Art in memory of underground river.
Annette Street Public School's Karen Goodfellow's Grade 3 class poses in front of an art installation the entire school worked on along with High Park Alternative students to bring attention to the hidden river that flows beneath their schools.
Staff photo/LISA RAINFORD
A river runs through it - er, under it.
Unbeknownst to students at Annette Street Public and High Park Alternative schools a river flows directly under their playground and building. Not until an Earth Day assembly in the spring did the students learn of this little fact from the West Toronto Junction Historical Society's Gib Goodfellow. Goodfellow spoke of the corner of Annette Street and Clendenan Avenue, once known as 'the beauty spot,' where a stream flowed beneath a bridge where friends would congregate in the shade of a forested valley.
Little evidence of the river is left today, except for the curve in the road and the sound of rushing water beneath the sewer grates.
Excited, the kids at the Junior Kindergarten to Grade 8 school wanted to know exactly where the stream flows. Outside with her Grade 3 class early Wednesday morning, Oct. 13, Karen Goodfellow, an EcoSchool Committee member, explained that students had charted its course, under Laws Avenue, near the school's 'peace garden,' under the school yard and building through Ravina Park to Clendenan Avenue and under Bloor Street West. Students tracked its course as it flows to High Park and Grenadier Pond.
Students didn't want to be the only ones who knew of the buried river, which they learned was named Wendigo Creek. They wanted to come up with a creative way to draw the neighbourhood's attention to it, said Julie Palmer, an artist, parent and EcoSchool Committee member. That's how the idea for 'Ghost River' was born. It's an outdoor art installation featuring painted fish and an ecosystem of glass mosaic fish, turtles and frogs. The project brought together as many as 265 students from JK to Grade 8, 14 teachers and 20 parent volunteers from both Annette Street and High Park Alternative schools.
Ghost River inspired students to take action.
"It taught them that we need to take care of what goes down the drain," said Palmer. "It really opened up their perspective."
The Ghost River Art Installation has been secured to the chain-link fence along Clendenan Avenue at Annette Street.
'Water flows under your feet... Listen,' reads a sign.
"It's a place that kids walk by every day," said Goodfellow.
Soon, there will be a garden with shrubs below it as well, she added.
More art and science projects are in the works.