By Cathy Faye

Madeleine McDowell's family home sits on a quiet street not far from the banks of the Humber River, just a short walk from Bâby Point. During her childhood, she and her family would go on Sunday walks by the Humber, to the Old Mill Bridge and into the valley. By the age of 6, she had learned that Étienne Brûlé is said to have passed by what is now her front door in 1615, and that the French explorer Robert Cavalier de LaSalle had traversed her neighbourhood on his way to the Mississippi. She knew that the now tree-lined, residential streets around her once served as the site for an Iroquois Village and that her neighbourhood had played a major role in the North American fur trade. Needless to say, Toronto's history, and particularly the colourful history of her own backyard, has always been a part of Madeleine McDowell's life. "I was just brought up with it," she says; "it's sort of like breathing."

By Amy Brewitt

The Harmony Singers is a three-part women's choir that began in Etobicoke in 1965. Its activities include presenting concerts in Etobicoke and the surrounding area and performing at retirement homes, hospitals and civic functions. Over the years, its numbers have fluctuated, and today it has over 30 members and performs at several events throughout the year.

"The Harmony Singers are longest continuous-running choir in Etobicoke," says Musical Director Harvey Patterson. "The group was created so that women of all ages and musical abilities who were interested in singing would form a group that didn't just sing good music, but would also memorize and stage their songs."

By David Wencer

Since 1992, 463 Bathurst has been the home of the Cineforum, a unique Toronto institution dedicated to the collecting and screening of films, particularly those films which have the power to provoke. It is certainly Toronto's most intimate of cinemas; the theatre itself is the modified lounge of a downtown Victorian townhouse, furnished cozily with an eclectic assortment of chairs. The Cineforum's most distinctive feature, of course, is Reg Hartt, the resident curator and a self-confessed eccentric who personally hosts each screening.

By Danielle Astrug

Ask any Torontonian who John Graves Simcoe is, and the majority will know of his role as Lieutenant-Governor who established the city of York. But if you mention Étienne Brûlé, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, Jean Baptiste Rousseaux or Jacques Bâby, you may get a puzzled look. The facts that Rousseaux was the first European to settle permanently on these shores, known today as Toronto, is largely forgotten and overshadowed by the glory surrounding Simcoe.

It is little known today that Toronto was once - under the French Regime - primarily French-speaking and inhabited by thriving First Nations people before it became the metropolis as we know it today. Twenty-five years ago, la Société d'histoire de Toronto undertook the task to research and complete the story of Toronto's founders and its French history.

By Danielle Astrug