An Update to History

When I wrote the post about the “History on the Fence”, I wondered why the “history” ended at 1951 . . . . . I discovered today that the fence actually continued around the corner and down a little unused alleyway. Walking back from the subway today, we walked down the alley and I discovered the rest of the history of Toronto Hydro. Since I wrote that post I also noticed on the front of the building that it is indeed a Toronto Hydro office. So here are the pictures of the missing historical information. 

There now you have a slightly updated history of Toronto Hydro . . .

History on a Fence

The new infrastructure emerges on Kingston Rd,
delivering the first watts to customers.

You have to be observant when walking around Toronto. I have discovered beautiful sculptures in gardens and architectural oddities all over the city, but today I discovered a history lesson. Carlton/Church & Yonge is the closest subway stop and we use it a lot. Carlton is a major street and is very busy, so we started walking down Wood Street which is parallel to Carlton and only two blocks long, so it is quiet and not used a lot We walk this route every time we go to the subway, and I noticed an interesting fence around a parking lot, but today I actually stopped and looked a bit closer at the fence. I discovered a history lesson was displayed in photographs and plaques as you walked down along the fence, giving interesting historical lessons on Toronto Hydro. I am assuming the parking lot is for Toronto Hydro vehicles or employees. 

I think the design of the fence is actually a map of some of Toronto’s streets and is interesting on it’s own, but the photos with their write-ups incorporated into the design of the fence were a unique feature, giving glimpses into the story of Toronto Hydro from 1910 to 1951. 

I would have missed this little history lesson except that Regis had forgotten something back at the condo, so I was walking slowly down the street waiting for her and I had time to actually look a the fence and read the little plaques where we would have normally just walked quickly by on our way somewhere else. 

Slowing down and noticing what is around you Can lead to interesting discoveries. 

Unplanned "Power" Sidetrip

We had a choice today driving south from Inverness, either take the motorway through

Walking across the dam

Perth, or go through the mountains cross country. I was rested so I though I’d be fine on the secondary roads for another day, so we took the scenic route, “The Tourist Route” according to the signs.

We stopped at the town of Pitlochry for lunch and I saw a sign for a dam and dam visitor’s

The fish ladder

center. We had enough time on the parking so we wandered down to the dam. This was one of Hydro Scotland’s power generating plants and had been opened to the public as a tourist attraction. It is on a beautiful location, and the dam has created a lake behind it adding to the attraction.

Footpath across river

Although the actual hydro plant is not open to the public, you can walk across the dam and look down into the plant through windows, although you can’t actually see much. There are interpretive signs explaining everything however. Once across the dam, there is a long fish ladder to allow salmon to get up the river past the dam. They have built an observation area where you can look into the ladder to see the fish climbing up. Although we did not see any fish, there is a digital counter that keeps track of how many fish swim up and the how large

Back to town

they are. This season, 4,091 salmon have used the fish ladder.

Lunch time

Walking over the dam we saw a footbridge downstream which would lead us back into the town, so we walked down along the river and crossed the bridge to a trail through the woods back to the town where we stopped to eat lunch.

On this part of the trip we have the time to do things like this. We only had a drive of about three hours, so it was nice to be able to see attractions like this which were not in our plans and fit them into the adventure.