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Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto
Winner: 2011 Toronto Heritage Award of Merit
What is the ‘Toronto look’? Glass skyscrapers rise beside Victorian homes, and Brutalist apartment buildings often mark the edge of leafy ravines, creating a city of contrasts whose architectural look can only be defined by telling the story of how it came together and how it works, today, as an imperfect machine.
Shawn Micallef has been examining Toronto’s streetscapes for a decade. His psychogeographic reportages, some of which have been featured in EYE WEEKLY and Spacing magazine, situate Toronto's buildings and streets in living, breathing detail, and tell us about the people who use them; the ways, intended or otherwise, that they are being used; and how they are evolving.
Stroll celebrates Toronto's details – some subtle, others grand – at the speed of walking and, in so doing, helps us to better get to know its many neighbourhoods, taking us from well-known spots like the CN Tower and Pearson Airport to the overlooked corners of Scarborough and all the way to the end of the Leslie Street Spit in Lake Ontario.
Stroll features thirty-two walks, a flâneur manifesto, a foreword by architecture critic John Bentley Mays, dozens of hand-drawn maps by Marlena Zuber and a full-colour fold-out orientation map of Toronto.
What is the ‘Toronto look’? Glass skyscrapers rise beside Victorian homes, and Brutalist apartment buildings often mark the edge of leafy ravines, creating a city of contrasts whose architectural look can only be defined by telling the story of how it came together and how it works, today, as an imperfect machine.
Shawn Micallef has been examining Toronto’s streetscapes for a decade. His psychogeographic reportages, some of which have been featured in EYE WEEKLY and Spacing magazine, situate Toronto's buildings and streets in living, breathing detail, and tell us about the people who use them; the ways, intended or otherwise, that they are being used; and how they are evolving.
Stroll celebrates Toronto's details – some subtle, others grand – at the speed of walking and, in so doing, helps us to better get to know its many neighbourhoods, taking us from well-known spots like the CN Tower and Pearson Airport to the overlooked corners of Scarborough and all the way to the end of the Leslie Street Spit in Lake Ontario.
Stroll features thirty-two walks, a flâneur manifesto, a foreword by architecture critic John Bentley Mays, dozens of hand-drawn maps by Marlena Zuber and a full-colour fold-out orientation map of Toronto.
310 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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September 20, 2010Growing up in buttfuck-nowhere Ontario, I was taught to fear and despise Toronto. In the collective unconscious of small-town Canada, Toronto figures as a socialist Sodom teeming with faggots and immigrants. On our family’s infrequent road trips to—or rather through—Toronto, my dad, the least neurotic of men, became a sweating, gesticulating bundle of anxiety as soon as the 401 widened to eight lanes outside Mississauga. The proliferating traffic signs confused him; the sheer size of the place unnerved him; and if we took a wrong turn and wound up in some inner-city neighbourhood, the turbans and saris that even then flowered on the sidewalks rattled his rural, white-bread Weltanschauung. It didn’t help matters that Toronto had earlier claimed a beloved sister of his, who moved to the big city, graduated from university and placidly refused to get married: three things no one in our family, let alone a woman, had ever done before.
So like millions before me, I came to Toronto as a refugee from the sticks, ready to shed my mullet and my double negatives. The friends I made here were all refugees, too, some from loserville like me, others from more exotic shitholes, but all of us, under our protective layers of Torontonian ambivalence, profoundly fucking grateful to be here and not there. You couldn’t call it home, because home was somewhere else, somewhere you didn’t want to be, but it was even better than that: it was an idea. Somehow this cautious, pissant, hopelessly provincial country of mine had, in a fit of absent-mindedness, conceived a truly noble idea, and its name was Toronto. I don’t know if I love my country, and I certainly don’t love Toronto unreservedly, but I still believe in that idea.
Sorry about the profession of faith. Very uncool of me, I know.
The book, then, features thirty two “psychogeographic walking tours of Toronto”. The author is another refugee from small-town Ontario (Windsor, in his case, poor bastard). He took to the T-dot as only an outsider could, even going so far as to start up a hip little magazine,Spacing, dedicated to exploring the city’s minutiae.
My plan is to try out a few of these strolls and report back periodically. More than likely, though, the whole project will fall an ironic victim to that Torontonian ambivalence mentioned above. Well, we shall see.
---------------------------------
Live in a city long enough and you start running into the ghosts of failed relationships everywhere you go. You pop into a convenience store for some liquid Tide and suddenly you’re immersed in this sub-Proustian reverie about stopping off here five years ago with some girl you used to be crazy about. She was wearing a black cocktail dress and you had to stare down the two Portuguese guys ogling her from their perch out front. And then there are the places with layers of associations, archeological strata of personal history: this is the sushi bar you once took X to, and later on Y, but with Y you were thinking about X the whole time and God knows who Y was thinking about…So with one thing and another the restaurant’s a no-go zone for you now, especially when you’re alone, even though the katsu curry’s to die for.
Speaking of Proust, he was right about this much: happiness is only attainable in hindsight. (I don’t know if he actually said this, but it sounds like something he would have said, elaborately). You look back and think, ‘Huh. I was happy then. Why didn’t I savour it?’ But of course if you were happy then, you couldn’t savour it because you were preoccupied with a bunch of niggling bullshit, just as you are now and always will be. Or wait - it wasn’t Proust at all; it was legendary 80s hair band, Cinderella: “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)”. Remember that one? Okay, it’s not exactly Cole Porter, but it gets at a melancholy truth.
I was supposed to do a few of these ‘psychogeographic walking tours’ and write about them. That was the idea. But yesterday I went for a run downtown—not a psychogeographic run, just a cardiovascular one—and I kept getting bombarded with memories, most of them lame and not at all Proustian, but still tinged with enough erotic nostalgia to be unsettling. So now I’m thinking I might have to move. Or start building new memories. Either way, it sounds like a lot of heavy lifting.
I know, I know. Save it for your blog, asshole.
So like millions before me, I came to Toronto as a refugee from the sticks, ready to shed my mullet and my double negatives. The friends I made here were all refugees, too, some from loserville like me, others from more exotic shitholes, but all of us, under our protective layers of Torontonian ambivalence, profoundly fucking grateful to be here and not there. You couldn’t call it home, because home was somewhere else, somewhere you didn’t want to be, but it was even better than that: it was an idea. Somehow this cautious, pissant, hopelessly provincial country of mine had, in a fit of absent-mindedness, conceived a truly noble idea, and its name was Toronto. I don’t know if I love my country, and I certainly don’t love Toronto unreservedly, but I still believe in that idea.
Sorry about the profession of faith. Very uncool of me, I know.
The book, then, features thirty two “psychogeographic walking tours of Toronto”. The author is another refugee from small-town Ontario (Windsor, in his case, poor bastard). He took to the T-dot as only an outsider could, even going so far as to start up a hip little magazine,Spacing, dedicated to exploring the city’s minutiae.
My plan is to try out a few of these strolls and report back periodically. More than likely, though, the whole project will fall an ironic victim to that Torontonian ambivalence mentioned above. Well, we shall see.
---------------------------------
Live in a city long enough and you start running into the ghosts of failed relationships everywhere you go. You pop into a convenience store for some liquid Tide and suddenly you’re immersed in this sub-Proustian reverie about stopping off here five years ago with some girl you used to be crazy about. She was wearing a black cocktail dress and you had to stare down the two Portuguese guys ogling her from their perch out front. And then there are the places with layers of associations, archeological strata of personal history: this is the sushi bar you once took X to, and later on Y, but with Y you were thinking about X the whole time and God knows who Y was thinking about…So with one thing and another the restaurant’s a no-go zone for you now, especially when you’re alone, even though the katsu curry’s to die for.
Speaking of Proust, he was right about this much: happiness is only attainable in hindsight. (I don’t know if he actually said this, but it sounds like something he would have said, elaborately). You look back and think, ‘Huh. I was happy then. Why didn’t I savour it?’ But of course if you were happy then, you couldn’t savour it because you were preoccupied with a bunch of niggling bullshit, just as you are now and always will be. Or wait - it wasn’t Proust at all; it was legendary 80s hair band, Cinderella: “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)”. Remember that one? Okay, it’s not exactly Cole Porter, but it gets at a melancholy truth.
I was supposed to do a few of these ‘psychogeographic walking tours’ and write about them. That was the idea. But yesterday I went for a run downtown—not a psychogeographic run, just a cardiovascular one—and I kept getting bombarded with memories, most of them lame and not at all Proustian, but still tinged with enough erotic nostalgia to be unsettling. So now I’m thinking I might have to move. Or start building new memories. Either way, it sounds like a lot of heavy lifting.
I know, I know. Save it for your blog, asshole.
November 25, 2011
An article recently appeared in Toronto Life in which the author bemoans her time in the city of Toronto, where she has lived for a measly eleven months, before concluding that she is going to have to move back to New York, because Toronto, unlike New York, has no imagination, no savoir vivre, no romance. An astonishing conclusion.
Putting aside for the moment the popular notion that Toronto must constantly be compared to New York in order to validate its own existence (a notion I am sure is confined to the minds of Torontonians―New Yorkers, I imagine, hardly care how Toronto shapes up), let’s just say that I do love New York. I have been fortunate enough to be able to spend a relatively large amount of time in that city for someone who has never actually lived there. The city is pulsating, charming. Of course it is. It’s a global cultural capital. The Toronto Life article even alludes to the fact that a great deal of the romantic feeling one gets upon arrival in New York is a product of the city’s ubiquity in film, literature, and television. New York dominates American cultural output, with the remainder being hoarded by L.A. Other cities combined are but a fraction of what we see being represented to us. So of course when we go to these places we feel like we are in a movie. But as any good student of culture knows, romance is characterized by its unreality. It is an idealized vision of a thing, one that is blind to any negative traits and blindsided by the positive. Of course Wordsworth did not actually want to toil as a farmer, he just wanted to write loftily about sheep. There are very few romantic cultural capitals such as New York in the world, and most of us realize upon arriving in one of them that these places are much different from what has been portrayed to us in the arts. Most of us cannot afford the penthouses, cocktail lounges, theatres, or boutiques. And most of us will not experience the glamorous life we have been told exists there. Most of us cannot even expect to ever live in one of such a limited number of global cultural capitals, either. I would love to move to New York. But unfortunately I am not in a position to pack it all in and take off on a whim. I have obligations. Most of us do.
Toronto, then, is not a global cultural capital. It never will be. But as I mentioned before, there are very few cities that are. New York, London, Paris, Rome. One could tack a few more on to the list, but would still be hard-pressed to get past ten. In point of fact, only New York, London, Paris, and Rome are New York, London, Paris, and Rome. Toronto is not one of them but neither is Chicago, or Boston. Nor is Vancouver, or St. John’s. Neither are Sydney, Mombasa, Oslo, or Ulan Bator. Toronto does have one thing going for it, though―as indeed I’m sure those other places mentioned have as well―it is firmly, characteristically Toronto, and should be recognized as such without feeling the need to compare it to anything else. If Toronto were not recognizable as itself, how could it be that Torontonians take such amusing pride in pointing out to outsiders all the films that were set in New York but really filmed here? We love being able to glimpse a Toronto street and be armed with the secret knowledge that we are the only ones who can tell that it’s a Toronto street because we are the only ones who know what a Toronto street looks like. Toronto does not need to compare itself to New York or anywhere else. The bay-and-gable houses that line our downtown streets are not “like” the brownstones in New York, they are the bay-and-gable houses that line our downtown streets. Parkdale is not “like” Williamsburg, it is Parkdale and really quite different and quite its own thing.
And funnily enough the article’s author seems to know all this―she suggests Toronto’s works of art should proclaim our greatness from the rooftops. And she rightfully points out a great deal of real and worsening flaws in this city. I think what bothers me so much about the article is that the only solution she offers is so defeatist―that Toronto is not good enough, so let’s just up and go somewhere that is. Never mind the idea of trying to collectively fix what’s wrong with this place. For her, moving here in the first place was an admission of defeat, and she couldn’t cut it so it’s back to the dreams and unrealities of NYC.
I recently finished Shawn Micallef’s book of essays, Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto. It is a true celebration of Toronto, and only occasionally guilty of playing the comparison game. Mostly, though, Micallef finds beauty in what we have and does not lament what we do not; he explores the far reaches of the city and finds something noteworthy in every corner. Never has a book made me feel so inspired to action, to want to get out on the ground and go find those hidden treasures, taking advantage of these last few anomalously nice October days. Never has a book made me feel so proud to be from the place I come from. Micallef, too, is able to take pride in what we have rather than being forced to resign himself to longing for something we don’t, or fleeing to another city to find it. If we all took up the latter attitude at the first sign of a less-than-desirable mayor or administration then our worst prophecies would come true. This is precisely why we need to celebrate our city and make it what we want it to be ourselves―because nobody else will do it for us.
You know what, I’m sick of hearing about tired old New York anyway, where all the stories have already been told and there’s no room for anyone new. Sure, Toronto’s not perfect―nowhere is. And I can certainly complain a hell of a lot about things in these parts. But I still say it’s time we start caring about where we are instead of dreaming about places that never existed to begin with. Anybody with me?
Putting aside for the moment the popular notion that Toronto must constantly be compared to New York in order to validate its own existence (a notion I am sure is confined to the minds of Torontonians―New Yorkers, I imagine, hardly care how Toronto shapes up), let’s just say that I do love New York. I have been fortunate enough to be able to spend a relatively large amount of time in that city for someone who has never actually lived there. The city is pulsating, charming. Of course it is. It’s a global cultural capital. The Toronto Life article even alludes to the fact that a great deal of the romantic feeling one gets upon arrival in New York is a product of the city’s ubiquity in film, literature, and television. New York dominates American cultural output, with the remainder being hoarded by L.A. Other cities combined are but a fraction of what we see being represented to us. So of course when we go to these places we feel like we are in a movie. But as any good student of culture knows, romance is characterized by its unreality. It is an idealized vision of a thing, one that is blind to any negative traits and blindsided by the positive. Of course Wordsworth did not actually want to toil as a farmer, he just wanted to write loftily about sheep. There are very few romantic cultural capitals such as New York in the world, and most of us realize upon arriving in one of them that these places are much different from what has been portrayed to us in the arts. Most of us cannot afford the penthouses, cocktail lounges, theatres, or boutiques. And most of us will not experience the glamorous life we have been told exists there. Most of us cannot even expect to ever live in one of such a limited number of global cultural capitals, either. I would love to move to New York. But unfortunately I am not in a position to pack it all in and take off on a whim. I have obligations. Most of us do.
Toronto, then, is not a global cultural capital. It never will be. But as I mentioned before, there are very few cities that are. New York, London, Paris, Rome. One could tack a few more on to the list, but would still be hard-pressed to get past ten. In point of fact, only New York, London, Paris, and Rome are New York, London, Paris, and Rome. Toronto is not one of them but neither is Chicago, or Boston. Nor is Vancouver, or St. John’s. Neither are Sydney, Mombasa, Oslo, or Ulan Bator. Toronto does have one thing going for it, though―as indeed I’m sure those other places mentioned have as well―it is firmly, characteristically Toronto, and should be recognized as such without feeling the need to compare it to anything else. If Toronto were not recognizable as itself, how could it be that Torontonians take such amusing pride in pointing out to outsiders all the films that were set in New York but really filmed here? We love being able to glimpse a Toronto street and be armed with the secret knowledge that we are the only ones who can tell that it’s a Toronto street because we are the only ones who know what a Toronto street looks like. Toronto does not need to compare itself to New York or anywhere else. The bay-and-gable houses that line our downtown streets are not “like” the brownstones in New York, they are the bay-and-gable houses that line our downtown streets. Parkdale is not “like” Williamsburg, it is Parkdale and really quite different and quite its own thing.
And funnily enough the article’s author seems to know all this―she suggests Toronto’s works of art should proclaim our greatness from the rooftops. And she rightfully points out a great deal of real and worsening flaws in this city. I think what bothers me so much about the article is that the only solution she offers is so defeatist―that Toronto is not good enough, so let’s just up and go somewhere that is. Never mind the idea of trying to collectively fix what’s wrong with this place. For her, moving here in the first place was an admission of defeat, and she couldn’t cut it so it’s back to the dreams and unrealities of NYC.
I recently finished Shawn Micallef’s book of essays, Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto. It is a true celebration of Toronto, and only occasionally guilty of playing the comparison game. Mostly, though, Micallef finds beauty in what we have and does not lament what we do not; he explores the far reaches of the city and finds something noteworthy in every corner. Never has a book made me feel so inspired to action, to want to get out on the ground and go find those hidden treasures, taking advantage of these last few anomalously nice October days. Never has a book made me feel so proud to be from the place I come from. Micallef, too, is able to take pride in what we have rather than being forced to resign himself to longing for something we don’t, or fleeing to another city to find it. If we all took up the latter attitude at the first sign of a less-than-desirable mayor or administration then our worst prophecies would come true. This is precisely why we need to celebrate our city and make it what we want it to be ourselves―because nobody else will do it for us.
You know what, I’m sick of hearing about tired old New York anyway, where all the stories have already been told and there’s no room for anyone new. Sure, Toronto’s not perfect―nowhere is. And I can certainly complain a hell of a lot about things in these parts. But I still say it’s time we start caring about where we are instead of dreaming about places that never existed to begin with. Anybody with me?
September 2, 2025
This book adds colour, context, whimsy, and history to 31 different long-walks in and around the Toronto area from “CN Tower” to “Islands” to “Hydro Corridor” to “Rouge Park.” His charmingly erudite writing is a delight to read and he quotes novels, park plaques, and bits of arcane trivia throughout, which lets your mind wander as you wander with him. Like from Page 52 in “Toronto Islands”: “Visiting the islands during winter is a magical thing. There’s barely a lineup for the ferry, just some intrepid winter souls and island residents. Outside, on deck, the sound of the ferry pushing through chunks of ice is like a giant cocktail glass swirling. The skyscrapers pump out steam and the city hums, as if it’s collectively trying to keep warm.” With a giant pull-out colour map and little illustrations throughout from the talented Marlena Zuber. A must for all Toronto flâneurs and flâneurs-to-be.
October 4, 2025
truly a love letter to toronto, imperfect and beautiful
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November 29, 2025I love Toronto so much, but I don't even understand it. I read this book, and now I understand it a little better and love it even more!
January 1, 2025
"Stroll"...more like crawl. Although the concept of this book was super interesting ("psychogeography" is great), the execution was poor. It's just not interesting to read descriptions of North York highway underpasses for hundreds of pages, I'm sorry. Also where is the east end? 10 pages on the Danforth does not cut it...come to think of it, most of downtown is deprioritized (for political reasons? unclear). Overall, can't recommend this re-brand.
April 5, 2015
I am envious of this book – I feel like I should have written it! Who is this young upstart Shawn Micallef? And what does he know about Toronto? He’s only been here since 2000! Psychogeographist? In my day it was called…no money for transit so you walked everywhere!!!! To be fair, the first parts of the book I read are those that I live nearby and know very well. Having read the entire book, he really has lots of interesting stuff in here and I’ll admit that I have many fluorescent flags pointing to things to go check out. For example, it’s been a long time since I’ve been inside the Toronto Sheraton hotel and I think I’ll go soon to revisit the interior terraced gardens. I admire his research because he talks about things that used to be that are now gone – things that are so easily forgotten (like the Bay cafeteria at Yorkdale on a mezzanine level). He’s done a great job of capturing the social fabric of many areas – things you wouldn’t know about really unless you lived there. He can be a tad too positive about some areas... “the traffic on the 401 is white noise in the background, not terribly unpleasant, almost like the ocean surf with the occasional downshifting sputter from one of the big rigs – the asphalt-sea version of foghorns” OK I like the analogy, but really! Overall, a very interesting book.
December 12, 2010
One of my goals this summer was to spend more time exploring Toronto on foot, and while I may not have done as much of that as I would have liked, I feel like Shawn Micallef’s book of psychogeographic tours made up for my unrealized explorations. I thought when I started reading the walks I’d only want to read the ones about areas I’m familiar with, but I found myself strangely drawn into foreign parts of the city. To be clear, these aren’t “And on your left” tours, but rather geographically guided reflections on Toronto as it was and as it is today, on architectural details and cultural influences that give a neighbourhood its character. I particularly enjoyed Micallef’s tone, which is humble, and often reverent, and while he does express some of his own opinions, they are identified clearly as such, and he doesn’t impress his own judgments on the reader. Hand-drawn maps my Marlena Zuber add a touch of whimsy to the text and help the reader organize the mental guideposts that Micallef sets out. But the greatest pleasure of this book is the state of mind it induced: I found these essays almost meditative, and they always left me feeling calm, a little more in love with my hometown, and made my feet itch, just dying to take a stroll.
October 6, 2019
I took my time in reading this wonderful book by Shawn Micallef on our adopted city of Toronto. I was both surprised at facts I did know, and amazed at some much I did not. His view of Toronto offers a whole new city to readers who love to stroll. We have long understood Toronto to be a collection of neighbourhoods, each with its' own distinct flavour. I actually fell in love with my own neighbourhood, Flemingdon Park, all over again. If Welcome Wagon were around today, a copy of "Stroll" would be the first recommended gift for newcomers.
July 18, 2019
These "psychogeographic" walking tours just mean that it's bits of local history and architectural trivia, clumped into neighbourhoods and sprinkled with the author's personal reflections on the area.
This book's appeal is strictly limited to Toronto residents interested in local history and architectural tidbits. If you fall in that camp, and can get through some dry writing, you'll find quite a bit to enjoy.
This book's appeal is strictly limited to Toronto residents interested in local history and architectural tidbits. If you fall in that camp, and can get through some dry writing, you'll find quite a bit to enjoy.
February 19, 2019
Walking in Toronto with Stroll will lead you to some interesting places you ignored, but will never again. Remember to block some time as you will have to stop (often) to read and take the experience all in!
December 7, 2024
I love two things:
1.History
2. Walking
So when I found this book, it was like meeting the one. The only hiccup with this one is the fact that it's old. So much has changed in Toronto. There should be a new version of this.
1.History
2. Walking
So when I found this book, it was like meeting the one. The only hiccup with this one is the fact that it's old. So much has changed in Toronto. There should be a new version of this.
August 30, 2017
I would love to read each essay in this book, and then do the walk. As it is, I'm really looking forward to going back to Toronto again!
November 1, 2023
It's a good guide for understanding Toronto more and to love it. If the book was like an interactive thing with Google Street View, I would give it five stars.
January 3, 2025
"Stoll" is an easy-reading book that sketches out over 30 walks throughout Toronto. It's written in an engaging tone, and the hand-sketched artwork throughout is a beautiful addition. It's an ode to the city, and it contains an optimism about all things Toronto (other than Billy Bishop Airport, I guess, which Micallef seems not to like, despite praising the din of traffic on the 401 for nearby neighbourhoods). I certainly enjoyed reading it and it made a good first book of the year.
While I wish I could give the book a 4 or a 5, I did feel a little underwhelmed with it at times. First and foremost, most of the walks described are less the titular 'strolls' and more just 'here's a main drag.' It's not that you shouldn't walk Yonge, University, Dundas, Gerrard, Queen, Bathurst, St Clair, etc, etc, etc... but I was really surprised by the degree to which these walks were just linear "follow a main road" kind of routes. Maybe, as someone who has walked a lot of the city, I'm not the target audience... but I think much of the beauty of strolling Toronto is weaving off, across, and back to these main thoroughfares, and combining them, rather than being stuck on one single one for the length.
A few chapters did a really nice job of bringing in the voices of historians, residents, or others, but most of the chapters also felt like they stayed fairly superficial and descriptive, rather than really bringing in the "psychogeographic." The occasional chapter that leveraged the voices of those who lived, worked, or shaped the space were precious, but made their absence in the majority of chapters all the more prominent. To be candid, I was curious when I first picked up the book what Micallef meant by "pscyhogeographic," and some 320 pages later, I still don't really know what he means.
The artwork was absolutely beautiful, but I was confused about why it was so sparse and inconsistent. Why not have a map for each walk, rather than just a portion of them? Why not more photos of key moments along the walk, given such a visual subject?
I also really enjoyed Micallefs unapologetic optimism about the city, though I found this to be a little... disconnecting at times. While urban noise is great, one also really needs to understand this city through who is afflicted by noise and air pollution (and who is much less so). While development is exciting, it also does warrant some scrutiny about winners and losers.
I was curious, too, about what vantages of the city this offered. The walks missing tell us something about the way the city sees itself (e.g., why no Jane & Finch stroll?), as does the classification of others (e.g., why is Thorncliffe relegated to "eastest" with Scarborough & Rouge Park, while walks in Crescent Town and the Beaches, objectively further east, get the more urban "eastish" designator?).
It was, in some ways, a bit of a strange book. It's not a guide to walks, but it's also not a richly qualitative reflection on taking them. It's not a mentor about where to go, but it's also not a sociological or historical account of these places. The book is in something of an uncanny valley, unsure whether it's trying to be a guidebook, a history, a psychogeographical study, or something else.
That said, it was also a really easy and enjoyable read, and a great way to kick off my 2025 reading. The critiques above are about wanting more of the highlights of this good book.
While I wish I could give the book a 4 or a 5, I did feel a little underwhelmed with it at times. First and foremost, most of the walks described are less the titular 'strolls' and more just 'here's a main drag.' It's not that you shouldn't walk Yonge, University, Dundas, Gerrard, Queen, Bathurst, St Clair, etc, etc, etc... but I was really surprised by the degree to which these walks were just linear "follow a main road" kind of routes. Maybe, as someone who has walked a lot of the city, I'm not the target audience... but I think much of the beauty of strolling Toronto is weaving off, across, and back to these main thoroughfares, and combining them, rather than being stuck on one single one for the length.
A few chapters did a really nice job of bringing in the voices of historians, residents, or others, but most of the chapters also felt like they stayed fairly superficial and descriptive, rather than really bringing in the "psychogeographic." The occasional chapter that leveraged the voices of those who lived, worked, or shaped the space were precious, but made their absence in the majority of chapters all the more prominent. To be candid, I was curious when I first picked up the book what Micallef meant by "pscyhogeographic," and some 320 pages later, I still don't really know what he means.
The artwork was absolutely beautiful, but I was confused about why it was so sparse and inconsistent. Why not have a map for each walk, rather than just a portion of them? Why not more photos of key moments along the walk, given such a visual subject?
I also really enjoyed Micallefs unapologetic optimism about the city, though I found this to be a little... disconnecting at times. While urban noise is great, one also really needs to understand this city through who is afflicted by noise and air pollution (and who is much less so). While development is exciting, it also does warrant some scrutiny about winners and losers.
I was curious, too, about what vantages of the city this offered. The walks missing tell us something about the way the city sees itself (e.g., why no Jane & Finch stroll?), as does the classification of others (e.g., why is Thorncliffe relegated to "eastest" with Scarborough & Rouge Park, while walks in Crescent Town and the Beaches, objectively further east, get the more urban "eastish" designator?).
It was, in some ways, a bit of a strange book. It's not a guide to walks, but it's also not a richly qualitative reflection on taking them. It's not a mentor about where to go, but it's also not a sociological or historical account of these places. The book is in something of an uncanny valley, unsure whether it's trying to be a guidebook, a history, a psychogeographical study, or something else.
That said, it was also a really easy and enjoyable read, and a great way to kick off my 2025 reading. The critiques above are about wanting more of the highlights of this good book.
March 19, 2014
I have been reading Shawn Micallef's Stroll: psychogeographic walking tours of Toronto (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2010). Micallef a Toronto journalist and instructor at OCAD celebrates Toronto streets as a flaneur, walking from one end of the city to the other. The book is divided into sections based on his walks around the city and while reading it I was inspired to head out today to explore one such section. A lot of the areas he described I know well, but one I did not, the area along Lakeshore Boulevard near Long Branch. So today I took the streetcar out to the end of the line and decided to walk back exploring the area as I walked.
As he suggests the city comes alive while walking. You see things differently at a slower pace when you stroll. The book makes you see the city in a different light and also encourages ideas about what could be. How the city could be connected through walking trails along all of its green spaces and ravines. It is a wonderful little book that also is put together with an attention to detail. The drawings included add character and style and make it a valuable part of any collection.
As he suggests the city comes alive while walking. You see things differently at a slower pace when you stroll. The book makes you see the city in a different light and also encourages ideas about what could be. How the city could be connected through walking trails along all of its green spaces and ravines. It is a wonderful little book that also is put together with an attention to detail. The drawings included add character and style and make it a valuable part of any collection.
October 1, 2010
I'm a big fan of this book! I picked up a copy at the Coach House Wayzgoose party and soon started to read it on my streetcar rides to work. What a great way to read about the city, as you drive through different neighbourhoods that are described in the book you're reading.
Shawn Micallef describes various 'walks' through areas of Toronto, giving historical or trivial detail about the buildings & sites, past and present. It's a similar experience to going on a guided walking tour, only this time you re-create images of the city in your head.
It definitely helps if you are fairly well acquainted with Toronto's various neighbourhoods. I admit I turned first to the walks in the areas I'm most familiar with. In that respect, it's really a book for Torontonians only. I would not recommend this to anyone who hasn't lived here. But, if you do live in Toronto, and enjoy the flaneur experience - this is the book for you!
Shawn Micallef describes various 'walks' through areas of Toronto, giving historical or trivial detail about the buildings & sites, past and present. It's a similar experience to going on a guided walking tour, only this time you re-create images of the city in your head.
It definitely helps if you are fairly well acquainted with Toronto's various neighbourhoods. I admit I turned first to the walks in the areas I'm most familiar with. In that respect, it's really a book for Torontonians only. I would not recommend this to anyone who hasn't lived here. But, if you do live in Toronto, and enjoy the flaneur experience - this is the book for you!
July 4, 2012
This is an interesting account of one person's walking tours around Toronto, along with high level history of the areas and what is currently there.
One weird disappointment was in his description of being at Tommy Thompson Park (aka Leslie Street Spit) and Vicki Keith Point. He makes no mention of the automated lighthouse ... it is only one of three lighthouses in Toronto and the only active one in the city (though he'll tell you there is a Coffee Time at the corner of King/Queen/Roncie!!).
One weird disappointment was in his description of being at Tommy Thompson Park (aka Leslie Street Spit) and Vicki Keith Point. He makes no mention of the automated lighthouse ... it is only one of three lighthouses in Toronto and the only active one in the city (though he'll tell you there is a Coffee Time at the corner of King/Queen/Roncie!!).
December 29, 2015
I love the idea behind this book, which consists of a series of walks around Toronto, exploring the geography of people's lives and the city's history - everything from the well-known Yonge Street from the waterfront on up, to walks along a hydro corridor or out from the airport. Fascinating reading for those of us who enjoy exploring things on foot.
September 2, 2013
I learned a lot about Toronto (read on the way to visit for my first time) in this unique storytelling structure. The author does a great job of taking what could be boring (walk routes) and injecting the quirky, unique things that make cities great and using colorful language to describe them.
February 18, 2015
A superb, intimate guide to Toronto that should be handed to newcomers, tourists, passers-through, those who have lived in one Toronto neighbourhood for what feels like forever, urban nerds, Toronto lovers, and -- perhaps especially -- Toronto haters.
February 26, 2025
I’m delighted to have discovered this new, updated edition of Shawn Micallef’s book Stroll, which is both a refreshing look at the Toronto I know and a wonderful street-level guide to many pockets of it I don’t. The wanderings will commence once the weather is more accommodating.
May 31, 2010
Not bad, a bit self-absorbed, but covers most of the city.
August 4, 2010
A week after I moved to Toronto, I came across a review of Stroll in Eye Weekly and thought, "This might be the perfect book to introduce me to my new surroundings." I was right.
July 25, 2012
Lovely take on Toronto. Bit romanticized, and that's a good thing IMHO.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
September 9, 2023
No cheerleading, no self-flagellation, more than a book of walking routes; Micallef understands that a staid city like Toronto makes tourists of its citizens
December 8, 2015
This is a wonderful book and highly recommended for urban explorers, either living in or visiting Toronto.
May 6, 2016
Pretentious, funny, and informative.
June 9, 2013
A remarkable work.
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