Accidental Wilderness: The Origins and Ecology of Toronto’s Tommy Thompson Park

"The Spit is miraculous and amazing, growing out of Toronto like a volcanic island. Accidental Wilderness is a stunningly beautiful and hopeful book that captures with writing that is both technical and romantic the story of how the Spit came to be and what it almost was if not for the interventions of the people who protected it."

Shawn Micallef, Spacing magazine

"This book will leave readers with a great appreciation of what has been created in Lake Ontario at the end of Leslie Street and what impact that creation could have on the future of wilderness – accidental or otherwise – in Canada."

Michael Olsen, Ontario Field Ornithologists

"This beautifully produced ode celebrates a unique place on the shores of Toronto's Lake Ontario. The Spit, as it is known locally, was a dump site for the city's midcentury building boom, a landform not so much planned as accumulated. But nature arrived uninvited, spurring several decades of local advocacy, and eventually a singular urban park emerged."

Landscape Architecture Magazine

"Part field guide, part environmental history, Accidental Wilderness would make an excellent manual for ecological restoration along the entire lakeshore."

Amy Lavender Harris, Spacing Magazine

"The book’s value is the detailed accounting of how the accidental creation of Tommy Thompson Park evolved in concert with Kehm’s park master plan. The planning and design process could be used as a framework for creating and restoring urban wildlands in Great Lakes communities and other coastal ecosystem areas. Such a framework is especially critical given how climate change is shifting weather-induced physical processes and temperature. Burley’s photography provides the reader with an intimate feel for the created park character. The book is recommended for those interested in more ecologically based planning and design processes."

Richard Smardon, SUNY-College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Landscape Journal

"The Spit was quarried from the landfill of the city, cradled and cared for by local activists and then captured by the regenerative forces of nature. This extraordinary saga is beautifully told by Walter H. Kehm and his colleagues and exquisitely highlighted by the photography of Robert Burley." David Crombie, mayor of Toronto (1972–1978), professor, and writer

“This resonating book is a command performance of what is left of nature for the people of Toronto. It is a mirror for change, a welcoming walk into the spirit of renewal.” Diana Beresford-Kroeger, author of To Speak for the Trees

“Venturing onto the Leslie Street Spit, we are still in the city but in an entirely different world. It is sublime. The Spit was never intended to be a wilderness park, but it became a magnificent one. In Accidental Wlderness the photographs by Robert Burley capture the Spit’s strange beauty, while the text by Walter H. Kehm and his colleagues brilliantly tells the suspenseful story of the perilous and persistent journey to ‘let it be.’” Ken Greenberg, author of Walking Home and Toronto Reborn

“Accidental Wilderness should be required reading for urbanists, advocates, and environmentalists in Canada and beyond.” Charles Waldheim, Harvard University