Bright Lights, Dark Spirits

All cities have spirits, and all spirits have an animal familiar. A brief history of the bear of Berlin, the crow of Tokyo, and the blind white alligator king of New York City.

November 7, 2014

Chris Michael is the deputy editor of the Cities desk at the Guardian, near the brain of the London kraken. He was previously with the New York Times...

Illustrations by Sophia Foster-Dimino

Illustrations by Sophia Foster-Dimino

 

Toronto: Sea Mink
Once upon a time, before Rob Ford was mayor, even before the Rogers Centre was SkyDome, Toronto had a waterfront. On this waterfront lived Neovison macrodon, the sea mink, a lithe and beautiful nocturnal creature that spent most of its time alone, frolicking by the muddy little town of what was then called York. Aptly enough for a Canadian mammal, the sea mink's fur was coarser and redder than its American cousin's. It was also larger, nearly a metre long, making its pelt particularly prized by trappers. They hunted it to extinction. Or did the giant frog squatting in SkyDome devour it? Whatever the case, the Toronto-based species of the sea mink is no more. Only the American mink remains. The fur market in Toronto, meanwhile, is bullish.

Chris Michael is the deputy editor of the Cities desk at the Guardian, near the brain of the London kraken. He was previously with the New York Times/Asahi crows in Tokyo and the Trucker magazine frogs in Toronto.