More Than an Island: A History of the Toronto Island

The Toronto Island is one of the strangest places in the city. Fifteen minutes from downtown by ferry and it feels like the rest of Toronto barely exists. That distance has always been the point. The Island has been a resort, a military base, an airport, a city park, and a community of people who built homes there and refused to leave when the city decided it wanted them gone.

The eviction battles from the 1950s through the 1980s are one of Toronto's most underknown political stories: residents fighting the city administration for the right to stay in a place they'd lived in for generations. Gibson documented the full arc, from wilderness to resort to community to contested ground. The Island's story is the Toronto story. About land, belonging, and how hard ordinary people have to fight to keep a place they love.