The village at the end of the city

It’s easy to forget when you’re in downtown Toronto just how far Dundas Street extends. To the west it goes clear across Toronto, Mississauga, Halton Region and into the rural heartland of southern Ontario.

After going through Halton the urban streetscape completely disappears and a rural environment unfolds, with farms, cattle and trees taking the place of businesses, skyscrapers and condos.

But it doesn’t do this right away. Once you’re done driving (or riding) past heavily urbanized downtown Mississauga, a mix of urban, suburban and rural streetscapes greets you until you’re through Halton.

I’ve always thought that one of the first signs that the city is about to end and the country is about to begin is Erindale Village.

Located on the southwest corner of Mississauga the area doesn’t have the paved over look that the rest of Mississauga has. After going by a string of apartment buildings at Credit Woodlands Road, Dundas Street dips into a valley dominated not by condos but by forests, the Credit River, small houses and some of the oldest churches in the city. This is the village.

It’s situated in the middle of the Credit River Valley. The river’s water quality has been zealously guarded by its own conservation authority. The water is still good enough that you can do some fishing, in fact a man was doing just that when I dropped by the village to visit.

Half a kilometer to the north the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) campus looms and students can be seen walking south into the village area. Second year, University of Toronto Mississauga arts student Jeffrey Ngo told me that he loves to go for hikes along the trails that crisscross the valley. “It’s (the UTM campus) more ecologically friendly then the downtown campus,” he said.

You won’t appreciate the village in its entirety unless you get off the bus/car and walk through it. In fact you won’t see much of it at all as it literally only takes about one minute to drive through.

The churches are what defines the village’s history. The Presbyterian and United Church’s combined have more then 200 years of history, but the real draw is St. Peter’s Anglican.

The brick structure was founded in 1825 and stands perched on a 50 meter tall hill that towers over Dundas Street. From a distance the church’s green opaque spire gives it the appearance of a cathedral and its position on top of the hill lets it rise above the surrounding area. Once you hike up to the church you can see Dundas Street for several kilometers. You have to be careful as the hill is only hikeable on one side. The other sides are surrounded by a steep ravine.

When you go to the back of the church you see a giant graveyard that has the graves of people who died a few years ago and the people who were the earliest settlers in the area. “James House died 24 March 1879 age 83 one of the first settlers of Chinguacousy,” says one gravestone.

House would likely have attended this same Church 130 years ago and would have looked down that same hill to see a Dundas Street filled, not cars and buses, but with horses and wagons.

If House wanted to take a journey into downtown York (as Toronto was then called) it wouldn’t have taken him 30 to 45 minutes (depending on traffic) that it now does, instead it would have been a two day marathon down a dirt shoveled Dundas Street. Instead of gas for a car he would have needed a watering hole for his horse.

A lot has changed in this village and on Dundas since James House last stood on this hill....