Toronto has a canon. It's just lost.
City Canon recovers it. Books, prints, and artifacts that the city deserves to remember. Every item here was made by, about, or because of Toronto. Every sale funds the next generation of people telling this city's story.
Browse the canon →Why this exists.
But that never felt right. Toronto isn't empty, it's just not loud about itself like New York. You have to seek out the magic. The city doesn't declare it.
And maybe that's why stories about the city hit harder than they should. Everything here is a little more precious for being overlooked.
I want to find what we overlook. Things that make us proud to take credit for the city.
There has to be a canon. This is the project that remembers it.
Recently added to the canon
Three new acquisitions. More on the way.
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A Toronto Album: Glimpses of the City That WasToronto has a complicated relationship with its own past. The city builds fast, tears down fast, and moves on without looking back. Then a generation later, everyone wonders what happened to the thing that used to be there. Mike Filey sp...
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Bloor-Dufferin in PicturesBloor and Dufferin is not a glamorous corner. It's not the places that get written about in books about Toronto's culture, like the Annex or Rosedale or Kensington. It is, and has always been, a working neighbourhood. The Denison family ...
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Dateline: Toronto: the Complete Toronto Star Dispatches, 1920-1924This is the one that catches people off guard. Hemingway. Toronto. The Star. Before the novels, before Spain, before any of it, he was here filing dispatches, covering the city, learning the craft in real time on deadline. The lean prose...
The city's story comes in. You keep it moving.
An artifact card connecting what you're holding to the city it came from.
A postcard with a prepaid stamp, addressed to no one. Remind someone of a story you’ve created with them in the city.