EVCco
Senior Member
Newtonbrook Creek - what's in a name?, pt. 1
There's something not quite right about the name "Newtonbrook Creek." For one thing it's a bit confusing, if not redundant. Is it a brook or is it a creek? Is there even a difference? If one consult's Klein's Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary (itself a Toronto landmark of scholarly, if not geographic import) you will find that "brook" derives from the Old English broc, relating not so much to a stream but to "marshy ground," a meaning which it still maintains in certain regions of Britain today. "Creek," on the other hand, comes down to us from the Old Norse word kriki, which originally refered to a bay or inlet, stemming from an earlier root meaning "a bend, turn, or angle" - hence "crook," and "crutch." Both words, in this case, could equally apply depending on which part of the brook/creek one is at, for it is both marshy and bendy at various points along its course. In modern usage the words have diverged from their initial definitions, and then merged into basically interchangable synonyms, which is also fitting, as the Newtonbrook has been interchanging its own name for quite some time as well.
There was once, as you might expect a "Newton's Brook," named after one Reverend Robert Newton, from which a church and then the whole surrounding neighbourhood derived it's name. This "brook," from all I've read, ran somewhere past Yonge Street. Today's "creek" stops just short of Yonge (at least the visible portion). Whether this is the same waterway or not, I'm not certain. What is certain (as previously noted in an earlier post), is that this creek was, at one time, called "Wilket Creek," whereas the current Wilket Creek was once "Milne Creek." A 1960 mapping error then moved Wilket to Milne, Newtonbrook to Wilket, and Milne right off the map! Whatever, then, you might wish to call this stream, it begins where I begin this trek on the map, at Newtonbrook Park near Cummer and Willowdale, heading south by southeast:
Out now behind the St. John's Convalescent Hospital:
Through Maxome Ave, into Maxome Park and the Finch Hydro Corridor:
A small brook, creek, or stream breaks north toward Wideford Place:
Back to the Newtonbrook in Bayview Park:
Through one of the longer and darker tunnels I've traversed, under Bayview & Finch - made all the longer by the water suddenly becoming too deep right near the end, forcing me all the way back to head across on the surface:
Now out behind the Rainbow Creekway estates, through the northwest branch of the East Don Parkland:
Trespassing the twin tubes beneath Forest Grove Drive:
Continuing on through the East Don Parkland to where the Newtonbrook Creek meets the East Don itself:
There's something not quite right about the name "Newtonbrook Creek." For one thing it's a bit confusing, if not redundant. Is it a brook or is it a creek? Is there even a difference? If one consult's Klein's Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary (itself a Toronto landmark of scholarly, if not geographic import) you will find that "brook" derives from the Old English broc, relating not so much to a stream but to "marshy ground," a meaning which it still maintains in certain regions of Britain today. "Creek," on the other hand, comes down to us from the Old Norse word kriki, which originally refered to a bay or inlet, stemming from an earlier root meaning "a bend, turn, or angle" - hence "crook," and "crutch." Both words, in this case, could equally apply depending on which part of the brook/creek one is at, for it is both marshy and bendy at various points along its course. In modern usage the words have diverged from their initial definitions, and then merged into basically interchangable synonyms, which is also fitting, as the Newtonbrook has been interchanging its own name for quite some time as well.
There was once, as you might expect a "Newton's Brook," named after one Reverend Robert Newton, from which a church and then the whole surrounding neighbourhood derived it's name. This "brook," from all I've read, ran somewhere past Yonge Street. Today's "creek" stops just short of Yonge (at least the visible portion). Whether this is the same waterway or not, I'm not certain. What is certain (as previously noted in an earlier post), is that this creek was, at one time, called "Wilket Creek," whereas the current Wilket Creek was once "Milne Creek." A 1960 mapping error then moved Wilket to Milne, Newtonbrook to Wilket, and Milne right off the map! Whatever, then, you might wish to call this stream, it begins where I begin this trek on the map, at Newtonbrook Park near Cummer and Willowdale, heading south by southeast:
Out now behind the St. John's Convalescent Hospital:
Through Maxome Ave, into Maxome Park and the Finch Hydro Corridor:
A small brook, creek, or stream breaks north toward Wideford Place:
Back to the Newtonbrook in Bayview Park:
Through one of the longer and darker tunnels I've traversed, under Bayview & Finch - made all the longer by the water suddenly becoming too deep right near the end, forcing me all the way back to head across on the surface:
Now out behind the Rainbow Creekway estates, through the northwest branch of the East Don Parkland:
Trespassing the twin tubes beneath Forest Grove Drive:
Continuing on through the East Don Parkland to where the Newtonbrook Creek meets the East Don itself:
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