A wall of pale clay cliffs rises straight from the beach along Lake Ontario, with no buildings in the frame.
What Scarborough Bluffs looks like
The Scarborough Bluffs run about 15 kilometres along the Lake Ontario shoreline, rising as high as 90 metres at their tallest point. Eleven parks line the escarpment. is the only one with a beach and direct access to the water, and Brimley Road South is the only road into it.
The cliffs are what's left of the old shoreline of glacial Lake Iroquois, built from more than 12,000 years of sediment and cut back since by wind and water. The clay face is bare in most places, pale grey and tan, with narrow bands of grass and shrub on the upper slopes.
A cottage owned by the actor and comedian Billy Van lost a quarter of its footprint to the cliff edge in 2008 and was declared a safety hazard. In August 2020, a section of the bluffs near Lookout Point came down onto the beach with a sound loud enough that people nearby compared it to an explosion. Fresh slides of pale debris at the base of the cliffs are a normal sight.
Most of the other parks sit on top of the escarpment with no way down to the water. was called Scarborough Bluffs Park until the city renamed it, specifically to discourage people from climbing down the cliff. , farther along, has the same view and the same drop. , farther east, adds ruins to that clifftop view. Architectural fragments from demolished downtown Toronto buildings sit on the grounds of the former Guild Inn.
A trail through , named for the painter Doris McCarthy, is a way down to the shore on the eastern half of the bluffs.
Films shot in Scarborough Bluffs
Monk shot its 2002 episodes "Mr. Monk and the Psychic" and "Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation" at opposite ends of , then digitally added the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz to disguise the beach as San Francisco. Spasms, a 1983 horror film, opened with the bluffs standing in for a remote African island. was dressed as a German park for a reunion scene in Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story. , which sits on the clifftop with no way down to the water, stood in for Prince Edward Island throughout Road to Avonlea.
Prom Night, 1980
A masked killer stabs Slick and forces him to drive his van off a cliff at , sending him to his death. Prom Night, directed by Paul Lynch and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, shot over 24 days beginning in August 1979. A location scout who visited the bluffs in 2016 confirmed the scene was shot here but could not identify the exact vantage point used.
Star Trek: Discovery, 2019
Star Trek: Discovery's "The Sound of Thunder" and the Short Treks episode "The Brightest Star" were both filmed in 2019, at the same time on an outdoor set built into the bluffs. The set stood in for the Kelpien homeworld of Kaminar, its huts designed with the same angular lines as the Kelpien character Saru's facial makeup.
The Umbrella Academy, "Kindest Cut" (season 3)
In the season three episode "Kindest Cut," Klaus meets his mother on the white sand beach beneath the cliffs at . The Netflix series returned to the bluffs more than once across its run, alongside Hamilton's Gage Park.
What Scarborough Bluffs can double for
Scarborough Bluffs can stand in for a remote African island (Spasms, 1983), an alien planet's shoreline (Star Trek: Discovery and Short Treks), San Francisco's shoreline, with the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz added digitally (Monk) and Prince Edward Island (Road to Avonlea).
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