Within the urban environment, rivers are often considered
liminal space; a place for marginal activities that must be conducted off the
urban grid. We could argue that the homosocial swimming and heterosocial
courting that filled the Humber River both fell under the rubric of marginal
activities. But there were also darker moments along both the Don and Humber
Rivers.
In 1926, police found the body of a woman, aged about 40, along the
banks of the Humber River. She had a fair complexion, grey-bluish eyes and was
about 5’8” tall.[1] She was
dressed in a blue serge dress, grey stockings with shoes and galoshes. Nearby
were a blue felt hat and a brown coat. She was probably wearing some of her
best clothes because in the note she left she asked that she be buried in them.
She signed her note as Sylvia and she had used carbolic acid to take her own
life.
The banks of the Humber River would have offered seclusion
for this act; below the city and out of sight. But I’d like to believe this was
more than just a marginal act carried out in a marginal space; an act, that in
academic terms, we like to say helps to construct and fortify the marginal space
of the river.
I’d like to believe she went to the Humber River because she
wanted to spend her last moments some place beautiful.
[1] “Body of
woman found on Humber River bank,” The Toronto Daily Star, Monday, March 22,
1926, Page 4.
