West Rouge Park

Equipment by Blue Imp.

Surface: rubber.

Within easy stroller distance of the spot where the Rouge River empties into Lake Ontario, the playground at West Rouge Park holds the title of Toronto’s easternmost playground.

Which may be confusing, given the park’s name…so maybe we should just go by the name of the playground proper: the Bob Lopston Playground.

It’s a quiet, friendly little spot, with plenty of tactile and musical panels for little ones, and a partially-shaded climber for slightly larger little ones. There’s also something that manufacturer Blue Imp calls a “Twisted Tower” – a rope climber that I don’t remember seeing anywhere else.

Another element I don’t think I’ve seen before is their “build a word” panel; set up something like a tic tac toe panel but with letters. My kids spent a good amount of time with this thing, making three-letter words both existent and non-existent, and giggling liberally at the results.

To be honest, for us the playground was only an appetizer for a more exciting outing: a walk into Rouge National Urban Park.

The park’s southern end can be accessed just around the corner from the Bob Lopston playground. A boardwalk gives great views of a marsh where we saw swans and ducks and chatted with red-winged blackbirds for a bit, before walking under the train tracks to Rouge Beach, where river meets lake. Here we were welcomed by sand, driftwood, seagulls, and even city-installed hammocks. We tried skipping stones across the river to see if they could make it to Pickering. We weren’t successful, but it still felt good to throw rocks at Pickering.

It was peaceful and wonderfully cool on a hot summer’s day.