Hanlan’s Point

At the west end of Centre Island by the Toronto City Centre Airport is Hanlan’s Point, named after world-champion sculler ‘Ned’ Hanlan (1855–1904), a member of the first family to permanently settle here. Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run here in 1914 while playing minor-league baseball – the ball drowned in Lake Ontario, the ultimate souvenir lost forever… The sport of iceboating atop the frozen lake was at its peak until the 1940s. Thanks to climate change, winters nowadays are too mild for it. Beyond the free tennis courts and a fragile ecosystem of low-lying dunes sustaining rare species, the not-so-rare nekkid humanus roams free on the gray sand of Hanlan’s Point Beach. Popular with gay men, the beach’s ‘clothing optional’ status was legalized in 1999.