Top 10 Historical Visits to Toronto

10. Etienne Brûlé, 1615-ish. The first person to explore all the Great Lakes! If you count only white European males as people.

9. John Graves Simcoe, 1793. He put Toronto on the map (albeit as York). Too bad the Americans found it and burned it in 1813.

8. Zebulon Pike, 1813. Part of said American forces. Fine, he visited as part of an attack on the city, but he also named a zillion-and-one things after himself. Unfortunately, they’re all called Pike instead of Zebulon.

7. The G20, 2010. Ahh, the memories. And the insurance claims, and secret laws, and ongoing legal battles.

6. Healey Willan, 1920–1968. Willan makes the list because one of his liturgical works includes the lyric “By Him the clouds drop fatness/The deserts bloom and spring.” I sang it in church choir every year at Thanksgiving and unfailingly dissolved into giggles at the idea of dieting clouds.

5. Hurricane Hazel, 1954. If only we could have the good kind of Caribbean weather, instead of the tropical storm kind.

4. Ernest Hemingway, 1919–1920. Perhaps we could commemorate his stint at the Toronto Star by opening another Sloppy Joe’s outpost and/or quaffing rum.

3. King George V, 1901. When you’re a royal, you can visit Casa Loma, ask to take home a horse, and get a polite refusal. When you’re a commoner, the staff take away your audio guide and show you the exit.

2. Wills and Kate, summer 2011. Will she wear a tiara? Will he wear a uniform? Will the combination of her shiny royal hair and his shiny royal head blind the denizens of our fair city? Stay tuned!

1. Snowstorm of the century, February 2, 2011. Forecast: 30 centimetres. Actual snowfall: 13 centimetres or less in the city. Enough said.