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HISTORY

Introduction The Junction is an area most aptly named, for its history is that of a meeting place of transportation routes; portage trail, colonial road, railroad, streetcar line. The Junction grew beside them, because of them and was shaped by them.

The Portage Trail Even before Europeans arrived in Canada, The Junction was linked to transportation. The Junction is just east of the Toronto Carrying Place, an Indian portage trail that covered the twenty-eight miles between the headwaters of the Humber River and the Holland River, completing a fur trading route from the Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario via Lake Simcoe, Holland Marsh, and the Holland River. At its closest point to our study area, the portage passed where Jane Street now runs.

The Humber portage provided the shortest and flattest overland route between Lake Ontario and an access to the Georgian Bay. The portage was used first by several Indian tribes to travel between the beaver hunting grounds to the north and their more permanent homes around Lake Ontario, and, after 1615, by the French for the same purpose.

Both the Indians and the French established settlements or outposts on the Humber River. The Seneca Indians established the village of Teiaigon