Winter Stations

A nice February Day at the beach

A sunny February day . . . . a perfect day to spend the day at the beach!

No bikinis, or speedos though, but at least all the Lifeguard stations were occupied and busy. You might think that a February beach day would not be a good idea, but that is exactly what we did today, took a streetcar and a bus down to Woodbine Beach and spent the day there. We were there to explore the annual Toronto “Winter Stations” event. 

Walking the boardwalk

Winter Stations is an International competition where the Arts and Design community is challenged to reimagine the lifeguard stations along Toronto’s East end beaches. The event has been running for 14 years and has seen entries from over 90 countries. The object is to use one of the unused leftguard Stations to create and build an art installation on the beach. I read about it on the internet and decided to go and see what it was all about. A 27 minute, 25 stop  streetcar ride and then a seven stop, seven minute bus ride took us to Woodbine Beach in Toronto’s East end, which runs for almost three kilometres along Lake Ontario. 

The beach was not crowded as it would have been in the summer, but I would call it well used, especially by Toronto’s dog community and as we walked down the beach we met many friendly canine beach goers. Scattered down the beach were the actual Winter Station installations. There was . . . .

We Caught a UFO by Xavier Madden & Katja Banovic from Croatia and Australia

A Kaleidoscopic Odyssey by Adam Brander, Nilesh P, Ingrid Garcia & Mayam Emadzadeh from Canada

Nimbus by David Stein from Canada

Bobbin’ by University of Waterloo School of Architecture

Winteraction by Department of Landscape Architecture & Ashari Architects for Canada & Iran

Nova by Toronto Metropolitan University of Architectural Science from Canada  

Each of these installations was designed and built around one of the beach’s lifeguard stations and the public was encouraged to explore and get involved in the displays. As we walked down the beach, we tried each one, climbing into the UFO, Walking through the Kaleidoscopic Odyssey, and titter-tottering in the Bobber. The rain falling from Nimbus’ cloud did not get us wet, and the fallen star Nova sheltered us from the wind and provided a view along the beach. Unfortunately the Labyrinth in Winteraction required an app that did not want to install on my phone so we could not do it, but the rest were imaginative and interesting. 

Not having visited this beach previously, we continued on down the boardwalk along the lakes edge visiting other beaches and enjoying a pleasant afternoon walk before taking a different streetcar and bus route back to the condo.