Ferry Tales: The Role of the Toronto Islands in the City’s Queer Communities

Maybe it’s because I was unduly influenced by the Greek myth of Charon and The River Styx as a child, but I’ve always had a thing for ferries. I do know I’m not alone in my queer passion for destinations that require a boat ride: Mykonos, Fire Island, Lesbos…Hey, ferry! Watcha doin, ferry? C’mere and say that, ferry! When I first moved to Toronto as a young lesbian, someone told me there was a picnic happening on Toronto Island to celebrate gay pride. Way out there? Near the petting zoo I visited as a child? I pictured 3 sunburned drag queens wielding warm egg salad sandwiches and the requisite lone butch in an impractical leather and denim get-up, all of us mindful of getting jumped. No thanks. I was too young and too cool to go to a picnic, I decided. I lived downtown. I knew nothing at all about gay history. The focus was on the AIDS crisis by the time I came of age. But when I was still in training pants, 300 intrepid souls flocked to Hanlan’s Point for Canada’s first-ever openly gay picnic: Sunday August 1, 1971. My first experience of Pride Day happened in the late eighties on Church Street, back when the entire celebration fit inside the grounds of Cawthra Park and people dodged the 2 TV cameras that showed up and no one heterosexual came to watch—at least not with best intentions. Somewhere along the line, I let go of my insistence on urbane living and became obsessed with the Toronto Islands. And I regretted not going to that picnic when I had the chance.The clothing-optional beach on Hanlan’s dates back to the late 1890s, supposedly intended to attract European visitors who enjoyed their sunbaths in the altogether. Eventually the civic prisspots won and the permit for the beach was revoked in the 1930s. But nothing seems to excite gay men like the words “YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED” and the beach continued to be a haunt, however unofficially, from the 50s through till the permit was renewed in 1999 and on till today.      The Island is a serene siren and she knows how to sit and wait for you to come around to loving her. Hands up, Toronto queers who’ve made out (at least once) on Toronto Island, buffeted by the signature breezes coming in off Lake O. Missed the last ferry on purpose, just to see what would happen. Wrestled with a crush in the grass under a willow tree, cruised along the old wooden boardwalk on Ward’s listening to the thunder of the planks under your bike tires. Wave if you’ve ever sat on the nude beach drinking gin from a Thermos all afternoon, riding back to the city on the ferry with your slick-skinned brethren wondering why you never thought to bring anything to eat. Hawaiian Tropic Dark Tanning oil scenting the wind, the haunting shriek of a now-dead party boy admonishing another friend, “Oh, Mary!” All you need is a coin for the ferryman to see him again…I remember being deeply envious of all the island residents on the ferry crossing over with their sturdy wooden wagons full of wine and groceries, going home. You could live there. Imagine living there. And because I am a writer, I began to speculate and daydream about all the people who had ever fallen in love or in lust out there. Because you just know that well before that first queer picnic, back in time when Ferris wheels and roller coasters rose up where a lush forest now stands, some girl must have kissed another girl in those same dreamy dunes on her lunch break.* * *Marnie Woodrow is the author of the novel Heyday, a two-era lesbian love story set on Toronto Island.