Restored Native Grasses, Cell 1, Leslie Street Spit, Toronto (fall 2019)
The Leslie Street Spit is a 250-hectare artificial headland made entirely of construction rubble and sediments dredged from Toronto’s harbour. Extending five kilometres into Lake Ontario, the Spit was unexpectantly colonized by nature in the 1970s, a process further amplified by projects engineered by the Toronto Region and Conservation Authority (TRCA). Now known as Tommy Thompson Park, the Spit is an important Canadian showcase for urban wetlands creation. Seventy-three bird species breed there, including North America’s largest population of double-crested cormorants, whose nests numbered 14,515 in 2018.