A small river in a big city, the Don River is often overlooked when it comes to explaining Toronto’s growth. With Reclaiming the Don, Jennifer L. Bonnell unearths the missing story of the relationship between river, valley, and city from the establishment of the town of York in the 1790s to the construction of the Don Valley Parkway in the 1960s. Demonstrating how mosquito-ridden lowlands, frequent floods, and over-burdened municipal waterways shaped the city’s development, Reclaiming the Don illuminates the impact of the valley as a physical and conceptual place on Toronto’s development.

Bonnell explains how for more than two centuries the Don has served as a source of raw materials, a sink for wastes, and a place of refuge for people pushed to the edges of society. Exploring the interrelationship between urban residents and their natural environments, she shows how successive generations of Toronto residents have imagined the Don as an opportunity, a refuge, and an eyesore.

The second edition contains a new foreword commenting on the life of the book, and the river, in the ten years since the book was first published. Combining extensive research with in-depth analysis, Reclaiming the Don is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of Toronto.

Jennifer L. Bonnell is an assistant professor in the Department of History at McMaster University.

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“Michael Ondaatje would enjoy this beautiful history of Toronto’s Don valley: it explores a place he drew on for his own work and it shares his novels’ intensity of imagery.”

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