Miscellaneous Montreal

The main access to Montreal from the south is, as has been mentioned, the Jacques Cartier Bridge. It's named after the first European to visit the island – in 1535. He found a community of Iroquoian Indians living in a village called Hochelega. The next contact wasn't until 1605 but, by then, there was no trace of Hochelega, or any of the other villages or peoples that Cartier had recorded.

The first permanent settlement wasn't until 1642, when Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve founded what he intended to be a French, Catholic community working in harmony with the native population. That settlement was at the confluence of the St Lawrence and a smaller river called the Little St Pierre. The Pointe-à-Callière Museum stands there now:

It wasn't the ideal place for a village – not only did the two rivers regularly flood, but the natives weren't as friendly as hoped and were wont to attack. Despite this, the village grew to be a major fur-trading centre.

The museum's tower provides a great place to look out over the river and the old town.

This is the Notre Dame Basilica:

Looking north-east along the waterfront of the Vieux Port:

The museum stands on the site of one of the earliest buildings in Montreal, the remains of which can still be seen in the basement. The early settlers used some of the land as a burial ground. A later owner of the land, a cooper by the name of André Papineau, built his outhouse right on top of some of the graves:

The wooden square is what remains of the outhouse.

The Little St Pierre river became an open sewer and was, eventually, covered over. These days, the river has been diverted, but the remains of the covered-over channel are still there:

A later building on the site was the headquarters of the Royal Insurance Company – a very grand building demolished in 1951 after it became unsafe. In the basement of the museum are a number of models showing what the site would have looked like at different points in the past. For some reason, these are under the floor. This is the model showing the insurance building:

The current building was designed to reflect the previous occupant of the site.

Before leaving the waterfront, there's just time to pop back over to the Île Sainte Hélène, the site of the 1967 Exposition. Most of the pavilions were dismantled but the United States one wasn't. It's now called the Biosphere and contains exhibits illustrating various aspects of environmental science. The exterior is pretty impressive:

The interior less so - being rather "preachy".

Elsewhere, Montreal has some fine buildings. Facing Notre Dame is the Bank of Montreal:

This (in two parts because it's too big to fit on one picture) is the Sun Life Building. When it was built, it was the largest building in the British Empire:


This was originally a customs house:

Getting back to Notre Dame, the basilica is very ornate inside:

Although the building was designed by an Irish Protestant, you won't be surprised that he didn't do the interior. The organ has 9000 speaking pipes over 92 stops.

Another feature of Montreal is a huge network of underground shopping malls connected by corridors. There are over 32km of tunnels connecting shops, banks, apartment buildings, museums, exhibition centres, metro stations and, well, pretty much anything else. I imagine that in winter it must be very pleasant to be able to live your entire life without going outdoors.

This picture shows several levels. It was taken from the exhibition centre of the Centre Eaton and looks down past three retail levels to the metro station level. The underground city is as poorly signposted as everywhere else in Montreal, with the added fun that it's not as well mapped as the ground-level streets. Perhaps the Canadians could club together with the Australians and see if they can get a discount on street signs...

Right next door to the Centre Eaton is the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral:


Which is probably as good a place to stop as any.

Montreal is an amazing city – a wonderful combination of France and North America. I've wanted to visit Canada for years and now I have. Of course, there's quite a bit more of Canada than Montreal or even Quebec, but at least it's a start.