Biidaasige Park

Equipment by Monstrum, Earthscape, Whole Trees Structures.

Surfaces: rubber, wood chips.

Biidaasige Park contains the best playground to open in Toronto this decade, and as the area around it continues to develop it might become the best playground in Toronto, period.

Named for the Ojibwemowin phrase “sunlight shining towards us,” Biidaasige Park is an enormous project many years in the making. Part recreation, part flood protection, part re-naturalization, and hopefully just one of many steps towards re-uniting Toronto with its waterfront.

The playground has so many highlights it’s hard to know where to begin playing…and just as hard to know where to begin describing it. So I guess I’ll start with the structure that might be its defining feature: the snowy owl.

But even the snowy owl is tough to describe. It’s a climber. But it’s also public art. But it’s also a stage surrounded by semi-circular seating. As far as I know, it’s the first example in Canada of a major piece of work by Danish company Monstrum, known for their eye-popping, unique designs.

As it gazes out over the rest of the playground, the snowy owl will catch the eye of anyone passing by, but it might not even be the coolest feature here.

That honour probably goes to the “badlands scramble” – a huge, multi-level sand and water play area unlike anything else in the city. Dotted with multiple pumps and dams and other water features, this area alone will keep most kids occupied for a very long time. (Be careful though: the sand makes the hills quite slippery, and this area is best navigated barefoot. There are a few signs warning of this, but I’ll bet the city will eventually need to put up more.)

Other equipment: two ziplines, a wooden climber that mimics a beaver dam, swings, talk tubes, multiple wooden structures of stylized animals, a multi-rider rope swing. The beautiful “reaching raccoon” climber, built by Canadian company Earthscape and located a bit further east than the rest of the equipment, would be the centrepiece of just about any other playground, but there’s so much to do here that I almost forgot to mention it.

So is it the perfect playground? Well, no.

Until the trees grow, shade is hard to come by. (Although surely some fabric shades wouldn’t be too hard to install.) Until the former fire hall is renovated, there are no permanent bathrooms. And until the surrounding Port Lands are fully re-developed, it’s not a simple playground to get to. You can do it by transit but not easily, and parking isn’t plentiful. It feels a bit like a beauitful puzzle piece that hasn't quite locked into place with the bigger picture.

But that will change. There are plans for housing, more parkland, and even light rail. Cynics will need to see those things to believe them, but it’s tough to be cynical when you see what has already been accomplished at the Port Lands. When I was a kid, this was an enormous post-industrial wasteland. A large part of that has now been transformed into a re-naturalized area that gives the Don River a more natural, flood-resistant exit into the lake.

Our trip to Biidaasige Park was a celebration in just about every possible way: it was the park’s opening weekend, it was my birthday, and it was the 250th Toronto playground our family had visited. With all that in mind, and as my kids explored each part of this wonderful new playground, I felt two distinct but connected feelings:

1. Gratitude to be a parent in this time and place. Most of the top ten playgrounds on my rankings have been built or rejuvenated since my eldest was born, and there are so many free, kid-friendly things to do in this often frustratingly expensive city. So, gratitude.

2. Awareness that my kids looked a lot bigger than many of the other kids on the playground. They’re not tiny anymore. In a few more years, they probably won’t want to spend their weekends doing stuff like this.

That second one might sound sad, but in a strange way it made the first feeling stronger. Being aware of the fleeting nature of this life stage actually made for more gratitude.

There was a lot to be grateful for. Folks from all over the city had come to celebrate a new park. The city was trying to do the right thing for its people and for its river. My kids were as happy at their 250th playground as they had been at their first. It was a beautiful day. It was the middle of the summer. The sunlight was shining toward us.