High Park

Toronto's largest park, with cherry blossoms in spring and skating in winter

High Park is Toronto's largest urban park at 161 hectares, running along the western edge of the city near the lake. It manages to contain a surprising amount of variety: natural oak savannah, a ravine, an outdoor swimming pool, a small zoo with free admission, tennis courts, a children's playground, and Grenadier Pond (named for the British soldiers who once fished here), which becomes a skating rink in a cold winter.

The park is most famous for its Japanese cherry blossoms each spring — an event that now draws tens of thousands of visitors on peak weekends. In summer, the Dream in High Park outdoor Shakespeare festival performs in the park's natural amphitheatre (evenings, pay-what-you-can). At the south end, Colborne Lodge is a well-preserved 19th-century house museum that belonged to the park's original owner, John George Howard.

The park is accessible from High Park station on the Bloor-Danforth subway line. Bloor Street runs along the northern boundary; cyclists can access it from the Martin Goodman Trail along the waterfront.

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High Park's cherry trees — 156 of them, mostly Somei-yoshino variety — were donated by Japan in 1959 as a gesture of gratitude to Canada for accepting Japanese-Canadian internees who emigrated after the Second World War. Each spring, when the trees bloom for roughly two weeks, the park becomes so crowded that the city runs dedicated TTC shuttle buses to handle the crowds. The blossoms typically peak in late April to early May, but the exact timing varies by up to three weeks depending on the winter.

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