For a full list of all five Leaside walks see: https://leasidelife.com/walking-tours-of-leaside/
Welcome to two new Leaside walks – Central East Leaside and South Leaside – which, together with the existing North Leaside and Central West Leaside Walks, complete our tours of Leaside’s residential area, as designated by Frederick Gage Todd, Leaside’s town planner in 1912. Future tours will take us around Todd’s Industrial area – the “Upper East Side” north of Vanderhoof and the Leaside Business Park to the south.
A reminder that Leaside is a designed cultural heritage landscape – it features Frederick Gage Todd’s town plan (streets layout, with McRae and Millwood as the two east-west dividers, tract development of the 1930s through to 1953, and a few stranded extant settler homes, set over the earlier colonial grid).
Central-East Leaside (Oct. 21), while predominantly residential like Central-West, abuts Todd’s Industrial zone, with Laird Drive as the divide. As a result, office and commercial development and some residential development on the west side of Laird Drive were directly associated with the industries, for example, Canada Wire and Cable on the east side. The Central East Walk starts and ends at Laird and McRae.
South Leaside (Oct. 14) includes some of the grandest and oldest Leaside residences, curving “Garden City” streetscapes and early Leaside educational infrastructure. The South Leaside Walk starts and ends at Bayview and McRae.
Step out on Sat., Oct. 14 and Oct. 21, at 1 p.m. for guided walks with Geoff and Mitch.
NOTE: Leaside has several heritage-listed (but not designated) properties, whose legal protection from demolition will be lost on Jan. 1, 2025, unless designated in the interim. Both walks include a couple of them, such as the Olde Yorke Fish and Chips at 96 Laird Dr. (Central East Walk) and the Lea Home at 211 Sutherland Dr. (South Leaside Walk). Maps created with assistance from Kim Auchinachie, Connor Turnbull, Geoff Kettel, Mitch Bubulj, Robin Dickie and John Naulls.
