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Campfires (Main)
Welcome to Campfires at the Park
CAMPFIRES AS “EYES ON THE PARK”
Unlike at other City campfire sites, there is no fee for having a campfire at Dufferin Grove, and there’s a reason for that. If you and your friends make a campfire at the park, you’ve taken on a park job: you’ll be helping with park oversight while you’re at the fire.
The campfires started in 1994, to increase the night-time liveliness of the park and therefore make the park safer and friendlier. The two fire-sites are intentionally located right by the main park thoroughfare. Everyone can pass nearby and enjoy the beautiful light of the fire, and the smell of food roasting on the grill. This works wonders on other park users. Campfire cooks often share the food they cook, if someone comes along hungry or just curious.
A city is a place of many strangers, and it can be scary – a dark park even more so. But a campfire is a reassuring circle of light and activity. So the campfire participants contribute the neighbourliness of the park. A few times (very few) there has been trouble elsewhere in the park, and the campfire participants have gone to help. The trouble was quickly defused. Safety in numbers! This is exactly the point of a lively park – trouble goes somewhere else. So if you want to have a campfire, don’t forget: you’ll have an important job. If you like that task, you can book a time with staff@dufferinpark.ca.
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For 14 years now the friends of the park has worked with Toronto Fire Services (the Fire Department) and with each branch of the Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division as well as the local city Councillor and neighborhood groups to allow small, safe campfires in specific locations in Dufferin Grove Park and other parks. Keeping this program running over the years has required cooperation and flexibility from all involved, our news archives tell a fascinating tale of cooking fires in public space. If you want to have a campfire, you must book with staff. These are the basic rules. |
Campfires are particularly nice for cooking over. For recipe suggestions and ideas go to our recipes page which has adapted stove top cooking, alternative roasting and baking procedures and wonderful old recipes from pioneer times and Aboriginal cooking ideas. Note: all campfires bookings expire at 10 pm. If you see campfires later than that, those people didn’t arrange it with staff. That’s not okay – call 416 896-8942 or 416 709-0573 or 416-392-0913, and somebody will be over there on the double. Or take note of the time, date and location and inform staff via email: staff@dufferinpark.ca or phone the numbers above. Police will respond to dangerous situations or noise complaints: 416-808-2222. |
Latest Campfire News
From the December 2009 Newsletter:
WINTER CAMPFIRES
In winter there are lots of birthday-and-skating parties, at the rink-side campfire near the smaller bake-oven. The rink house can’t be booked for birthday parties – it’s open for everybody, not rented out privately – and even the campfire circle is not closed to drop-ins when there’s a party.
Even so, a campfire-and-skating party seems to work very well for celebrations. To book a campfire by the rink, or at the central campfire site, speak to the recreation staff at the rink house, or e-mail staff@dufferinpark.ca. You can borrow marshmallow sticks, pot and pot-stand, oven mitts, ladles, etc. But you have to bring your own wood.
From the October 2009 Newsletter:
CAMPFIRES
Fall is a time when people’s thoughts turn to campfires, smoke curling upwards, the good smell of something tasty cooking over a fire, the beautiful colours of the leaves – and so on. This means that Dufferin Grove Park’s program staff get a lot of requests for campfire permits.
The campfires at Dufferin Grove Park are a bit different than the regular city campfires, which are arranged with the central Permit Office. Centrally booked permits cost $53 and they are located in the more woodsy, natural areas of the largest city parks – in the ravines, beside the rivers, and on Toronto Island. The campfires at Dufferin Grove, in contrast, are a special program in a densely settled neighbourhood. They were started partly to add a lively activity to the park at night and thereby increase the “eyes on the park.” The park becomes friendlier and safer for people passing through after dark. The other reason for the campfire program is that campfires can be a wonderful way for neighbours to gather.
There have been a great many campfires in the fifteen years since the program was established. The sight of people gathered at the fire circle has cheered many park users. But lately the requests for campfires have felt a little overwhelming at times. The program staff have been taking pains to make it clear that the campfires involve a trade: if you have a fire, you and your campfire friends become volunteers for the park. Having a campfire is not like “booking a campsite” or “reserving a table at a restaurant,“ as one very disappointed park user recently said in frustration. She had expected a space reliably reserved for her own party, but instead she found that the site was being used as a sacred fire circle during the pow wow, and that the “firekeepers” would not be finished until half an hour into her picnic. The park program staff are now trying to emphasize more clearly: campfires mean joining the life of the park, not reserving a spot that will be punctually ready for your own group. If the pow wow runs half an hour later than expected, that’s part of the way parks are. They are public, not private, full of the surprise of the unexpected.
At the same time, one kind of surprise is unwelcome at the campfires: any kind of percussion. Campfires are not drumming circles, out of respect for the park neighbours who live so near. For drumming, it’s best to reserve a regular City campfire area, where your group can drum together beside a river or in a woodsy ravine.
At Dufferin Grove, park campfire volunteers must keep an eye out for trouble. They might welcome a stranger into the circle. They can explain to curious park users about how the park runs and how campfires are set up. Sometimes they share their extra food – especially with nosy children who come by from the playground. In return, campfire volunteers get the use of pots and pot stands and marshmallow sticks, shovels and buckets for water, stir spoons and oven mitts and kindling. Most of them willingly contribute $10 for the upkeep of these supplies. There’s no campfire fee beyond that.
To volunteer for one of those kinds of campfires: call 416 392-0913, or (even better) e-mail staff@dufferinpark.ca.
From the September 2009 Newsletter:
CAMPFIRE NEWS
Campfire permits are available throughout the fall. You pay a much lower fee than the city’s normal bonfire permits (only a $10 donation for the use of the campfire equipment).
In return, when you have a campfire, you also undertake to be a park warden during that time, keeping a eye on the park and thereby making it safe and friendly.
A dark, empty park looks much more welcoming if you add in the glow of a campfire, surrounded by people roasting marshmallows, or quietly strumming on a guitar. The fire circles are intentionally located near the main path so that people walking through the park will come across this pleasing sight.
To book a campfire, contact the park’s program staff: 416 392-0913, or staff@dufferinpark.ca.
From the May 2009 Newsletter:
CAMPFIRES
There are two different ways to have a campfire in a city park. One is to get a permit from the central permit office, for one of the bonfire sites in a large park in the ravines or on Toronto Island. The permit costs $72.61 and the insurance cost is tied to the number of people – for example, if there were 20 people coming, the insurance would cost $54.
Firewood is included in the price. A campfire fee of $126.61 means that it would work for larger groups or a corporate function, but not so much for a regular-size gathering of a group of families or friends on a tight budget.
With persistent encouragement from Dufferin Grove friends, the City has kept another approach available – campfires run as recreation programs. That means that people who want to cook over a campfire or sing around it, can have such a fire, with a $10 donation for upkeep of the campfire equipment: -- the trivet, frying pans, pots, and marshmallow/hot dog sticks. The reasoning is that such campfires add friendliness to the park, and increase park safety (more “eyes on the park”). Often food is shared beyond the group that planned the gathering. And a campfire is a beautiful sight. If that’s the kind of campfire you would like, contact the park staff at 416 391-0913, or e-mail them at staff@dufferinpark.ca. You have to bring your own firewood, though.
From the December 2008 Newsletter:
WINTER CAMPFIRES
In winter there are lots of birthday-and-skating parties, at the rink-side campfire near the smaller bake-oven. The rink house can’t be booked for birthday parties – it’s open for everybody, not permitted out privately – and even the campfire circle is not closed to drop-ins when there’s a party. Even so, a campfire-and-skating party seems to work very well for celebrations. To book a campfire by the rink, or at the two other park campfire sites, speak to the recreation staff at the rink house, or e-mail staff@dufferinpark.ca.
From the November 2008 Newsletter:
Thursday November 13, 6 - 7 p.m. World Town Planning Day campfire and meeting
Urban planning students Katherine Sparkes and Eldon Theodore have set up a park campfire meeting for planners, to discuss how Dufferin Grove Park evolved into a park where people can often meet around food. Other park users interested in the topic are welcome to drop in to the campfire and contribute. Do you think the park has too much going on in it? Let the urban planners hear your views.
From the October 2008 Newsletter:
CAMPFIRES
In October there are two small-group campfire locations – centre path and south path. The centre path fire circle is in the middle of the park, and the south path fire circle is beside the cob courtyard. The park’s recreation staff book the cooking fire times. They also give fire safety training and are available to help start/end your fire. You can reach them at 416-392-0913 or email staff@dufferinpark.ca.
CELOS regularly maintains and provides grills, a cast-iron stand (if you want to cook more than marshmallows or hot dogs on a stick), pots and pans for campfire permits. Suggested donation of $10 for upkeep. Park staff will give you water, pails, and a shovel. You have to bring your own wood and be quiet and respectful of park neighbours.
From the August 2008 Newsletter:
CAMPFIRES
For the summer and fall, there are two small-group campfire locations – centre path and south path. The centre path fire circle is in the middle of the park, and the south path fire circle is beside the cob courtyard. The park’s recreation staff book the cooking fire times. They also give fire safety training and are available to help start/end your fire. You can reach them at 416-392-0913 or email staff@dufferinpark.ca.
CELOS regularly maintains and provides grills, a cast-iron stand (if you want to cook more than marshmallows or hot dogs on a stick), pots and pans for campfire permits. Suggested donation of $10 for upkeep. Park staff will give you water, pails, and a shovel. You have to bring your own wood and be quiet and respectful of park neighbours.
From the January 2008 Newsletter
WINTER CAMPFIRES
So far this year there haven’t been many campfires with hot chocolate beside the rink, to keep warm by when it’s too full in the rink house. The staff had to stop making them when they became a hangout for bored youth with various kinds of trouble-making on their minds. They’ll try again now that the holidays have come and gone. Birthday skating parties can book campfires (since no party can book the inside of the rinkhouse – too crowded). Get in touch with rink staff (staff@dufferinpark.ca, or 416 392-0913, or talk to them in person) at least 48 hours before you want your campfire – that’s the rule since last year’s proliferation of formal protocols.
It’s been exactly a year since Parks supervisor Peter Leiss suspended all campfires and then re-instated them with a much more complicated protocol that has added layers of bureaucracy. There are 171 e-mail exchanges about the campfire struggle, posted on the “problems and follow-up section” of the dufferinpark.ca web site, and there may be many more internal ones that park users never saw. All this for a procedure which is almost identical to what has worked well for 13 years!
When CELOS asked to see the draft protocols and the internal e-mails that resulted in so much extra bureaucracy, they were told it would cost them $1700 for staff to get that information out. Another appeal to the Provincial Commissioner, sigh….