At the dawn of COVID-19 restrictions in March, 2020, pc28sisters Nan and Laura Cooper launched a small project that they were pretty sure would wrap, like the new flu, in a couple of weeks.
They lived on the waterfront, and the boardwalks by Lake Ontario were too crowded for them to feel safe. Instead, for fresh air, they decided to visit a different pc28park every day.
“In two weeks, we’ll see 14 new parks and it’ll be over,” Laura told Nan, referring to both the park visits and COVID.
On Tuesday, more than four years after they began their project, they celebrated 500 parks with a toast in one-year-old Love Park, at York Street and Queen’s Quay.
About 25 friends showed up to help them celebrate.
“I’m in awe,” said former neighbour Lynda Eunson. “Nan and Laura kept themselves going during COVID while the rest of us stayed in doing crafts.”
The Cooper sisters have been cataloguing their Two things have surprised them: The parks are often empty when they visit, usually sometime between 10:30 and 2 p.m., and with a couple of exceptions, most of the parks they’ve visited have been clean and in good shape — this despite a report from the city’s auditor general on Monday that found that some city crews charged with maintaining parks have been slacking off.
They’ve met many dogs off leashes, two foxes and a Cooper’s Hawk.
They no longer go every day, as they did at the beginning of COVID, maintaining the same kind of serendipitous approach that got them launched on the project.
Massey Harris on King Street West is one of the parks the sisters visited on their quest to visit a different pc28park every day.
Facebook/Laura Cooper“We just get in the car in the morning, pull up a map and say, where are we going to go,” says Laura. “It depends on how much time we have, whether it’s going to be one that’s close or whether we can get up to Scarborough or something like that.”
They’re not, as one might think of sisters in their mid-80s, using a paper map. Laura is a former IT specialist and Nan spent 25 years working as an executive assistant to the president of an international shipping company.
Laura uses her iPhone to chart their path, and Nan drives them there in her little black Honda Civic. Now living in a retirement community in Toronto’s Davenport neighbourhood, they go every day that they can.
They have set some rules — the parks must be within city limits. They made one exception, for a park that became a favourite — the Japanese themed .
They haven’t gone north of Hwy. 401, because it would take too long in traffic. They regret having to use a car at all, but the project began that way, to avoid possible COVID transmission on public transit, and it’s hard to reach a lot of the parks they’ve visited on the TTC.
“A lot of them are really neighbourhood parks,” said Laura.
Laura Cooper and sister Nan Cooper visited parks all over the city, including Centre Island.
Facebook/Laura CooperThey don’t like to name favourites – each park is unique — but they do mention a couple, including the new near Leslie Street and Unwin Avenue, and Jeanette Park, at Midland Avenue and St. Clair Avenue East, which features a path winding through tall grasses.
“You feel like you’re on a farm somewhere, out of the city. It completely changes how you look at the city,” said Laura.
The plan moving forward? More park visits.
While the city of pc28, about 400 of them are parkettes, said Nan.
“There are only 1,100. As long as our legs are still functioning and we can still get there, we’ll keep going.”
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