Those doggone bylaws... By Lara O’Keefe
Volume 46 No. 1
March 7, 2017
MAKE NO bones about it – new city bylaws aim to keep dog owners on a tighter leash. But whether these bylaws turn out to be more bark than bite is yet to be determined. The new bylaws were passed by city council January 31, 2017 but officially came into effect March 1, 2017. Among the regulations to be enforced are provisions that ban the use of choke collars, choke chains, and pronged collars, prohibit animals from being left outdoors during extreme weather such as days when cold or heat warnings have been issued, and require all
dogs to be registered with accompanying licence tags. The bylaws also state that owners must keep dogs on a leash not more than two metres in length when walking on public streets, unless they are in a designated city park area. In addition to these regulations, dogs can no longer be tethered on city property for any period of time. But for those concerned about what to do with their furry companion when running into the coffee shop, Elizabeth Glibbery, Manager of Animal Services has some clarification. Continued on Page 2
PHOTO: HERMAN SAHRMANN
Herman Sahrmann, fourth from the left above, and in the canoe below, was stationed as a lifeguard at the Leuty Lifeguard Station from 1957 to 1961. During that time, he took about 50 pictures – some even in colour. To see a gallery of some of his photographs, visit www.beachmetro.com.
Former Leuty lifeguard wants to hear from you By Anna Killen
DO YOU recognize yourself – or someone you know – in the above photograph? If so, Herman Sahrmann wants to hear from you. Sahrmann, fourth from the left, spent his summers from 1957 to 1961 on the eastern beaches as a lifeguard stationed at the Leuty Lifeguard Station. He has been documenting those summers as a personal project and, nearly 60 years later, hopes to reconnect with his fellow lifeguards – and anyone who wants to speak about their shared love and memories of that time in history. “As you may know, documenting one’s experiences from memory alone can be a highly selective undertaking, in that some experiences can be vividly recalled while others have been completely forgotten,” he said, on the phone from his home in London, Ont. “It helps to compare your memories with those that were there.” Working off the writing on the back of the photograph, he has been in touch with two of his former colleagues already – one is a retired professor and the other is a retired neurosurgeon – and would like to arrange a reunion with others, if he can find them. Part of the fun, he said, is finding out if people followed through with the dreams they spoke of during those hot summer days or if life
took them in an entirely different direction. He has also been comparing his memories to past newspaper clippings and historical records. Sahrmann got the job as a lifeguard two years after arriving in Canada from Germany. He completed high school in Scarborough and went to university at the University of Toronto. The lifeguard gig was perfect because he was a strong swimmer – a strong swimmer with less than a year of English under his belt, so chatting with colleagues offered opportunity to improve. He passed his test at Sunnyside pool and, at 18, suited up for his assignment at Leuty Station. “I loved the job,” he said. “So I came back until I had to get some practical engineering experience in 1962.” He has about 50 photographs from those five summers, some from atop the lifeguard station, others from a rowboat in the lake. “That was in the pre-digital era,” he said. “In those days, a roll of 24 slides cost $4.25 and the minimum wage was a dollar an hour. So I had to work over four hours to buy a roll of film. So we didn’t do too many colour pictures.” From the station, to the lifeguards and beachgoers, to the arrival of the royal yacht Britannia in the Toronto Harbour on June
29, 1959, Sahrmann’s photographs have a unique, eagle-eyed, yet personal perspective – thanks, in part, to a harbour police officer who knew he liked to take pictures. “I was very fortunate with the harbour police officer, he was really accommodating and he knew I liked to take pictures,” he said. “So (when the royal yacht arrived) I was assigned the position at the bow to get closeups – scary being that close in my little rowboat.” That experience, seeing Queen Elizabeth’s first visit to Toronto from a rowboat in the water, is a clear highlight of his lifeguard career. “They opened up the St. Lawrence Seaway, the royal yacht came out, followed by three cruisers,” he said. That same year, he remembers a number of warships docked in the Toronto harbour. Aside from once-in-a-lifetime views, the job taught him practical lessons. “The one thing it really taught me was
prevention,” he said. “If you did get a rescue, you also got questioned – how come the kid got into trouble? You weren’t a hero. (They asked you) why weren’t you out there preventing him getting into trouble?” The last time he visited the Beach was a couple of years ago – he noted that the lifeguard station had been moved. “When we were there it was right against the boardwalk,” he said. “When you stepped out the door, you stepped out onto the boardwalk.” Sahrmann credits those five years on the boardwalk with a 50-year love affair with the Great Lakes – he now has a cottage on Lake Huron. He recalls the feeling of being a recent immigrant from Germany, and seeing Lake Ontario for the first time: “Once I saw the lake, I knew I wasn’t going to go back.” Connect with Herman Sahrmann via email at hsahrmann@golden.net.
City plans to promote paddling WITH SUMMER fast approaching (or so we’d like to think), the city’s parks and environment committee has approved a plan to put approximately $500,000 toward the installation of five launch nodes that will allow recreational water sport enthusiasts to easily access the water from designated launching points. Each node will cost between $75,000 -100,000 according to a city report, and while the locations are still subject to change, they will be in various city parks across the city from Scarborough to Etobicoke. The locations announced so far are Bluffers Park, Marie Curtis Park, Prince of Wales Park, Humber Bay Park West, and Coronation Park. If the plan is approved by city council this month, Toronto Region Conservation Authority will begin building the nodes this summer, allowing people to more easily partake in sports such as paddle boarding, kayaking, canoeing and fishing. The plan will also allow people to explore the city from the lake, rather than the land – dedicated paddle routes will be installed as more nodes are added throughout 2017.