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FunTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:28 Fantastic, welcome aboard the Triton 6.
00:31 You're in luck because this is my favorite boat
00:34 over here at Toronto Harbourfront Tours.
00:37 My name is Will and I'll be your tour guide today.
00:40 But more importantly, I have two very important announcements
00:44 or introductions today.
00:46 First of all, over to my left-hand side here,
00:49 right at the front of the boat, we have Captain Dan.
00:52 Can everyone say, "Hi, Captain Dan!"
00:54 Hi!
00:55 Over to my right, right in the middle of the boat, at the helm,
00:58 we have the one and only, illustrious, Captain Sean.
01:02 Can everyone say, "Hi, Captain Sean!"
01:04 Hi!
01:06 Fantastic. Both of these captains are fully certified with
01:09 Transport Canada in Marine Emergency Duties
01:13 as well as First Aid and CPR.
01:17 Now, let's go through a quick safety briefing, shall we?
01:21 Today, fantastic. It is cold out and we really don't want to go fishing,
01:28 so you've got to be much appreciated.
01:30 Now with that out of the way, let's get started, shall we?
01:33 Right out of the boat, you'll get a beautiful view of our Toronto city skyline.
01:39 Though it is so nice and clean today, it didn't always...
01:43 (music)
02:06 (music)
02:34 ...waterhouses, factories, and powerhouses, actually.
02:38 But in 1972, we entered our age of revitalization.
02:43 That's when we packed up all of the gross, smelly things
02:46 and shipped them downstream to Hamilton, Ontario.
02:49 Sorry about that, Hamilton.
02:53 Do we have any Hamilton residents on board?
02:58 Well, now I don't feel that.
03:01 But since we moved everything downstream, we still keep these relics of the past.
03:07 We just changed up some of the buildings.
03:09 For example, this big red brick building with the smokestack coming out of it.
03:15 Can anyone see what that may be called?
03:18 Power plant.
03:20 Power plant. First try. Fantastic.
03:22 Yeah, that back in its day was a coal-burning power plant.
03:26 It actually powered the Queens Quay terminal, which was a food storage facility.
03:32 And it was one of the many smokestacks that would billow black smoke up from above.
03:38 It's actually what gave us the nickname "The Big Smoke" back in the '60s,
03:42 before we turned it into "The Six" today.
03:46 Nowadays, though, it's actually being revitalized into a contemporary art museum.
03:54 I'm a co-teacher for contemporary art, so let me rephrase that.
03:57 It's a free contemporary art museum.
04:01 I'll do you one even better.
04:03 On a hot summer's day, it also has some of the best A/C in the city.
04:09 And it's owned and operated by this grayish-green building right next to it,
04:14 the Harborfront Centre.
04:17 That used to be a truck repair shop back in its youth,
04:20 but nowadays it is a non-for-profit organization dedicated to bringing arts and culture to the harbor.
04:27 So if you go inside, you have artists in there as well, showing off their work.
04:31 And at the bridge--or at the stage, sorry about that--
04:35 you'll find all kinds of bands and dancers, performers, all throughout the summertime,
04:41 really turning this area into a lovely place on a cool summer's day.
04:49 Moving on now, though, we have this white-wired bridge there.
04:52 It's just a bridge, but why would I point it out?
04:55 That is because it is the Amsterdam Bridge.
04:58 In the '70s, Amsterdam and Toronto were considered sister cities.
05:02 We got along really well--so well, in fact, that we decided to trade bridges.
05:08 They gave us this Amsterdam Bridge, and we tried to give them a bridge,
05:13 but instead they just renamed one of their bridges to Toronto Bridge.
05:18 I do point it out, too, because it's a very important place in the world of rock concerts.
05:24 Has anyone seen "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"?
05:26 Yeah.
05:27 Yeah, well, that is--Toronto is where that movie has been filmed,
05:31 and that is the scene where Ian and Tula share their first kiss.
05:36 Isn't that cute?
05:38 It's also where Captain Sean waits for his first kiss of the day.
05:42 Moving on, now we have the police station over here with the green roof.
05:49 This is a very special police station, in fact, because it is a Marine Unit police station.
05:55 Canada has some of the longest discontinuous coastline in the world,
06:00 and because we have so much coastline, it's pretty hard for one Coast Guard to keep track of.
06:06 In fact, the closest Coast Guard station is located 300 kilometers upstream in Prescott, Ontario.
06:15 So, to help the Coast Guard out, we have our own Marine Department here
06:20 to keep track of everything going on in the harbour.
06:26 There's no outrunning them for us today, unfortunately.
06:29 They are well-equipped with twin turbotankers that can get anywhere in the harbour
06:34 or the islands in under three minutes.
06:37 Very quick.
06:41 Moving on now, it seems like we're getting a great view of our two largest proponents in our skyline.
06:48 That is the CN Tower and the Rogers Centre.
06:52 You know, there is no Toronto tour that is complete without mentioning the CN Tower,
06:58 so now that I've done so, let's move on.
07:01 No, I'm joking. We're too close to it right now.
07:04 The people on the left side of the boat don't have a very good view,
07:07 so I'll talk about it a little bit later.
07:09 For now, let's talk about the Rogers Centre, shall we?
07:12 Does anyone know what the Rogers Centre was called back when it was built?
07:18 Sky Dome.
07:20 Yes, it was actually the first stadium of its kind to actually open up to the sky
07:27 with its dome-shaped roof, hence the name Sky Dome.
07:31 It makes sense to me, and I hope it does to you as well.
07:34 It takes about 20 minutes to fully retract open and $20 worth of electricity.
07:42 It is also home to our only Major League Baseball team, the Toronto Blue Jays.
07:49 So, if you catch yourself at a Blue Jays game and you have that sky open,
07:55 it's a pretty nice day. I can't complain about that.
08:01 The Sky Dome, or Rogers Centre, sorry, we're kind of stubborn over here.
08:05 It was renamed after Rogers who bought this stadium for 5% of its original value.
08:12 But it can hold 60,000 people.
08:18 The highest recorded attendance was not for Toronto Ball Hops.
08:22 It was not for the Dolly Parma.
08:25 No, it was actually for WrestleMania at 68,000.
08:31 That's when Hulk Logan took on The Rock.
08:34 Not only that, our second highest recorded audience was also for WrestleMania.
08:39 I guess us Canadians just love our wrestling.
08:42 [crowd noise]
09:11 Now that we're moving away from the city and into the harbour,
09:14 let's talk about the harbour a little bit actually.
09:17 This harbour wasn't always as it was.
09:20 It was originally considered the Toronto Marshland.
09:24 That's because it was only about 3 feet deep.
09:27 But, because we were a port town after all,
09:31 we wanted to take in all these big freighter ships that come from the Atlantic Ocean.
09:37 So, through a process we call dredging,
09:40 we decided to dig up a lot of this dirt that comes from the bottom of the harbour
09:45 and ended up actually adding it to our harbour.
09:49 So, we actually extended our coastline up 1 kilometre.
09:53 If you saw Front Street back there, that was the original Front Street.
09:58 But now, we've brought it all the way up to where it is today,
10:02 which means that all the land you're on was originally at the bottom of this harbour.
10:06 We did more than just that though. In fact, we built this island over there.
10:11 Does anyone know what that island may be used for?
10:14 An airport.
10:16 An airport, exactly. And it is the aptly named Airport Island.
10:21 So, yeah, that island is completely man-made
10:26 and is home to the Billy Bishop International Airport.
10:30 Did anyone fly in through Billy Bishop?
10:32 You did? Fantastic!
10:34 It's a great airport. It's saturated with wonderful scenic views.
10:39 From an airport, that's because the planes fly down through the harbour
10:44 and you get a great view of the skyline as you take off for land.
10:48 It is also smaller than the average airport, believe it or not.
10:54 Its runway is only about 1 kilometre,
10:57 as opposed to the 3 kilometre long runway of an average airport.
11:01 Because of that, we can't really house any giant planes,
11:06 no jumbo jets coming in and out of there.
11:09 Instead, it only really runs with smaller propeller-powered models.
11:14 Look at these sailors out here. Hi, everybody.
11:16 They're having a good day. I'm sure we are too.
11:21 I hope.
11:22 Anyway, they can only accommodate smaller propeller-powered planes.
11:28 It looks like one is either taking off for a landing right now,
11:33 or it's taking off.
11:35 If you want to take a picture, this is your shot.
11:37 The captain has been on the phone with the airport day and night
11:51 to get their schedules to make sure we get that overview shot.
11:57 Thank you, Captain.
11:59 One of our aeronauts, Barry, has the length of the runway.
12:05 They ended up crashing right into the top roof of that ferry.
12:11 That ferry was the Sandman flight.
12:14 It's actually still in use today, still on the surface.
12:17 And she looks pretty good.
12:19 I can't say I'd look back good if I was hit by a plane,
12:22 but then again, I'm not a Barry.
12:23 I'll make sure to point it out to you, though.
12:26 Thanks.
12:27 As we move along through the harbor now,
12:32 it seems as though we are now entering the islands.
12:35 So let's take a step back from the harbor, shall we,
12:38 and talk a little bit about these three islands that we have before us.
12:43 We have 15 islands in total, although originally it was a peninsula.
12:50 They were all connected into one landmass
12:53 and connected to the mainland over on the eastern side of the harbor.
12:57 But after a particularly heavy storm in the 1880s,
13:01 it actually flooded the peninsula,
13:04 breaking apart into the 15 islands that we have today.
13:08 And since then, it's become quite a popular place.
13:14 That's because for a lot of the people who live downtown,
13:18 this is their closest shot at New York.
13:20 So it's a pretty popular part over the summertime.
13:23 We get over a million visitors every year,
13:26 and it is the place to go.
13:29 Right now, we are passing by Hanlon's Point.
13:32 I point out Hanlon's Point because it's one of the three main stops at the ferry's main...
13:37 In fact, we just passed one of the ferries right over there that I missed.
13:41 That is the Almejara, the thunder of the water.
13:44 But now Hanlon's Point is kind of considered the party island of the three.
13:51 It's named after the Hanlon family,
13:53 the first European immigrants to live a full time on the island.
13:58 They were quite an industrious family, actually.
14:01 That's because they built all kinds of stuff out here
14:04 and turned it into the very first entertainment district for Toronto.
14:09 They had a hotel, restaurants, cafes.
14:14 They had a circus out here, which is pretty huge.
14:17 They had an amusement park with roller coasters.
14:19 That's pretty crazy.
14:21 But most importantly, they had a baseball stadium out here.
14:25 That's right. They had Maple Leaf Stadium.
14:28 This was, of course, not Maple Leaf's hockey team.
14:31 This was Maple Leaf's baseball team.
14:34 We were losing on the field before we lost on the ice.
14:37 Not to worry, though.
14:39 I only mention this baseball stadium because it was prominent for one specific event.
14:46 That was when our Toronto Maple Leafs played against the Providence Greys.
14:51 At that time, the Providence Greys had one unknown rookie
14:56 who hit his first home run so hard that it flew out of the stadium
15:01 and into the waters of Blockhouse Bay, which is where we are right now.
15:05 That rookie was named Babe Ruth.
15:10 Over the last hundred years, many treasure hunters have looked for this ball,
15:16 this infamous ball that may still be out here.
15:19 No one's ever found it, but it is estimated to be worth millions, probably.
15:26 I'm estimating. Don't quote me on that.
15:31 Before you think about jumping in, need I remind you to our safety announcement
15:35 over at the beginning of the tour?
15:37 Please don't. The water's cold, and we don't really feel like fishing.
15:42 Moving on now.
15:44 I did say that it was an entertainment district.
15:48 This entertainment district really boomed in the 1920s.
15:53 Anyone know what happened in the 1920s?
15:56 Prohibition.
15:57 Prohibition from the front row. Fantastic.
16:01 Yeah, exactly. Prohibition.
16:03 As opposed to the states, we were a little looser with our prohibition laws.
16:08 We allowed every province to figure it out for themselves.
16:12 Some provinces, like Quebec, got over it really quick.
16:16 Others, like Ontario, came with a few loopholes.
16:20 Firstly, for beer.
16:23 We found beer was a great moneymaker for the province,
16:26 so we decided to allow the production of beer, the exportation of beer,
16:31 but please, don't you dare drink it.
16:35 Of course, us as law-abiding citizens, we all followed that rule, too.
16:40 The tea, good on us.
16:43 Our second loophole was for wine.
16:45 We allowed wine consumption for religious ceremonies.
16:49 As you can imagine, everyone got baptized that year.
16:54 And Sunday Mass was lit.
16:58 Finally, we had a loophole for whiskey.
17:01 This was in a time before a lot of modern medicines.
17:05 So, as a painkiller, you could go to the doctor,
17:09 complain about a tummy ache, or in Captain Sean's case, a heartache,
17:13 and he would prescribe you a 40-ouncer of Canadian rye whiskey.
17:20 That's just to drown those feelings away.
17:25 It was so popular, in fact, that we even had a ferry that they took
17:29 that went across Lake Ontario to Rochester, New York,
17:33 to bring Americans down here so that they could get their prescriptions filled
17:36 and have a good time at the doctor's office.
17:40 Now, you may be wondering, "What happened to all of these buildings out here?"
17:44 You said there was all kinds of stuff.
17:46 Well, after the 1920s came the 1930s with the Great Depression,
17:51 a lot of the buildings closed.
17:53 In the 1940s, during the Second World War, we had a housing crisis in Toronto.
17:58 And so this town turned into kind of a shantytown.
18:03 And in 1954, we were hit by Hurricane Hazel.
18:07 It's rare for a hurricane to come this far inland, but one just wandered on by.
18:12 And it ended up destroying all of the buildings up here.
18:17 Instead of rebuilding everything, the city decided to buy the land
18:21 and turn it into the public park space that it is.
18:24 And honestly, it's a beautiful view, all this greenery.
18:28 Speaking of beautiful views, it seems like Captain Sean is setting us up
18:32 for what I think is the most beautiful view of our city.
18:36 This is the CN Tower and Rochester, framed by the two sides of the island.
18:42 I'm going to take a little break here while I let you take your pictures.
18:45 Please feel welcome.
18:47 [music]
18:54 Come on!
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20:41 Swans, cardinals, corials, blue jays, all the baseball birds,
20:46 cormorants, cranes, there's definitely more.
20:54 In addition to birds, actually, we're also in the flight path for the monarch butterfly
20:59 that comes through here every year, which is beautiful as well.
21:03 Now that we're talking about birds, though, I feel particularly inclined
21:09 to talk about my favorite bird, or at least, sorry, my least favorite bird,
21:16 the Canada goose.
21:19 Has anyone ever experienced a Canada goose before?
21:24 Yeah, if you have, then may God have mercy on your soul.
21:28 They are not very friendly.
21:30 If you haven't, then try to keep it that way.
21:34 The Canada goose is, after all, our national bird. You see them everywhere.
21:39 And they know it. They're protected by conservation law, and they really take
21:44 advantage of that to the fullest. I have never crossed the street faster than
21:49 seeing a goose on the sidewalk.
21:51 And there's actually an overpopulation issue here on the islands.
21:56 Each goose produces two pounds of fecal matter per bird per day.
22:02 It's a lot of birds, but guess what? There are over 10,000 geese on the islands.
22:08 And this is just 500 hectares of park space. So that's a lot of birds.
22:16 We tried to cull that population, but we didn't have to.
22:19 Of course, Plan A didn't work. Goose eggs are very hard to find.
22:22 So Plan B. We decided to round up all the males and give them vasectomies.
22:30 If you don't know what a vasectomy is, ask your dad.
22:36 Now, I've never tried to catch a goose before, and I can't imagine how hard it
22:41 must be to grab them by the privates. So that plan didn't end up very well.
22:48 Plan C. This was our pièce de résistance. That's when we decided to introduce
22:53 a natural predator of the raccoon.
22:56 This is the other pièce, and that is the raccoon. I gave it away, my bad.
23:01 The city of Toronto has their own overpopulation issue with raccoons as it is.
23:07 So we decided to kill two pièces with one raccoon and bring them on over here.
23:13 The plan kind of backfired, though, because Toronto raccoons have never seen
23:18 a goose egg before in their life. And in fact, they only really know how to
23:22 get over Chinese food and pizza crust. So instead of going after goose eggs,
23:26 they just ravaged through those trash bins.
23:29 And now there's an overpopulation issue of raccoons out here as well.
23:33 At this point, we decided to quit while we're ahead, and that's what we did.
23:37 We're just making it worse.
23:40 If you look over the sides of the boat, though, you'll see all of the
23:43 below-the-water surface. This is great habitat for all of the fish species
23:48 that live out here as well. We have a ton of fish out here--
23:52 bass, pike, perch, walleye, trout, salmon, even all of the panfish and crappie.
24:00 It's ideal territory for these fish, and the fishermen really love it out here.
24:09 Moving on, though, there's also the land creatures like beavers, moss crabs,
24:13 foxes, skunks, coyotes, and even deer that got caught out here in the wintertime.
24:22 As we move along now, we're going to get a great view of Center Island.
24:30 Now, Center Island is the Center Island because it is in the center of the islands,
24:36 and that's why it is called Center Island after the name of the three islands
24:42 or of the three main ferry ports. If you don't know where to go, this is the place to go.
24:48 So far, we've passed by Hanlon's Point, and now we're going by Center Island.
24:53 The third I'll talk about in a little bit, but let's stay here for a little bit.
24:57 There's all kinds of stuff to do. There's an amusement park for the kids called
25:01 Centerville. They have a petting zoo. There's also a hedge maze, which is
25:07 much harder than it needs to be for an adult. There's basketball courts, tennis courts,
25:15 even a disc golf course, beaches all along the back side of the island,
25:21 and little barbecues where you can come, bring your charcoal, grill your meats,
25:26 your vegetables, or, you know, sand if you'd rather eat that.
25:32 Again, if you don't know where to start while visiting the islands, try Center Island.
25:37 It's definitely the place to go.
25:41 We are now entering Blockhouse Bay, and if you look towards the back of the boat,
25:46 on the right-hand side, you'll see those red bleachers. Well, what are they for?
25:51 What are we here to see? We are in Long Pond, this body of water that's been
25:58 elongated from that end down up front to this end up here, and it is the ideal spot
26:07 for boat races. It's about one kilometer long, and it houses all kinds of boat races
26:15 out here, like the Dominican Regatta on Canada Day, as well as the Driving Boat Festival
26:20 or the Viking Boat Festival.
26:26 Now, I've talked about two of the Great Barrier Reefs, the Hamlin's Point,
26:32 the center island, and now let's talk about the Gorge Island.
26:38 That's all the way on the eastern side of the island.
26:43 It's a little different, though, because it is actually the residential part of the islands.
26:49 That's right, people live out here. There are over 700 people who live out here year-round.
26:56 You may think it is ideal because you're basically living in cottage country out here,
27:03 while staying only 10 minutes away from the heart of downtown seems ideal to me,
27:08 and trust me, it really is. Not only that, but to buy a house, it's pretty cheap, actually.
27:16 You only actually have to pay for the cost of materials scaled to inflation.
27:22 So you can buy a house for $300,000.
27:26 Now, here's the catch, though. In 1954, when Hurricane Hazel came in, as you may remember,
27:33 the city wanted to tear down all the buildings and turn it all into park space.
27:38 There were people already living out on the islands whose house was still intact,
27:44 and so they decided to protest that.
27:47 They threw their babies at the foreclosers and took the city to court.
27:51 After 20 years, they came to a compromise, something me and my girlfriend never figured out.
27:56 But it goes like this.
27:59 To get an island house, you have to enter a wait list. You have to pay every year.
28:04 Once you get through this wait list, you get placed into a raffle or lottery.
28:10 If you win that lottery, you get placed on another wait list, and the whole process can take 30 to 50 years.
28:18 So if you want a nice place for your kids to retire in, put your bet in now.
28:27 That being said, that is not the only way to live on the islands.
28:31 In fact, we are now passing by the Toronto Island Marina, Toronto's largest houseboat community.
28:39 And the people out here live out here.
28:42 They're just houses built on boats. Seems pretty cool to me.
28:47 You may think that it's kind of like camping, but no, they have access to electricity, water, plumbing, even Wi-Fi.
28:56 All of the necessities.
29:02 I've heard it's a pretty tight-knit community. Everyone who lives here loves it.
29:07 Again, you're living out here in basically cottage country, all ten minutes away from the heart of downtown.
29:13 In fact, I think Captain Sean over here has a boat in the marina.
29:17 Can everyone say, "Congrats, Captain Sean?"
29:21 I am not jealous at all.
29:24 The only downside is that it is a three-season community.
29:28 That's because in the wintertime, this is a fresh water lake after all, and it's pretty shallow here.
29:33 The water freezes over. If you left your boat in, the ice would freeze into your boat, making it unusable for the next year.
29:40 So we use this device, like that blue crane over on the right-hand side of the boat.
29:45 That is the marine travel lift to pick these boats out of the water and package them up like your ham sandwich to store away for the wintertime.
29:55 In the spring, they bring them all back out, and you're ready to use them again.
30:02 It's lovely out here.
30:04 I'd say the best perk is that every day during the summer, on the hour, you get to see me talking about your house.
30:14 They love me out here.
30:16 Enough with the marina, though. Let's talk about what's on the left-hand side.
30:25 That is Muggs Island.
30:27 We passed by the other end earlier with all those nice white boats. I didn't mention it.
30:32 That's the island yacht club.
30:34 There's one peculiar guest, though, and that is Conrad the peacock.
30:40 If you remember, we had a petting zoo on Central Island.
30:47 In 2016, after particularly heavy rainfall, the island started to flood.
30:53 They decided to take all of the animals out and bring them to drier land.
30:57 One of them got away, though, that creature being Conrad the peacock.
31:02 He ended up flying all the way out here.
31:05 When the island yacht club found he was here, they decided to keep him.
31:10 As you may know, rich people like nice things, so they built him a little shed.
31:16 They brought over a pea hen named Gertha for his little wife.
31:22 I've heard as of last year they have pea chicks.
31:25 Keep your eye out. We may get a sighting of Conrad.
31:28 I've heard there were four last year, which is somehow less than Sasquatch.
31:45 We're now passing by TISC, the Toronto Island Sailing Club, one of the most inclusive clubs.
31:53 There's a little swan over there.
31:55 One of the most inclusive clubs if you want to learn how to sail.
32:02 They are very accommodating.
32:04 The youngest member is about six years old, and the oldest is in their 90s.
32:09 If you want to learn how to sail, this is the place to go.
32:12 Not only that, but they can accommodate people who are paraplegics or quadriplegics
32:18 by setting them up with tubes that allow them to steer their boat.
32:24 Oh, hi, canoers.
32:26 Now we are about to enter back into the harbour, and as we do so,
32:35 Captain Sean is going to make a beautifully smooth right-hand turn
32:39 so that you get a great view of the city landscape over on your left-hand side.
32:45 This is a nice view.
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34:37 And about it talking to you, I will now do.
34:41 This CN Tower, built from 1976 to 1979, was built by the Canadian National Railway.
34:49 Why would a railway need to build such a big tower?
34:54 I let the story go ahead, so I'll tell it.
34:57 Back in the 1950s, Montreal was the financial capital of Canada.
35:03 That's where all the headquarters for the big banks are.
35:06 But in the 60s and early 70s, we entered the Quiet Revolution.
35:11 That's when they wanted to break apart from Canada and form their own country.
35:15 Well within their rights.
35:17 It didn't end up working though.
35:19 But during that time, it was close enough for the big banks to get nervous.
35:25 You see, they didn't want to deal with all of these new laws, these new banking laws,
35:30 but more importantly, they didn't want to learn how to speak French.
35:34 So they decided to pack up all of their stuff and come here to Toronto.
35:40 Coincidentally, during the time of the Revitalization Proclamation.
35:46 Anyway, with all of these big banks came a lot of new people.
35:52 And with all of these new people came all of these big skyscrapers.
35:58 Most of these skyscrapers are actually condos though.
36:02 As opposed to other cities, where you have a 60/40 split between residential and commercial buildings.
36:09 More closer to 90/10.
36:11 So that's a lot of people living out here.
36:14 Anyway, with all of these condos came issues with the Toronto Canadian National Railway.
36:24 And they started to jam up the radio signals between their trains.
36:30 They had a hard time communicating.
36:32 So somebody on the board back in those days said, "Hey, let's build a big radio tower."
36:40 Somebody else on the board said, "Why not? I have a better idea.
36:44 Let's build the world's biggest radio tower.
36:47 We have the money, we have the know-how."
36:50 And that's exactly what they did.
36:52 Over the course of three years, they helicarped in a ton of concrete and built the world's biggest tower.
37:00 It stayed the world's biggest tower for 35 years until it was demolished.
37:06 It stayed the world's biggest tower for 35 years until it was beaten by the first Leapfrogs in 1996.
37:16 Nowadays, look, it's still the world's biggest concrete structure and the biggest structure in the Western Hemisphere.
37:23 There's nothing to show.
37:25 If you get more specific, you can keep more records.
37:28 That's why I'm the tallest guy in my third grade class, and I'll never let it go.
37:33 There's a lot of stuff to do in the CN Tower, though.
37:38 It's one of the most lucrative tourist attractions in the city.
37:43 From elevator admission costs alone, they make enough money to build a whole other CN Tower.
37:50 It's been around for a long time, so I'd imagine 50 other CN Towers over here.
37:55 But we just didn't get around to that.
37:57 Up past the CN Tower, you can take one of their six high-speed elevators that will get you up there in 58 seconds
38:06 to the viewing deck, where you can get a great view all around the city, as well as look straight down through their glass floor.
38:15 Don't be scared, though.
38:17 Unlike me, without the six, that glass is five times stronger than it is.
38:25 So, no fears there.
38:27 There's also one little thing you can do.
38:30 You can go to the 360 restaurant.
38:33 They did the math. They found that the average person eats a three-course meal in about 72 minutes.
38:40 So, they designed the CN Tower to do one full rotation every 72 minutes.
38:46 So, when you eat, you get to see the entire city.
38:51 It's also fun because you can play this game where if you go to the bathroom, you come out and say, "Hey, where's my food?"
39:00 The final big attraction that they have there is the Skywalk.
39:04 That's when they walk you up to a harness and let you walk around the outside of the tower.
39:10 I've never done it. I have friends who have done it.
39:13 And I've never looked at them the same ever since.
39:16 Why are the towers on it? Why are the buildings on it?
39:29 Why are the buildings sideways?
39:32 As I said, 90% of our Skyline are condos.
39:50 And these are an example of our luxury condos out here.
39:53 With four floor-to-ceiling glass, they can run you up a pretty penny.
39:59 In fact, the average for one bedroom apartment nowadays is close to about $1.3 billion.
40:05 A huge jump from where it was in the '70s, where you could get one bedroom for about $1.8 million.
40:12 $80 grand. Big jump.
40:20 Moving on now, we are passing by the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal on your right.
40:25 That's what all of these big ferry boats are for.
40:29 As I said, there are three points on the island.
40:31 You can go to Center Island, Hanlon's Point, or Ward's Island.
40:35 And to get there, this is where you go.
40:38 To get back, though, it is free and they run until 11 p.m. or shameless plug.
40:44 We actually have a taxi service where you can take our taxis to Center Island, and it's much quicker.
40:52 I'd like to point out that ferry on the farthest right-hand side, though, that is Petroleum.
41:04 That is the last steam-powered boat in the Great Lakes Basin.
41:09 I'd like to point it out because it's so old. In fact, it's older than the Titanic built in 1910.
41:15 And it still runs every once in a while, but not very often.
41:19 You don't see a lot of steam-powered boats anymore, right?
41:22 Moving on now, we are passing by this green market over here.
41:30 I like talking about this market because it's a very weird place to be.
41:35 It is the site of a famous inventor.
41:40 Does anyone know what Pokemon Go is?
41:43 I'm getting some nods, so I'm not the only nerd on board.
41:47 Pokemon Go was a game where you caught Pokemon on your phone and you would train them to get stronger.
41:53 I played it, and in fact, when I came out, this park was the only place where you could catch a Dredge.
42:02 I caught my Dredge here. He's a fully-grown dragon right now.
42:07 But it got so crowded because everyone was coming here to try and catch that Dredge.
42:14 It got so bad that people were getting pushed into the water or dropping their phones out there.
42:19 The city said, "Hey, let's build a fence."
42:22 But if you've ever seen a teenager on their phone before, you know they don't look up for nothing.
42:28 It kept happening. Eventually, the police had to call Pokemon and say, "Hey, move the thing because people are getting wet."
42:37 Finally, on our right-hand side, we're passing by this big ball.
42:41 No, it's not a Pokeball. It's actually the winner of the cart contest.
42:45 It is called the Sundial's Folly.
42:48 Out of 115 applicants, this guy won. Makes me wonder what the other 149 might have looked like.
42:55 It works as a Sundial, but it's very simple. You go inside, get in the middle of the ball, point your finger to where the sun is,
43:02 bend your elbow and check your watch because it doesn't actually work.
43:07 No, it is actually the world's largest non-functional Sundial. It's mostly there for show.
43:15 But it does tell us one time, and it is that we have come to the end of our tour.
43:20 On behalf of Toronto Harbor Tours, myself, Captain Sean, and Captain Dan, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this tour today.
43:28 Oh, fantastic. I hope you had a good time, and please remember to stay seated.
43:35 We are going to dock soon, and it may get bumpy. I don't want you bumping into anything. Thank you.
43:40 [Indistinct chatter]
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