Winnie Czulinski –
It’s been Ports Toronto for a decade.
But this year, the organization responsible for Toronto’s harbour, the Marine Port of Toronto, Cruise Ship Terminal, Outer Harbour Marina and Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, has returned to its roots: its former legal name and historic federal identity.
“Reintroducing the Toronto Port Authority name is more than a rebrand – it’s a powerful affirmation of our foundational purpose and our future vision,” says Roelof-Jan (RJ) Steenstra, president and CEO, in a statement. “We honour our 115-year legacy as a city builder and steward of Toronto’s harbour, shaping the waterfront and enabling the city’s evolution.”
What remains constant are some special traditions.
One is the 165-year-old Top Hat Ceremony, typically held in late March, marking the opening of the port and the arrival of cargo. An annual tradition since 1861, the Top Hat Ceremony celebrates the arrival of the season’s first ocean-going vessel (known as a “saltie”) at the Port of Toronto.
Steenstra presides. “This is a very historical ceremony that welcomes the first ship into the Great Lakes and into the port.” Traditionally, the captain of said ship is crowned with a beaver-and-silk top hat more than two centuries old.
In 2025, Captain Sergei Soldatkin of the MV Blacky, bringing 19,000+ tonnes of sugar to Redpath refinery, was crowned with the antique top hat.
The Port Authority’s website says, “Early records show that the Port of Toronto’s first Harbour Master, Hugh Richardson, initiated the idea to entice ships to bring building materials into the harbour as early as possible each year, allowing Toronto – then a burgeoning city – to start its building season. Legend has it that the top hat acted as a ‘key to the city’ for a 24-hour period, enabling the captain and crew to eat and drink for free.”
Heralding the first “saltie” ship also is a reminder that 90 percent of our daily goods, our global trade, come to us from seafaring ships, according to industry sources such as the International Maritime Organization and the International Chamber of Shipping.
A newer tradition is the annual juried Perspectives Art Show, to adorn the pedestrian tunnel of Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. This year the call for entries closed January 26.
Present artwork includes that of Tessa Shank, a multidisciplinary artist from Nipissing First Nation and an alumna of OCAD University and George Brown College, now living in Toronto. Shank’s work is guided by Anishinaabeg culture, sharing traditional knowledge and teachings, inspired by nature, ethnobotany and people’s connections to the water, land and sky.
The Port Authority is working to clean up the harbour. From May to October 2025, its innovative Trash Trapping program, in partnership with the University of Toronto Trash Team, intercepted and removed 525 kilograms of anthropogenic debris – nearly 150,000 items – from the harbour and Lake Ontario.
The program uses a network of trash trapping technologies, including Seabins, WasteSharks, LittaTraps and skimming, to capture and remove floating litter from the harbour.
“As we’ve worked, our partnerships have grown, and so has our impact,” said Dr. Chelsea Rochman, the Trash Team’s head of operations. “Through more traps and more human power, we remove more and more plastic pollution from our waterfront every year.”
Data collected is used to inform preventative solutions. “Holistically, the work we do reduces the plastic pollution in Toronto’s water – protecting wildlife and humans.”
The Trash Trapping program will resume this year, enhanced by a new trash trap, quiet, electric and easy to use: the Collec’Thor. It can hold up to 100 kilograms of waste of micro/macro litter floating on the water’s surface. The Outer Harbour Marina will use three Collec’Thors, as will the U of T Trash Team along the inner harbour.
