A fantastic event has taken root at my neighbourhood community centre in downtown Toronto, and it involves a swimming pool, children, worms, and a lot of trout. That's right, every June a fishing frenzy takes place in the Scadding Court swimming pool, where the chlorinated blue water is replaced with freshwater grey, stocked with fish.My kids love it. My son even landed the biggest fish in the pool, after an hour of fruitless casting, but I was so excited I forgot to snap the moment on my cellphone camera.
Originally started up to help immigrant Chinese families 'get back in touch' with their angling roots, the Gone Fishin' event now pulls in all kinds of people from the intensely multicultural downtown-west community in which the Centre is located - Jamaican and Haitian families join the older Anglo population alongside the Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese folks, incongruously assisted by half a dozen teenagers in red-and-white LIFEGUARD outfits and a phlegmatic middle-aged white fisherman straight out of central casting ('you want a worm? Alright, alright...')
For 2 dollars you can fish for an hour and if you catch something, 75 cents will get your fish cleaned by a friendly young man in the basement kitchen. You can even take it upstairs to the snack bar in the main lobby, opposite the gymnasium, to have it fried up with rice and beans.
Our Great Lakes are still vilified and feared for their toxic menace, which means that very few Torontonians have any relationship at all to the unique local ecosystem we live in. This community fishing event is a good way to start teaching us about our natural heritage, one morsel at a time.
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Hi John Willis
ReplyDeleteThis is so sweet. Always thought you were meant to be a writer. Where's your book.
Don't ask me how I found your blog....the world is mysterious and wonderful that way.
Elisabeth (Mealey)