The Friends of Fort York and Garrison Common is a registered charity (#89970 5966 RR0001) supported by donations, grants and generous volunteers. We exist primarily to support Fort York National Historic Site, owned and operated as a museum site by the City of Toronto, and advocate its best interests, but are committed to the well-being of our neighbourhood too.

We came together in 1994 to participate in official City planning around Fort York National Historic Site.

In the beginning The Friends was an informal group of up to two dozen people. As the immediate planning issues affecting the National Historic Site passed, our organization wanted to avoid fading away as had been the fate of our predecessors in defending Fort York against threat of destruction in the early 1900s and during the late 1950s, when the City proposed to demolish or move the site to build the Gardiner Expressway. Incorporation was seen as a step to achieving continuity. Our charter under the Canada Corporations Act was issued on May 29, 1995. Next, our registration as a charitable organization under the Income Tax Act was granted effective Jan. 1, 1998. Later, when our goals were enlarged to include raising money for a Visitors’ Centre and other longer-term purposes, the Fort York Foundation/La Fondation Fort York was incorporated with its own board, officers and charitable status.

The bylaws of The Friends of Fort York authorize a board of up to twenty-five directors, who also constitute the membership. We invite anyone with an interest in Fort York and the founding of Toronto as a city to join our cause.

While defending the integrity of the site has always been our first priority, support for programming has come next. Convinced of the need to rebuild an active military “living history” presence at the fort, which had been a casualty of City of Toronto budget cuts in the early 1990s, we took over responsibility for the Fort York Guard from the City in 1999 and founded the Fife and Drum Corps the following year. We recruited, trained, outfitted and helped pay the wages for an annual summer guard of 20 to 25 young men and women for 25 years (until 2022). As of 2025, Toronto History Museums has taken over responsibility for running the Fort York Guard while FoFY has responsibility for looking after uniforms that outfit the Guard and occasionally assists the City with this program.

The Friends and the Foundation have variously initiated, supported and participated in:

• Publications, e.g., Fort York: a Short History and Guide by Carl Benn (2007); Setting a Fine Table: Historical Desserts and Drinks from the Officers’ Kitchens at Fort York, edited by Elizabeth Baird and Bridget Wranich, (2013), Recipes for Victory: Great War Food from the Front and Kitchens Back Home in Canada (2018), and Fort York: Stories from the Birthplace of Toronto, edited by Adrian Gamble (2018);
• The Fife and Drum quarterly newsletter/journal, (2003-2023);
• planning studies, e.g., Fort York: Setting It Right: Fort-Centred Planning and Design Principles (2000);
• a $26-million capital campaign culminating in the opening of the Fort York Visitor Centre in 2014.

We largely accomplish our goals through purpose-driven committees led by individual directors. Committees active as of August 2026, in addition to the statutory committees (Nominations, Finance and Executive) are:

• Fort York Guard for supporting Fort York staff in running this program;
• Precinct Advisory for planning issues;
• History and Communications for maintaining our website and social media and generating content that promotes the history of Fort York, its precinct and early Toronto (Town of York); and
• Historic Foodways for ensuring support to Fort York staff for culinary history, recipe testing and publication.

In the past, we have acted to protect and enhance Fort York through public and government advocacy. For example, working with City of Toronto Museums staff, we had Canada’s National Historic Sites Board confirm new boundaries for the site in 2004. We designed and paid for public service messages (“What is Fort York?”) in Spacing magazine leading up to the War of 1812 bicentennial. We support the efforts of the staff through exhibits, programs, live interpreters, and historic settings to encourage a new level of understanding about the War of 1812 era and Fort York’s role in the development of modern-day Toronto.