A council was gridlocked over development charges. Then Ontario promised $1.3B

The turtle rises from the water, poised to move toward the chamber of Toronto City Hall. This six-foot-tall limestone gesture of re-emergence is the centrepiece of the new Spirit Garden at Nathan Phillips Square, which brings an Indigenous presence to the city’s ceremonial heart.At the garden’s centre sits the Teaching Lodge, a hybrid of longhouse and circular wigwam fashioned from glue-laminated ash. The structure invites local Indigenous communities to gather for ceremony and reflection. “It represents a cross-cultural approach to Indigenous design,” says Brian Porter of Two Row...