Big Red Canoe At Canoe Landing Park: Exploring Toronto Part III

Today’s blog post is another in my Exploring Toronto series which includes “Exploring Toronto: Henry Mulholland Cairn in North York” and “Life Looks Good On Easy Street: Exploring Toronto Part II.”

You may have seen this giant red canoe when you are driving on the Gardiner Expressway out of Toronto and wondered what the heck it is. I have seen it for the past two years from afar and kept meaning to actually go check it out since they opened “Canoe Landing Park” designed by Douglas Coupland in 2009 and I finally went today with my friend Shannon (@Shananigans5) & her friend from Saskatchewan. (He doesn’t have Twitter…I don’t think they have Twitter or even internet in Saskatchewan. I kid, I kid.) The canoe itself even has its own Foursquare check-in that is separate from the Canoe Landing Park check-in location. As well, it has been rated as one of the “Best Makeout Spots in Toronto” by BlogTO.

I was really excited to check it out and needed something to take my mind off watching the Dolphins go to 0-3 after they blew their lead in the 4th quarter as I watched at one of my new favorite downtown chill spots – Fort York Fox & Fiddle (Facebook here and @FortYorkFox on Twitter). The canoe was visible off across the open field/pit – where I think they’re building another condo – and I said to Shannon that since it was such a gorgeous day we should go check it out. She has been there a million times but was willing to humor me being a tourist in my own city.

I can totally see why it was rated one of the top makeout spots in Toronto…it’d be a great place to go late on a warm summer night with a bit of traffic whizzing by on the Gardiner Expressway and just feeling like you’re all alone in the world in your big red canoe on a voyage of awesome. Shannon took this picture of me standing on top of it and I had her take the one you see below of me being all “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” If you don’t know what the heck I am talking about it’s a famous 19th Century painting by Emanuel Leutze (check it out below).

Washington Crossing the Delaware via METmuseum.org

And here’s the pic of me doing the pose although it is a different angle because Shannon was sitting down and I didn’t wanna make her move too far to take the picture. Also, I didn’t even realize what the significance was of the pose my brain was telling me to stand in at the time so I didn’t consider the angle. The pose’s origin only dawned on me as I wrote this blog post. Ya, my brain is weird that way.

In retrospect I sort of wish I had done Leonardo DiCaprio’s ‘king of the world’ pose from Titanic. Ya, I am a pop culture addict and the George Washington pose is definitely a lot more classy but what can you do, the Leo reference came to me as I wrote this.

Have you been to Canoe Landing Park? What did you think? I thought it was really cool and want to go back in the summer when they have the waterpark part turned on and run around in the sprinklers like a little kid (which I have the maturity level of so it works out).