The wait is almost over. On January 6, 2018 at 11 AM come celebrate the opening of The Bentway Skate Trail and our first ever Winter Season!

Get out of hibernation and reimagine winter with a full weekend of FREE fun activities and events, including musical performances from Charmie Deller, Carmen Braden, demonstrations of Ice Breaking a unique hybrid of breakdancing and freestyle ice skating by the Toronto Ice Skate Group, DJ sets from Skratch Bastid and Nino Brown, food and drink, pop-up curling, our inaugural public art exhibition Constructions of the Everyday, and more.

Ongoing winter programming will include free Monday night skate rentals; Beats and Bents Friday night skate parties with a rotating cast of DJs, and skate instruction and DJ and Ice Breaking Workshops.

A skating village, designed by tongtong, will be installed at The Bentway and will house the skate rental shop, warming stations and a variety of seating options.

On weekend evenings, skaters are invited to warm up in the Strongbow Lounge, which will be serving up Strongbow Apple Ciders and other fine Molson Coors products. A curated food truck program will serve hot food, warm and cold drinks, and decadent desserts.

Throughout the Winter Season, The Bentways inaugural public art exhibition, Constructions of the Everyday, will be on view. For over fifty years the Gardiner Expressway has been a defining feature of Torontos urban landscape.

In a radical act of renewal, The Bentway reimagines this static structure and imbues it with renewed relevance for a contemporary city. Embracing the spirit of transformation, the visual artists commissioned for Constructions of the Everyday ask visitors to find new value and beauty in the structures of everyday life.

Skate rentals available.

Opening hours:

Monday-Thursday: 11am-9pm rentals available 4pm-9pm

Fridays and Saturdays: 11am-11pm rentals available all day

Sundays: 11am-9pm rentals available all day

The Bentway is maintained, operated, and programmed by The Bentway Conservancy. The project was made possible through the collaboration of a range of city-builders and experts, including the City of Toronto, Waterfront Toronto, Judy and Wilmot Matthews, Ken Greenberg Consultants, PUBLIC WORK, Fort York National Historic Site, and Artscape.

The Bentway is a proud member of the High Line Network, an international network of projects that transform underutilized infrastructure into new urban landscapes.

The Bentways 2018 Winter Season is supported by the City of Toronto, the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund an agency of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Sport, Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Strongbow, and Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts.

Special thanks to 102.1 the Edge, the Ontario Tire Stewardship, Giant Containers, and Style Garage.