During the summer of 1971, hundreds of young people briefly encamped at two outdoor sites in Toronto that provided temporary shelter for transient youths.
Just like the current tent city at the University of Toronto, established in protest of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, these earlier communities pitted youthful idealism against hostile authority. One of these hippie-era tent cities was located at U of T, while the other was situated on the grounds of a former prison. Grass Roots Incorporated, a group representing youth agencies in Toronto, organized both encampments, funding them in part with a grant from the federal government.
Wild predictions had been made throughout 1971 about youth on the move: “an estimated 400,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 21 will be hitting the road this summer” with “about 150,000 youngsters” visiting Toronto, wrote the Toronto Star in late May. These figures turned out to be hugely exaggerated but reflected the spirit of the times, when young people embraced hitchhiking and low-cost travel.
In the spring of 1971, Grass Roots floated the idea of setting up a temporary tent city for visiting kids to augment Toronto’s existing youth-hostel system. Grass Roots called its proposed paradise “Wacheea” based on a Cree term meaning a place where all are welcome. (The phrase might have been slightly tweaked from the original; a University of Winnipeg article about Indigenous language banners states that “Waaciye means welcome in the Oji-Cree language.”)
Grass Roots dreamed of establishing a “total community with social, educational, and cultural events occurring throughout the summer,” wrote the Globe and Mail.
In mid-May, Grass Roots asked Toronto officials whether they could set up in High Park — a popular greenspace in the west end of Toronto — but their request was rejected. So activists shifted their gaze to the empty 10-acre grounds of the former Mercer Reformatory, on King Street West.
Photo from the July 22, 1971, edition of the Globe and Mail.
On May 20, the Toronto Board of Education agreed to sponsor a tent city at Mercer if Grass Roots covered both costs and risks. Taking care of the former didn’t appear to be a problem; the federal government, led by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, promised grant money for the project from the Opportunities for Youth program (an employment initiative for young people). The Scott Mission, a Toronto agency that aided vulnerable populations, offered kitchen space for anyone who wanted to cook meals for Wacheea residents. It was anticipated that other volunteers would help with legal, medical, and educational services.
Future feminist leader Judy Rebick (described as “spokesman for Grass Roots” in the non-inclusive language of the day), said “everything from yoga to physics” would be taught at the site, reported the Star.
The Labor Council of Metropolitan Toronto supported the tent-city plan, but Toronto city council was opposed. The Ontario government, which controlled the Mercer Reformatory grounds, was equally intransigent. The province insisted that Grass Roots find an elected body willing to sponsor and assume legal responsibility for any Mercer tent encampment (the Toronto Board of Education’s endorsement didn’t extend to legal protection). There was strong opposition from other quarters as well.
“The establishment of such a facility is not only an encouragement to vagrancy, but it becomes a mecca for discontented young people, encouraging them to leave home and their own communities to give them maximum exposure to drugs, syphilis, etc.,” huffed S.G. West, coordinator of correctional services for the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, in a letter to the Globe.
Headline from the July 28, 1971, edition of the Globe and Mail.
Toronto still had a reputation for being uptight, and conservative establishment figures were wary of Grass Roots members. The latter were described as “freaks, with waist-length hair or electric Afros, blue jeans, sandals, burlap purses or army rucksacks, faded work shirts or army jackets with peace symbols sewn on where the stripes should be, living in communal houses and eating organic food and not ‘working’ as we know it for a living” in an otherwise sympathetic Toronto Star column published May 29.
While they might not have been “working as we know it for a living,” Grass Roots and its supporters were determined. Defying authorities, roughly 300 youths pitched tents on the lawn of U of T’s Hart House in early July. Grass Roots was the nominal supervisor of this first attempt at establishing Wacheea.
Then, as now, university officials were not amused. U of T obtained an injunction from the Ontario Supreme Court on July 16 to remove the squatters. Ottawa threatened to withhold all remaining grant money (federal bureaucrats had already given Grass Roots $6,275 by this point) if tent denizens didn’t depart and police had to enforce the injunction.
Tent dwellers on the Hart House lawn stayed put, playing music and singing as they engaged in civil disobedience. Two days after the injunction was issued, police entered the ad hoc tent city to enforce the eviction order. Things did not unfold peacefully; amid “rock-throwing, billy-swinging fights in the streets,” more than 20 people were arrested, wrote the Star.
“[This] confrontation was the first time in its 144-year history the university has called in police over an ‘illegal occupation’ problem,” added the Star.
Photo from the July 19, 1971, edition of the Toronto Daily Star.
Behind the scenes, U of T student groups put up a $5,000 performance bond, assuming responsibility for a Mercer tent city. This was good enough for the province, which finally greenlighted use of the site — for a time, at least. Tents began appearing at Mercer on July 21 as Wacheea was reborn. Area residents were mollified after organizers promised to ban drug dealing and underage kids, set an 11 p.m. noise curfew, and establish sanitary facilities.
In an apparent about-face, Ottawa announced that Grass Roots would receive its full grant, reported to be approximately $30,000. Neighbourhood youths and a local health-food store delivered food to the Mercer encampment.
Photographs of Wacheea at Mercer reveal shaggy, casually dressed young men and women milling about canvas tents, as if at an outdoor music festival. Grass Roots arranged security, food, and bathroom facilities. A rock concert was held in late August to help pay the fines of people arrested at the U of T melee.
Photo from the July 28, 1971, edition of the Globe and Mail.
Alas, the good vibes didn’t last. Aggrieved homeowners drew up a petition to evict the squatters, who numbered 100 at most and lived in two dozen tents. A neighbourhood meeting to discuss matters was disrupted by hecklers from the right-wing Edmund Burke Society. A Burker threw punches at a Grass Roots member and said Wacheea residents were “pigs.”
Other critics were less violent but nevertheless hostile.
“The moral standards of these people are not the moral standards of the community,” complained Terry Hryhor, president of the Parkdale Property Owners Association, according to the Star.
In early August, someone tossed kerosene on a fence at Mercer and set it ablaze. The fire department quickly doused the flames. While this arson attack was aimed at tent-city dwellers, members of the Mercer community could also be aggressive. A visiting reporter from the TorontoStar said he was accosted by knife-wielding thugs from the encampment.
As autumn approached, Ottawa began probing alleged financial mismanagement of Wacheea funding. Grass Roots was cleared of any wrongdoing, but in early September, the terms of the Mercer performance bond ended, meaning residents were no longer entitled to camp there.
Headline from the September 10, 1971, Globe and Mail.
On September 9, the 50 remaining Mercer occupants folded their tents and left. Reporters described them as listless and quoted Grass Roots leaders who felt frustrated and disillusioned.
Grass Roots did not attempt to resurrect Wacheea for a third time. Some former tent-city denizens who stuck together ended up living “in a run-down rooming house,” wrote the Star.
These Wacheea supporters were less than thrilled by their new lodgings. “There was no humor and no joy; an aura of despondency had impregnated their sullen lives,” noted the Star, as an idealistic experiment to shelter young people outdoors came to a sad end.
Sources: The July 13, 1971, edition of the Gazette; the July 20, 1971, edition of the Kingston Whig-Standard; the May 28, June 4, June 9, June 18, July 13, July 21, July 23, July 28, August 2, and September 10, 1971, editions of the Globe and Mail; the May 21, May 29, July 17, July 19, July 21, July 23, July 24, July 28, August 4, August 28, August 31, September 8, September 9, September 10, September 18, September 29, and October 19, 1971, editions of the Toronto Star.