That was painful. I’ve just come back from an afternoon out where despite having a broken kneecap I’ve walked an agonising 116% of my daily total today.
At least last night I’d had a good sleep. This is one of the most comfortable beds in which I’ve ever slept and I really would have enjoyed it even more had I not left the alarm to ring at 07:30 this morning i.e. just 3 or so hours after I went to bed.
However no danger whatsoever of me leaving the bed at that time. Even 11:48, or 05:48 around here when I finally did surface was probably an exaggeration.
After the medication I updated the blog so you can now find out where I went yesterday and then I went for a shower and a clothes-washing.
And I forgot all about the phenomenon of “Québec Showers”.
“What are “Québec Showers”?” I hear new readers ask.
Regular readers of this rubbish will know all about “Québec Showers”. That’s where you see C and F on the taps and you think that they mean Chaud and Froid but they actually mean “Cold” and “Freezing”.
Actually, despite the foregoing, the shower is quite nice. It washed me and my clothes a treat.
Another thing that I’d done was to send a few messages to various people and as a result I went out at 11:40.
The last time that we were here in the rue St Herbert there was a big hole in the ground just down the road from the hotel – the brick-built building to the left – where I usually stay.
When we wandered past this morning we noticed that a huge tower block of apartments had mushroomed up to fill the hole and by the looks of things everyone has already moved in. It didn’t take them long to throw it up.
It’s probably a quite popular, and quite expensive place right across the road from the Berri-UQAM metro station.
Down at the Metro station at Berri-UQAM I met Dorothée. She was a young girl whom I met in New Brunswick while she was on a school exchange and we kept in touch. She’s now studying at the University of Montreal and so she nipped out in her lunch break to meet me.
We had a lengthy chat that went on for two hours, chatting all about old times and so on, and then she had to leave for a lecture.
After Dorothée left to go back to University I went to sit outside in the sun for an hour. At least I have some nice weather for it.
The crowds are out today loitering around in the place Emilie Gamelin making the most of the good weather before the leaves turn golden and begin to drop off.
And who was Emilie Gamelin when she was at home, if she ever was?
She was the founder of the Sœurs de la Providence de Montréal, one of the many religious orders that existed in Québec. She contracted cholera during the epidemic of 1851 and died shortly afterwards.
Once I’d recovered from my exertions I made my way to the Gare Berri-UQAM and caught the Metro to Place d’Armes for a wander around the square and the cathedral.
The cathedral was built in the 1820s to the design of James O’Donnell but since then has been amended considerably. The two towers, for example, were designed by John Ostell and were erected in the early 1840s.
Since then further alterations have taken place and a programme of restoration began in 1979 following an arson attack the previous year.
Before the basilique was erected there was an earlier church on the site of what is now the Place d’Armes that was demolished in 1830.
The Place d’Armes is now the home of Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, one of the founders of Montréal, or Ville-Marie as it was known back in his day.
He comes from the region of Troyes in France and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that on one of our visits to the town we went to have a look AT HIS FAMILY HOME.
The site of VIlle-Marie was established after several confrontations with the First-Nation tribes.
Both Cartier and Champlain encountered settlements of Iroquois in the immediate area and once the first colonists arrived here in 1642 they attempted to push out the Iroquois.
On 30th March 1644 there was a confrontation in the immediate vicinity between a party of settlers and a band of Iroquois that ended inconclusively.
Although the war with the First nations raged on for another 50-odd years this confrontation is considered by some to be the decisive moment in the establishment of the European settlement of Ville-Marie.
Of course, these days times have changed.
European exploitation and mistreatment of autochtone inhabitants is being rightly recognised for what it was and the rights of the autochtones to defend their land, their settlements and their way of life are being rightly recognised as the heroic struggle that it was.
For that reason, the placing of a plaque to acknowledge that is long overdue and I’m surprised to see that we had to wait until 2019 to see it.
It’s not of course the first time that we’ve seen something similar.
When we were at the Little Big Horn battlefield we encountered memorial stones to the native Americans who “died defending the Lakota way of life” and when I finish editing all of the photos YOU’LL SEE THEM.
As well as that, when we were in Santa Fe we saw a plaque that spoke in extremely dismissive, if not offensive terms of the native Americans, with an explanatory and apologetic plaque attached at its side.
Times indeed are a-changin’
Despite all of the times that i’ve come to Montréal I’ve never managed to take a decent photograph of Le Vieux Séminaire De Saint-Sulpice
There has always been scaffolding around it, or lorries parked in front of it, or pedestrians who won’t get out of the way, and today is no exception.
It’s important to take a photo of it because it is said to be the oldest surviving building in Montréal, dating from the 1680s and the members of the Sulpician Order took up occupancy in 1685.
There’s said to be some very historic archives in there with records going back to the 16th Century and how I would love to lose myself inside there for a couple of days.
From the Place d’Armes I went for a wander through the old town down to the old part of the port to see what’s going on.
There aren’t very many commercial freighters that use the old part of the port these days and the freight facilities are pretty much derelict. Instead they’ve constructed a huge modern cruise ship terminal and we’ve seen plenty of cruise ships in here in the past.
And there’s another cruise ship in there today. I’ll have to go for a wander to see who she is and what she’s doing here.
You can see what I mean about the cruise terminal.
It looked quite a tempting sight for me to go to visit but there were quite a few security guards loitering around who wouldn’t let anyone past who didn’t have a boarding card. They didn’t seem to welcome anyone who might be seen as a potential stowaway .
But it does hold a special fascination for me because it was probably somewhere around here that my great grandparents first set foot ashore in Canada when they emigrated from here after my great grandfather’s military service ended.
So it looks as if we have two for the price of one here.
Firstly, let’s mention the oil tanker that’s here fuelling up the cruise ship. She’s called Juno Marie.
She was built in 2004 and displaces about 2000 tonnes. That’s not very much but she presumably just runs around the port fuelling up the ships that call in here.
We’ve seen her before, in AUGUST 2018 in fact when we were passing through Montreal on the way to the Arctic, when she was also fuelling up a cruise ship that was calling here.
As for the cruise ship herself, she’s called Amera
She was built in 1988, displaces about 35,000 tonnes and carries a total of 835 passengers and 440 crew.
A week ago she was at St Anthony and then St John’s in Newfoundland and since then she’s been sailing up the St Lawrence River, having done a lap around the Saguenay Fjord at one point with a port of call at a small town called Port Alfred.
She arrived here in Montreal earlier this afternoon.
In the meantime, having seen Juno Marie just now coiling in her pipes and setting sail out of the berth she’s now heading off downriver.
What I imagine that she’s doing is going to the storage tanks at the port to fuel up ready for her next client. She’s the kind of ship that’s being kept busy.
The crane on her deck will probably be for swinging the hose out to the ship that she would be fuelling. Modern fuelling hoses are reinforced these days and would be quite heavy.
Amera is not the only cruise ship in port this afternoon.
This one is Viking Star who is basically following in the footsteps, or, more appropriately, the wake of Amera, although she put in at Sydney on Cape Breton Island last week on her way around.
Launched in 2014, she is the flagship of the Viking Line. Displacing 48,000 tonnes, she can carry 902 passengers and 602 crew
Her relatively compact size means that she can fit into some ports into which other cruise ships can’t fit, although the town of Bourne in Massachussetts will certainly have one or two remarks to make about that.
Another ship that’s in port today is the VM S Hercules
She’s described as a floating crane and is owned by the St Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation. Believe it or not, she was actually built in 1961 by Marine Industries of Sorel, just down the river, and displaces 2100 tonnes
She’s not actually a ship, in the general way of things. She’s more like a large floating pontoon with an enormous crane on top so she’s probably used for maintenance and recovery rather than for unloading freighters that arrive in port.
If you had come here 50 years ago the waterfront scene would have been completely different.
All along the port would have been grain silos like these, dozens of them. All of the grain from the Great Plains would have arrived here and been stored in the silos ready to be shipped to Europe.
However in 1959 the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway has permitted larger ships to sail further inland via the Great Lakes
As well as that, with there being a railway line between Winnipeg and Churchill on the shore of the Hudson Bay, because of global warming the Bay is ice-free long enough for the grain to be shipped out of Churchill. Because of the curvature of the earth, it’s a much shorter and less-complicated route to Europe.
One thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall as a common feature is photographs of people taking photographs.
And, not to be out-done, this afternoon down at the old port we come across not one or two but probably a whole dozen people here down in the port taking photographs of a young lady.
It goes without saying that seeing everyone here, I couldn’t resist taking a photograph of them all myself.
There’s no doubt and judging by all of the equipment that the photographers have, cameras as well as lighting equipment, it looks very much as if I’ve stumbled upon some kind of outdoor photography class.
That much seems to be evident by all of the photographers standing around exchanging information about settings and apertures and the like.
Usually, most photographers guard their settings quite jealously. They are very persoonal and it’s quite oftten the difference between half an aperture or a tenth of a second that can transform a good photograph into a great one
As far as I could tell, in my mind that she’s a professional model being moved around as her photographers think fit.
But whoever the model is, she doesn’t look all that comfortable sitting there on the back of that bench. However the model seems to be enjoying herself, being the centre of attention with all of those guys around her. And who can blame her?
Had there been a pause in the session I’d have gone to have a chat with her but as they were all so busy and I was pushed for time I left them to it and wandered away.
Pushed for time indeed.
As you might expect with a working port and a very large country to service, there’s a thriving network around here and it’s connected to the railway network at each end of the docks.
And having heard the rhythmic clanking of the bell at the level crossing that told me that there was a train on its way.
It’s a double-headed train with two locomotives. That tells us IF OUR OBSERVATIONS IN WYOMING In 2002 are anything to go by, that it’s half a mile long.
The locomotive at the head of the train is painted in Canadian National Railway colours and is numbered 4135
That tells us that she was built by the Electro-Motive Diesel Company or EMD, a subsibuary (at least, in 2022 because the company changes hands often) of the Caterpillar equipment company
She’s a GP-9, or the ninth version of their general-purpose locomotives and was built as long ago as December 1957
Her actual designation is that she’s a GP9RM, the RM indicating that at some point in the past she’s been rebuilt and so no longer complies with the manufacturer’s specifications. Not that that’s a surprise for a locomotive that’s almost as old as I am.
As for exactly how she’s been rebuilt, that’s impossible for anyone really to say. Someone who seems to know what he’s talking about tells me that “no two rebuild programs were identical”.
The one behind is a much more modern locomotive, at least by Canadian standards.
She’s another EMD machine, this time a GP38-2 version, built between 1972 and 1986.
She’s currently wearing the livery of GATX, the General American Transport Company founded in Chicago in 1898 to lease railway wagons to rail shipment companies.
Since then the company has branched out into the leasing of locomotives and other railway equipment.
Unfortunately I can’t tell you too much about her. The company doesn’t tell us too much about the history of its locomotives.
There doesn’t seem to be too much information about her by reference to the fleet number either. It’s quite possible that she’s been renumbered at some point in her history
At the rear of the train is a caboose in which the guard sits.
In Europe it would be called a guard’s van and a caboose would probably be known as the offspring of a Native American woman.
One of the purposes of the guard’s presence is to keep an eye on the level crossings to make sure that no vehicle or pedestrian tries to force a passage across in front of the oncoming train. Traffic control along here isn’t very efficient.
Here’s something that we’ve been noticing as we’ve been coming here in the late summer over the years
The big wheel has become something of a major attraction here in the port since its erection in 2017 to celebrate the 375th anniversary of the founding of the city.
It’s 60 metres high, has 24 cabins and cost $28 million, which was apparently financed by a group of private investors. It operates all through the year thanks to its heating system and resistance to strong winds, and can carry a fulll load of 336 people.
Another attraction here in the port of Montreal is the Tyrolean Zip wire.
It’s the longest urban zipline in Canada apparently at 365 metres and is 25 metres from the ground.
Something that is unusual as far as any European in concerned is to see an upper weight limit on equipment such as this. It’s something that wouldn’t usually concern anyone but, I suppose, being situated close to the border with the USA, it’s of some kind of importance.
On the way down to the port I came by the Marché Bonsecours.
The site itself was one of the most important in the city and after the fire in 1833 that destroyed the house of brewer John Molson that was situated here the municipality bought it.
From 1844-1847 the present building was erected here as a market to the designs of William Footner to replace the older Marché St Anne.
Following the riots that led to the burning down of the Parliament building in 1849 the delegates met here for a while and once another Parliament building was inaugurated the Municipal council met here until 1878.
Today, it’s now a commercial centre with boutique-type shops and cafes.
It’s also used as a space for exhibitions of art and the like, and rooms are available for hire by the public.
It’s really very hard to believe that a building such as this was at one time left derelict and in 1963 there was even a proposal for its demolition. But as we’ve seen so many times in North America, there doesn’t seem to be the same pride in the patrimony as in other parts of the world.
So abandoning another good rant for the moment, I’m going to wander down to the waterfront.
We’ve seen this building many times in the past. It’s the Memorial Clock Tower, one of the typical symbols of Montreal and is a monument or memorial to the Canadan sailors who lost their lives during World War I
The tower was designed by Paul Leclaire and was built between 1919 and 1922. The mechanism is based on the mechanism that works Big Ben in London.
You wouldn’t have had this view of it in 1922 though. As I mentioned elsewhere, the Port of Montreal was formerly one of the leading grain exporting ports and the area in front of the tower where you can see all the trees was formerly the site of yet more grain sheds.
While I was busily admiring the Memorial Clock Tower, I noticed a ship coming upriver so I decided to loiter around to see who she might be.
The ship to the left is hidden by a wharf so I can’t see her name and by the time I’d checked on my maritime radar she had left, but the one heading my way is called Oceanex Connaigra
You can tell by the writing on the hull that she’s owned by the Oceanex company.
When I returned to my hotel I had a quick look to see what I could find out about the company.
It’s based in St John’s in Newfoundland and its mission statement is to provide transportation services between the Atlantic coast of North America and Newfoundland and Labrador, from whole shiploads to individual vehicles
It’s been carrying on this business in one form or another since 1909
As for the ship herself, she was built in 2013 in Germany
She displaces 26,000 tonnes, is 210 metres long and has a draught of 8.45 metres. She cost the company $108 000 000 to purchase. The company chairman told me that to fuel her up would cost $1 800 000 and that was a long time ago too. God knows what it would cost now.
According to the records of the maritime radar, she seems to operate a shuttle service between St John’s and Montreal.
What caught my eye about her was the fact that she can transport “individual vehicles”.
And so as she sailed past I was expecting to see that she had some kind of Ro-Ro configuration, and I was rather interested to see that she does have that capability.
But what I found even more interesting is that she is licenced to carry 27 passengers too. Are you thinking what i’m thinking? I shall have to go and sweep the dust off Strider.
On the way back to my hotel I went past the site of the Gare Dalhousie
It’s a national monument because, as a plaque on the side of the wall proudly proclaims, "the first regular transcontinental train departed from this place 28th June 1886".
However, that’s a complete and absolute fabrication, as several million people who live in Canada will tell you.
The train left here on that date and headed for Port Moody which is on the Pacific coast. There is another 1250 kilometres that separates Montreal from Halifax on the Atlantic coast and this “first regular transcontinental train” didn’t cover a single kilometre of that distance.
But then again, the people of the Maritime Provinces of Canada are quite used to being totally ignored by anyone further west and so this is absolutely no surprise whatsoever. Nevertheless, it is pretty shameful
The train, and the railway station were run by the Canadian Pacific railway so it seems to be absolutely appropriate that it later came to be the home of the National Circus School. Clowns a-plenty, I should imagine.
At one time the Canadian Pacific had quite an extensive network of lines in the Maritimes but practically overnight in the 1980s the company wiped it out entirely. Maybe the statement on the plaque is Canadian Pacific’s way of trying to hide its embarrassment.
Just down the road from the Gare Dalhousie is my favourite building in the whole of Montreal – the Gare Viger.
Gare Dalhousie only lasted as a passenger terminus until 1898. The Gare Viger, designed by Bruce Price was opened as a railway station, railway offices and hotel.
The hotel closed in 1935 and the rooms were taken over by part of the administration of the city who stayed here until 2006, having bought out the rest of the building when the Canadian Pacific ceased operations from here in 1951.
When we first came past here in 2010 it was boarded up and derelict. We’ve been slowly watching the renovations take place and much of it now is let as offices. But there’s still a lot to do with the building if it’s to be restored to its former glory.
A very slow, very agonising (and I do mean “slow and agonising”) walk brought me all the way back to Berri-UQAM – a walk that would usually take me about 15 minutes but today took me about an hour – and I caught a metro train back to Cote-Vertu.
When I’d been there yesterday I’d seen a pizza place that sold pizza by the topping so I chose one that didn’t include cheese. And it really was delicious.
There’s a fruit wholesaler there as well so I stocked up with grapes and bananas
On the way back I was feeling rather better and I moved a little easier. The climb up the stairs was ever so slightly easier but they had changed the code on the front door here and it was quite an effort to persuade someone to open the door for me.
Once inside I had a listen to the dictaphone. We were discussing one of my father’s old vans last night. When we were kids we had a Bedford Utilabrake, CA Bedford and had it for a couple of years. It was as rotten as hell and it went on its way eventually. We were chatting about it last night and much of that which we discussed we talked was actually quite accurate which was a big surprise
So having written up my notes I’ll go to bed. I’ll add in the photos at some other date – there are over 35 photos from today’s walk to edit and sort.
But a good sleep in the comfortable bed will do me good – no alarm until late and sweet dreams (I hope).
So who’s going to disturb me first then.
While I’m here I’ll go to have a look at my train.
