I leaned against the car wearing my girlfriend’s undersized jacket talking to Archer while Bounce tried to get some sleep inside the car. We were waiting on Terapro to show up when a drunk couple started an argument down the street. It quickly escalated and soon the guy was shoving the chick against the car door and threatening strangulation. More annoyed than outraged I sighed. Archer called the cops and when the chick ran into the parking garage across the street the guy followed out of sight. I just wanted these people to go away so I could climb my building. But making sure I could still see them both I walked towards the garage. The woman came back out to her car and when she saw Archer on the phone she yelled for her drunk boyfriend and bitched at us for calling the cops. They peeled out and disappeared around the corner just as a squad car turned down the street toward us.  I let Archer do the talking and soon the cops left.

Satisfied that the cops were gone for good we stepped over the wall into the grounds. It still being Canada Day the place was totally deserted. We walked casually across the lot, weaving between materials and equipment. We went up an open staircase at the edge of the first floor and were then hidden inside the building. It wasn’t a long climb by itself but having been up over one hundred flights of stairs in the last week it was a might difficult. The roof was still a floppy patchwork of corrugated steel sheeting and rebar which gave under our weight. Terapro and I made our way up the red and white crane while Archer stayed on the roof.

I clipped my harness into the wire and walked down the jib. I knew that the protruding jib would make a good vantage point to get perspective on the unique shape of the building. As I sat down on a cross member a few feet from the tip I saw that I was right. Using electrical tape I fastened my tripod to the steel tubing of the jib and set up a shot. After clicking the shutter I realized that on one of the balconies of the near top floor of the occupied condo next door sat a group of people playing cards.  They were probably less than 150 feet away, 300 feet above the ground. We all were sharing nearly the same space and they had no idea. I could see them clearly but they did not notice me. These situations are one of the really fun parts of this hobby. I carefully packed up and walked back down the jib and we headed down the stairs.  I said goodbye to my Canadian hosts and got back in the car. I had a three hour drive to Niagara to make.

From this drain we split from the Canadians and went and tracked down a famous part of Toronto underground known as Gargantua. On the advice of a Brit who had visited some time back we found a manhole in the middle of a grass lot and down we went. It was a long walk before the twin box tunnels, of which I had seen plenty already, opened up into a rather large circular tunnel. For a pure storm drain this tunnel certainly lives up to its name. This was like treading down the Hollywood walk of fame of the drainer’s world. Many a respected elder drainer had tread this same curved concrete. It was a hall of greatness.

After crawling back out of the ground and replacing the heavy steel lid we got back in the car and at last found an open pharmacy. I sat in the car sipping chocolate milk and smearing peanut butter on bread with an old credit card. This was shaping up to be a pretty good day. We drove back to the waterfront and the heavy pedestrian traffic that was already building made getting a parking spot take some time. But we found a nice, free spot, and started eyeing spots from which to watch the impending fireworks. The crowds were quite orderly, all the men had their shirts on, nobody looked drunk. These Canadians clearly didn’t know how to celebrate their patriotism. I was convinced the riots of a few days prior must have been incited by my own countrymen.

The Malt was surrounded by people. We hopped the fence out of view but couldn’t find a way in that wouldn’t get us seen by less than twenty of them. We went back over the fence and kept walking. We found a crane. Posted on the fence around the site were big signs. “Beware, Attack Dogs on Site.” Laughable. Guard dogs are illegal in most American states and I wagered the Canadians would have similar rules. A few bangs on the fence and some shouting fortified my assumption. When such things are declared so loudly, “Warning, area under surveillance” They are almost always total lies. Real cameras and real dogs speak for themselves, cheap signs are a dead giveaway that no other security exists and only serves as a joke to explorers and the less moral types. We made it up the crane just in time to catch the fireworks. Though farther away than the Malt would have been it was still a good vantage point and I always like it better a few stories up anyway.

We found a flight of stairs quickly and quietly. Upon the treads sat a section of scaffolding around which we had to carefully navigate. With each clang and thud we made getting through we knew we could possibly alert the guards to our presence. We got through it, turned the corner, and found another set in front of us. More tip towing and unwanted noise and we were through an climbing a meandering stairwell. I was stoked. I knew the likely hood of running into a worker or guard at the higher levels was low. The top was ours for the taking. We took a break every ten floors for catching breath and rehydrating, a stack of drywall forty stories up is a pretty sweet place to sit and chill for a few minutes. As we were climbing one of the last flights of stairs I looked up to see a man staring right at me.

A split second of terror gripped me. Any moment this guy was going to start screaming about cops and get the fuck out and we would have to run like hell. When I realized that I was looking at my own reflection I felt pretty damn stupid. The roof of this building was a slanted plane of glass and the angle made it look as though my reflection was standing just above me on the top floor. Minutes later I was standing at the base of the crane and realizing that the extra shirt I had put on was far too little to keep out the biting wind. The crane itself was lit up like a christmas tree but being over 50 stories up it didn’t trouble us. One would need a telescope to see us climbing the few sections of ladder to the top.

Cold! How could it be so cold in July? I shut it out nonetheless and took in the view. To my left the main cluster of Toronto seemed small. The CN tower o my right did not. 50 stories up and in comparison to that soaring needle we might as well have been at street level. The lake was a huge expanse of black in front of me and suburban Canada stretched out behind. The intense light from below bounced photons off the white cross members of the boom and into the camera’s sensor with nice results.

On our way out I was grateful to be back out of the wind and by the time we were back on the ground and out the fence I was pretty beat. After a brief walk and a shake of hands with local explorer Archer, we got back to the car to get some sleep. Tomorrow was Canada Day, and we wanted plenty of energy to take advantage.

Next door to the site was a more finished low rise building built by the same developer. The job site office into which I had seen a hardhat wearing dude walk earlier sat directly across from the open door to the high rise. But here there was no fence nor any signage. Feigning innocence we walked over and through the door. Where were the stairs? We needed to get higher and quick. We walked past a room with blueprints and somebody’s jacket hanging on the wall. Somebody else was here someplace. On the other side of the building was a door. HI-LITE said he had seen a set of stairs going up from that other side. We exited on the other side of the fence from the street, turned left and found the stairs.

The name of the game was silence. Obviously somebody was here somewhere. Maybe it had been the guy I had seen but maybe not. We quietly climbed the stairs the twenty or so levels and got to the roof while the sky still had some light in it. I looked down at the street and saw no sign of any disturbance. I was a bit paranoid over a story I’d heard of some kids getting busted by motion sensors at a construction site in town. I had even seen some bubble cameras on a site nearby. Must be a Canadian thing, I had never seen a site in the States that went to the trouble. But I had been watchful and was sure then that we were safe and sound and free to enjoy the view. I took a few minutes to strike a pose stolen from one Quantum-X and take some photos from the elevator hoist.

The wind started to kick up a bit and the temperature was dropping quick. It had been around 75 Fahrenheit in Detroit and I knew that we were a bit farther north but it was getting way colder than I had expected. I hadn’t brought anything warmer than a tee shirt and that was setting in pretty hard the colder it got. Looking around I noticed how many cranes were really up. In addition to seeming to have several skylines I counted over thirty tower cranes, and that was only the ones that were visible from that angle. Between our condo tower and the waterfront rose the Ritz-Carlton. A towering stack of glass topped off by a big white tower crane. I had to have it.