"How I Got My Island House", collected by Barbara Klunder (2025)

"How I Got My Island House" Toronto Island True Stories collected by Barbara Klunder
pages
December 2025
Softcover
First Edition
8 ¾ x 6 ½ inches
Signed by Barbara Klunder
 
Editing advice by Lynn Cunnigham
Book Design by Lisa Frost
Cover painting by Lori Dell
Rick/Simon for the cover design
Line Drawings by Barbara Klunder
Printed by Rapido Books
 
 
Back cover text:
 
The houses you now see on Toronto Island survived through decades of threats, challenges, and grief. They were condemned, by orders from Metro in 1955, to be bulldozed, like the hundreds of idyllic summer homes that had already been destroyed along the shoreline. Pure destruction.
 
When the threat arrived to the edge of the Wards Island community in the Sixties, there was resistance. Lots of it.
 
Thirty-plus years of battles and protests began. Eventually, three levels of government voted in 1993 to save those houses with a creative Lease agreement, with conditions. Victory! 
 
Now the community could repair their homes, plant their gardens, and send their children to a new school. 
 
Here are a few dozen stories of some of he artists; writers, gays, poets, musicians, teachers, workers: rebellious citizens who chose to live on a condemned Island, under threats of demolition,and then fought to save their beloved Island homes. 
 
All true stories, all in their own words.