Montréal, Québec, Canada (Sault-au-Récollet) (Côte-St-Michel) (Côte-St-Paul)
1899 - Montreal

Montreal, the largest city of the province of Quebec, is finely situated. It is built on an island in the St. Lawrence, thirty miles long by seven miles wide ; and is the point at which ocean navigation ceases, and river and lake navigation begins. The large ocean steamers puff their way up the St. Lawrence River a thousand miles to unload their goods at Montreal ; while numerous small sailing vessels and steamers, on their way down the great river, stop at Montreal. It is not surprising then that Montreal, owing to its fine natural position, should have become the largest city of all British America .

A beautiful view of Montreal is obtained by descend ing the St. Lawrence in a steamboat. There are numer ous rapids above the city which steamboats are obliged to “ shoot.” This is dangerous work . White, foaming waves strike the bows, and whirl away to the stern. The vessel swerves sharply from the dangerous rocks. The thunder of the rapids mingles with the laughter and glee of the passengers. They know no danger ; but the captain looks sober and anxious.

The Lachine Rapids are the most perilous to pass. As the boat approaches them , an Indian pilot, from the village on shore, is taken on board. The captain orders every one to remain in his place, in order that the boat may be perfectly balanced while running this last and most terrible gauntlet. The pilot grasps the wheel strongly ; and down the narrow , shallow channel she flies , sharply turning from the dark, jagged rocks. The lips and cheeks of many a stalwart passenger are white, but the pilot, in whose hands are so many lives, stands unmoved, with his eyes fixed upon the curves of the shore. If he should once turn his eyes away , and look at the rapids themselves, he would lose his bearings, and the steamer would be destroyed. In a few moments the rapids are passed. There is now nothing to disturb one's enjoyment of the beautiful approach to Montreal.

Far away from our entrance to the bay, is the Victoria Bridge, which linked the shores of the St. Lawrence together thirty years ago. The river is a mile and three quarters wide where it is spanned by this bridge. On account of its great length the bridge appears so low , that travelers often ask if the funnel of the steamboat is not to be lowered on passing under. Drawing nearer, and seeing the great height of the structure, they smile at their error in judgment.

Entering the harbor, the city lies spread out before us, with its fine docks and warehouses, and the spires of its many churches ; and, in the background, is pine-clad Mount Royal, the stately mountain that gives its name to the noble city at its feet. The twin towers of Notre Dame Cathedral rise conspicuous above the lesser land marks.

Other beautiful views of the city can be obtained from the towers of Notre Dame, and from the summit of Mount Royal.

This mountain , which forms the western boundary of the town, is seven hundred feet high . There are three ways of ascent. One is by the road which winds up ward to the summit from the southeastern side ; another way is by the elevator ; and the third way is by means of numerous flights of steep, wooden steps. Those who take this climb arrive at the top with panting breath and shaking knees. But the view fully repays them.

On all sides stretches an immense plain, through which the majestic St. Lawrence rolls its blue flood . Many green islands lie , like fallen leaves, upon its watery surface . To the southwest is the valley of the Ottawa, whose yellow, turbid stream joins the St. Lawrence several miles above Montreal.

Far away are blue ranges of mountains. The Laurentian Mountains skirt the northern horizon ; the Green Mountains, shadowy and cloudlike, lie to the south. Lake Champlain is visible in the distance. Fleecy clouds float in the sky ; the fresh wind fans your cheek ; and, looking downward, you see the city at your feet, lying between the mountain and the river. It extends five miles along the shore, and two miles inland to the foot of Mount Royal, and occupies a space of about eight square miles. It is built upon terraces, which mark the former channels of the river.

The northern and southern ends of the city are the poorer quarters. Here are factories, mills, workshops, and the houses of the working men , mostly built of wood or brick . In the centre, near the river, stand the stately blocks of warehouses, business houses, and public buildings. The homes of the wealthy men are in the western part of the city, on the lower spurs of Mount Royal.

The top of the mountain is laid out in a fine park, which cost the city three millions of dollars. Mountain Park, as it is called , abounds in beautiful trees and shady drives, which are a favorite afternoon resort. The park is still incomplete. It is intended to lay out some of the grounds as gardens, and leave the rest in its natural wild state. There are to be preserves for game and wild animals.

On the northern side of the mountain are quarries of limestone, the building stone of the city. Public buildings, warehouses, and private residences, all are built of this beautiful gray stone, which resists the attacks of the weather wonderfully.

About one -third of the way up the mountain, on the eastern side, is the reservoir. Water is brought in an open canal from the St. Lawrence, five miles above the city, to this great artificial pond, which has been cut from the solid rock at considerable pains and cost.

The Catholic and Protestant cemeteries occupy the western slopes of Mount Royal. The Catholic cemetery is a very interesting place to visit. Here and there, throughout the grounds of the cemetery, are small chapels or little grottos, that, followed in a definite order, lead to a small hill on which are placed three crosses. Hence they form what is known as the Way of the Crosses.

On certain feast days the chapels are open , and the black - robed priest leads the people from one to another. On the inner wall of each chapel is a raised carving, which is brightly colored, and which represents some scene from the Bible. The priest explains each picture to the listening throng, and at last leads them to the little hill of the three crosses, before which they prostrate themselves.

The graves of the dead are tenderly cared for. Here and there may be seen, on a green, turfy mound, a plaster cast of a saint, a photograph of the dead friend, or an altar with tiny candles under a glass shade.

Have you a clear picture of Mount Royal in your mind ? Think once more of the green hill, with the shady park on its summit ; the limestone quarry on its northern slope ; the graveyards on its western slope ; the reservoir of clear, pure water on its eastern slope ; the city at its feet. If it is all plain before you, we will next seek the shore of the river.

Generally that is the most disagreeable part of a city. Narrow , filthy streets lead between dilapidated ware houses to the decaying wooden piers of the harbor, and these regions are frequented by the roughest class of people. But it is not so in Montreal. She stands, as one writer has said, “ clean to her very feet.” Her wharves, extending three miles along the river, are next to the wharves of Liverpool in size . They are built of limestone, and in their general plan and solidity they resemble the beautiful quays of Paris.

A truck railroad runs along the edge of the wharves, and Montreal is able to load and unload a vessel in less time than any other city in the country. The street bordering the river is separated from the wharves by a stone wall, which protects it during the spring freshets. One side of the street is lined with solid limestone ware houses and business blocks. Bonsecours Church, Bonsecours Market, and the Custom House stand on this street.

The harbor is a forest of masts and funnels . Here are seen great, black ocean steamers ; smaller lake steamers, painted white ; and foreign ships with tall and taper ing masts . The most picturesque vessel is that of the Canadian farmer. This is a somewhat clumsy barge for carrying hay and wood to market. It is a flat-bottomed boat with a square bow and stern . It has but one mast, and is rigged with large square sails .

The farmer unloads a part of his cargo on the wharves, and stands patiently by until a customer is attracted, who takes either the whole load or such a portion as he may point out. A few years ago these barges were found unloading at the central wharves of the harbor, but in creasing business has now pushed them farther down the river.

The people of Montreal are justly proud of Victoria Bridge. It is one of the longest bridges in the world, and, on that account, has been called the eighth wonder of the world. It consists of a tube or square box of iron twenty- two feet high, sixteen feet wide, and a mile and three -quarters long. The tube is supported on twenty -four piers of solid masonry. On the side of each pier facing up the river, is a projection of stone shaped like a wedge.

When the ice breaks up in the spring, the cakes of ice from the Great Lakes as well as from the upper St. Lawrence pass this bridge. The river bed is very steep at Montreal, and the downward rush of the numerous cakes of ice causes them to press with enormous force against any obstacle in their path. On this account, the Victoria Bridge was built with strong wedges to the buttresses. The object of the wedges is to protect the piers, by meeting the first shock of the descending ice, and by dividing the cakes.

The bridge is designed only for railway trains, which pass through the long, black tube in six minutes. The passage is so dull and cheerless that it seems to the traveller to occupy a much longer time.

The season of the spring floods is a period of great anxiety to the people of Montreal. The sun and rain melt the ice , which has long kept the river silent from shore to shore . The cakes of ice are carried down stream until they run aground on some island. More cakes are carried down and piled above the first, until what is known as an ice shove is formed . This is nothing more than a jumble of blocks of ice, forming a huge embankment. The water, being dammed by the ice shove, floods the lower part of the city, often causing considerable loss to the merchants of Montreal.

It is on account of these spring freshets that the wharves are of such solid construction, that the river street is fortified on one side by a stone wall, and that the freight sheds and other buildings upon the wharves are all movable.

Sometimes, during the freshets, venturesome men cross the St. Lawrence with a boat. In the open portions of the river they row , but in crossing the shove, they spring from the boat, and draw it over the mass of ice . If the ice gives way beneath them , they save them selves by springing into the boat.

Bonsecours Market looks out on the river street. It is a great parallelogram two stories high, built of cut stone, and surmounted with a noticeable dome and cupola. The provision dealers have their stalls on the first floor; and in the basement, kitchen utensils, hard ware, tin, wooden and glass wares can be found. Tues days and Fridays are the best days for paying a visit to the market, for then the square is thronged with country peasants bringing their wares to the city for sale.

On the sidewalk, beneath the shadow of the market building itself, are small booths and stalls, supported by its stone walls. On the outer edge of the walk is an apparently endless line of wagons, laden with farm produce. Such very queer wagons as they are ! Heavy unwieldy, and with an enormous quantity of woodwork about them , they resemble the ancient hay cart. The horses, with their noses in the heaps of hay spread before them for their refreshment, munch drowsily, while their owners quietly scan the passing people for a customer .

Chickens, butter, and eggs are temptingly displayed on this brightly painted cart at our right. Opposite, sits a fat old country woman in a broad -brimmed straw hat. She has a store of scarfs, kerchiefs, and colored yarns on her small counter. Here is a handsome girl with dark hair and eyes, selling cherries. Close beside her is a withered old crone, with a cartload of onions, radishes, beets, and potatoes. A whole family preside over another battered old wagon, wherein are displayed stacks of brown bread and curiously carved cakes of maple sugar.

Although the market place is the scene of so much life and action , it is very quiet. Here is seen the French gesture and the French shrug, but the high -pitched French voice is wanting. The French Canadian peas ants murmur softly over their bargaining. The owners have no fixed price for anything. They generally begin by asking just twice the sum they expect to receive for the article to be sold, while the purchaser as regularly offers one-half the owner's first price. So they haggle in their soft, dreamy voices, each party seeking advantage over the other, and each enjoying the bargaining without thinking of the loss of time. Instead of the rush of an American place of business, the market has an air of repose and cheerful friendliness, delightful to see.

Close by Bonsecours Market is Bonsecours Church, into which the peasant often steals during market hours, to pray before the shrine of some saint. It is a very plain little structure, and is over two hundred years old. A number of small, shabby booths and restaurants are bolstered up by the walls of the church. They cling to the venerable building as barnacles to a ship. The interior of the church , with its colored bas -reliefs, sculptures, altar, and quaint pulpit, is like the interior of the ancient churches in Northern France.

One or two facts of history must now be given that you may understand the state of society in the province of Quebec. This region was first settled by the French, who built many churches, monasteries, and convents , and lived here undisturbed for over one hundred years. Then, in a great war between France and England, the English colonists living in the region which is now the United States, came against Canada, and conquered it for the English crown. After peace was declared, the whole of Canada was open to English settlers, who came flocking in from the British Isles. So it has come to pass that, at the present day, there are living side by side in Montreal, Protestant Englishmen and Catholic Frenchmen .

The city is divided into the French and English quarters, the east and the west ends. There is a spirit of rivalry between the two races, which is shown very plainly in the erection of churches and buildings for charitable purposes. The French endow a school for Catholics, the English one for Protestants ; the French establish a Catholic hospital, the English follow with its rival. All over the city rise the domes of Catholic cathedrals and the spires of English churches ; so that Montreal comes fairly by its name of the “ City of Churches. "

Notre Dame, with the exception of the cathedral in Mexico, is the largest church of America. It can seat ten thousand ; and, on unusual occasions, when chairs are placed in the aisles, fifteen thousand can be accom modated. The church resembles its great namesake, the Notre Dame of Paris, and its tall twin towers are one of the notable landmarks of the city. They are over two hundred feet high, and contain a peal of eleven bells, the most sweet-toned chimes on this continent. The largest bell weighs over twelve tons, and is, in weight, the fifth bell in the world. Any day, on going into the vast cathedral, you may see peasant girls and women kneeling before the high altar or before some shrine . An Indian worshiper telling his beads is no rare sight.

The Catholics of Montreal are not wealthy, yet they undertake and accomplish very ambitious feats in architecture. Not quite forty years ago, an architect was sent to Rome to take the measurements of the church of St. Peter's, the largest church in the world.

He was commissioned to erect, on Dominion Square in Montreal, a church one- third the size of St. Peter's. With the single exception of the roof, which must be pointed to shed the snow easily, this St. James's Cathe dral was to be an exact copy of the great original. With its mighty dome and elegant front, the Canadian St. Peter's is a great ornament to Montreal.

Christ Church Cathedral, the chief Protestant church, is built of gray stone, with trimmings of fine, cream colored sandstone. It is very much like an English church, with its pointed spire, its tablets set in the walls, and its gorgeous pew for the chief official of the city. The tablets bear the honored names and in some cases the titled names of Englishmen who have served their Queen faithfully in the government of her great Ameri can province of Canada. In one part of the church is conspicuously displayed a tattered banner which was borne through the Crimean War with honor by Her Majesty's Canadian Volunteers. It was hung in the church on the occasion of the Prince of Wales present ing a new banner to the regiment.

Massive monasteries and the high walls of convents are seen on nearly every street. Perhaps the most noted convent is that of the Gray Sisters, who are aided in their good work by both Catholics and Protestants. They care for the orphans, the aged, and the infirm , and take charge of various asylums and schools in different parts of the city .

It is customary for the traveler to visit their hospital at noon when he sees the sisters at midday mass in the chapel. This is a somewhat bare, cheerless room, with whitened walls. The usual pictures and statues of saints form the sole adornment of the place.

At the stroke of twelve the sisters enter two by two, the lady superior bringing up the rear.. The nuns are dressed in gray, coarse material, blue-checked aprons, and black crape caps faced with white. The first two nuns are young girls whose pale faces wear a look of perfect peace. The lady superior holds a hymn book with which she leads them in their devotions. The clapping together of the covers of the book is the signal for them to kneel and to rise .

The French of Montreal are the class which cling most closely to the ways of the past. The English are the enterprising class who are bent on developing all the possibilities of the city. They constitute the commercial and manufacturing element. They widen the streets, plan the squares, and lay out the public parks; and, with the exception of the churches, erect most of the public buildings. There are, in the western part of the city, fine broad streets, shaded with large trees, and lined with handsome stone dwelling houses. Many of these houses stand in the midst of fine grounds.

In the French quarter there are narrow little streets, in which often nothing is seen to remind one that he is in an American city belonging to England. All is purely French in appearance.

The house is one story or one story and a half high, and opens directly upon the street pavement. Within is disclosed the living room, scrupulously neat, with brilliantly colored prints of the Pope, or of some favorite saint, upon the wall. Madame, large, tall, and fat, bends over the cooking stove. Monsieur, thin and gray , reads his paper in the sunny window, while the black -eyed babies toddle and creep over the spotless floor.

Every aspect of the city bears testimony to the two fold nature of its inhabitants. The hotels, kept in the English style, have French waiters and French cooks. The goods in the shops are English, but they are sold by French clerks. Through the quaint streets, which have been piously named for some old saints, pass the modern electric cars . In and out amongst the motley crowd of prosperous English merchants, curious Yankee tourists, and pushing Irish cabmen, glide the sombre priest and the gray nun with her pale and downcast face . There is plainly an un-American, not to say foreign, air about Montreal.

Like many of the towns of Normandy and Brittany, Montreal was asleep for over one hundred years. But the middle of this century witnessed the late awakening of this city of the North. A place must be indeed dead , in which no hidden life could be aroused by such events as the opening of the St. Lawrence system of canals, the erection of the Victoria Bridge, the building of the Grand Trunk Railroad, and the establishment of a line of ocean steamers between Montreal and Europe. Montreal has taken immense strides forward commercially in the last twenty- five years, and the future alone can show to what vast importance she may attain .


The World and Its People, Book IV, Our American Neighbors by Fanny E Coe, 1899, Page 35-49

Visit Montréal, Québec, Canada (Sault-au-Récollet) (Côte-St-Michel) (Côte-St-Paul)
Discover the people who lived there, the places they visited and the stories they shared.