Toronto to revisit Lower Don parklands name amid uncertainty over Indigenous word
· Toronto Sun
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A committee is being told that while Toronto city council agreed eight years ago to name the trails and green spaces around the Lower Don the “Wonscotonach Parklands,” nobody knows what that word means or how to spell it.
In a “ progress update ” prepared for the city’s economic and community development committee, bureaucrats say that despite research and engagement since 2018, “staff have heard that there is not consensus on the accuracy, spelling or interpretation of ‘Wonscotonach.’ ”
The report recommends council approve another year of the “Indigenous-led process,” followed by another report in mid-2027 “with a chosen Anishinaabemowin name for the Lower Don parkland system and trail, along with an interpretive narrative for public use.”
Funding for “continued Indigenous engagement, research” and other work related to the new name is to come from Parks and Recreation’s capital budget through its Indigenous place-keeping capital reserve.
That process is expected to include a visit by the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation – who are leading the naming “in accordance with recommended cultural protocols,” per the report – to the parkland system this summer.
The City of Toronto told the Toronto Sun on Thursday afternoon it would be unable to comment on the parks division’s place-keeping fund in time for publication.
While the fund isn’t mentioned in Parks and Recreation’s 2026 budget documents, an appendix to its 2025 capital budget suggests more than $1 million has been allocated to the division’s “reconciliation and Indigenous place-making program” for 2026.
That document suggests at least $1 million will go toward the program every year until at least 2034.
‘Great initiative’
An earlier city report, dating to March 2018 , said the parks in the Lower Don should have a collective name because they are “connected and contiguous, (but) these connections are not well known by most park users.” The parkland includes Don Valley Brick Works Park, Todmorden Mills Park, and Riverdale Park East and West.
But that report couldn’t say for sure what Wonscotonach means.
“Wonscotonach is understood to be the Anishinaabe place name for the Don River and likely translates to ‘burning bright point,’ ” possibly a reference to nighttime salmon spearfishing, the 2018 report says.
However, the report prepared for this month’s committee meeting says recent research by Alan Corbiere, an associate professor in York University’s history department, “has revealed that considered translations and spellings may not be accurate.”
Alternative spellings include “Waasayishkodenayosh” and “Waussaeishkstaenaeyaush,” the report says.
While renaming any of the individual parks is not being considered, the report says a new collective name for the parkland system is expected to appear on about two dozen signs.
The initial city council vote to name the area Wonscotonach Parklands eight years ago was unanimous, and the motion passed without debate. Paula Fletcher, in the only remarks about the naming at that April 2018 council meeting, called it a “ great initiative .”
Fletcher could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
Since 2018, Toronto has renamed several places using Indigenous words.
Perhaps most notably, under Mayor Olivia Chow, the City of Toronto has promoted its “new island” of Ookwemin Minising , which was known as Villiers Island until 2024. It is also home to the destination green space Biidaasige Park.
Meanwhile, Lower Coxwell Ave. was designated Emdaabiimok Ave. in mid-2024.