewer as you go around the first bend. About 300m further down you hear a louder noise, that being the first set of steps where your greeted by a flood of light shining in through a window that acts as an overflow for the drain and the creek. The first set of steps drops you around a bend where some maintenance work was done recently. The second and third sets of stairs aren’t far off where it becomes impossible to go further as the drain dips down and outfalls right into the Valley where it has flooded and filled with sediment.

Further reading :

Lost Rivers – Yellow Creek

AOTU

Photos by Kathy/

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