Montreal: A Memorable City of 400 Churches

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

Peter Stephano once said "One day in Montreal is like your first sip of a fine wine; you want more." Thus you might expect any visit to the largest city in Canada to be memorable. Montreal is the largest French-speaking city outside Paris. Its background charms are an amalgam of culture, customs and cuisine. The citizens of this city prefer you to use French and respect you for attempting it; you get better service that way and though many inhabitants are bilingual, there is an atmosphere and many locals competent in both languages decline to speak English.

Montreal lies on a triangular shaped island about thirty miles long and seven to ten miles wide. It consists of horizontal strata of limestone through which volcanoes have burst. The greatest eruption created Mount Royal 769 feet high in the center of the island. Although Montreal is 1000 miles from the sea, it is Canada's largest seaport. Canals previously allowed ships to bypass the Lachine rapids then in 1959, the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed allowing ships to come all the way up to the Great Lakes. Montreal, with a harbor accommodating 125 ocean-going ships, is thus about 300 miles closer to the English west coast seaport, Liverpool, than New York is and that means one-half to one day faster delivery in a service where time is money.

The dates in Montreal's history are impressively early. In 1535, Jacques Cartier discovered the island and called the mountain Mont Real. He was taken by Huron Indians to their settlement: Hochelaga. While they fed him, he responded by reading to them the Gospel of St. John. The Indians, perhaps captivated, who knows, took Cartier to the top of the mountain. The view then must have been impressive.

In 1603, Samuel de Champlain reached the island. Hochelaga had disappeared -- historians suspect that the Indians had been wiped out by other hostile tribes but perhaps they had taken off in the opposite direction to avoid a second reading of the Gospel. The journals of the explorers aroused French interest in "converting the savages" and in 1641, Paul de Chomedey was sent out with a band of-50 to found a mission, built the following year. From 1642 to 1701, there were intermittent Indian attacks, the Iroquois being particularly hostile. In 1760, the French lost Canada to Britain under the Treaty of Paris, though 15 years later, the city was captured by the American Continental Army and remained in American hands for seven months.

Great commercial and economic progress ensued. Steam navigation and connecting railroads give the city the boost required to dominate the northeast of Canada. It is of interest to read population statistics. The population grew from 196 in 1650, through 8244 in 1750, 115,000 in 1871, to 1,214,355 in 1975. This number doesn't include the tourists: that rich flood, that Midas migration which pours its wealth each year into Montreal. Years ago a provincial priest tried to stop his parishioners from leaving the area to seek employment in the mills of New England. "Stay," he pleaded. "Patience! In 50 years, strangers will come here and shower you with gold." Even in winter the tourists come to confirm the words of the curé Labelle. There is a whole city underground; the concept resembles the city planning of Atlanta, Georgia. But where the southern city went below for coolness, Montreal dug down to avoid the long winter.

Below two hotels: the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth and the Hilton Bonaventure are stores, movies, restaurants and even discos. The Bonaventure is a personal favorite. It has a complete wooded garden on the top floor and a marvelous view of the city. Ask your travel agent about it special weekend package and wince at how weak the American dollar is now against Canadian currency.

It is fitting that Montreal should have planned thus for winter. After all, the priest Dollier de Casson drew the street plans of the city, nine years before William Penn designed the true first town planned in the United States: Philadelphia. There's a lot to see in Canada's foremost city. You can travel through it on the Metro, a subterranean train system modeled after those of Paris. You will ride silently on rubber-tired wheels through decorated sunken stations called the longest underground art gallery in the world. Or you can walk through the streets above whose characters differ from the exciting vibrant world of French fashion in the new city where the shopping along Sherbrooke Street and Ste. Catherine Street rivals any in Europe (British china, woolens and cashmere; French clothing, jewelry and perfume) to the charm of Old Montreal with its own legends and memories.

A walking tour of the old town might start at the governor's house, the Chateau de Ramezay; it should include a visit to Jacques Cartier Square which is dominated by the first Nelson Monument in North America to commemorate the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar. Don't worry if walking gives you an appetite.

There are more than five thousand restaurants. In the old town stands the oldest hostelry in North America -- L'Auberge Le Vieux Sainte-Gabriel. It contains a trading post where visitors can sample a potent native aperitif, the caribou before staggering out into an old world peopled by strolling street musicians, smiling artists and laughing wood carvers. If that has given you an appetite you may wish to eat in a “new interactive,” old world style in the cavernous dungeons of the Festin du Gouverneur on St. Helen's Island which is near the site of Expo 67, the Man and His World exposition itself still worth a visit.

The next evening you might wish gourmet dining walk the Rue de la Montagne or if you can stand noise and want to party seek out Le Medley in what used to be the German beer garden, the Old Munich for something, shall we say, less formal. And if you waken next day with a heavy head, contrite at the night's extravagancies, you have a choice of four hundred churches where you might do penance so many churches that condominium developers “are licking their lips.”.

There's the Renaissance styled-St. Joseph Oratory which, fashioned after St. Peter's in Rome, can hold 10,000 people. There's the Basilica of Mary Queen of the World which may be, at the time of your visit, staging such classic concerts as Handel’s Messiah. And there's the most magnificent of all the French Canadian churches, Notre Dame de Montreal. It’s nothing special from the outside. You pull indifferently on Cathedral’s heavy doors. So far you are unimpressed. The church does not dominate the city square nor overawe the visitor as does its namesake in Paris. Nonchalantly you close the doors behind you and casually glance down the church at the high altar. And gasp.

And stand transfixed, not moving, not breathing, just staring at the church's beauty. The altar is bathed in a blue light which only makes more soft the white pine statues around it. The church's exterior took five years to finish -- the interior 65 years The windows of Limoges stained glass illustrate not scenes from the Bible but stories in the evolution of the colony. The architect took advantage of the slope of the hill when he built this beautiful cathedral. There is a four foot difference in height, which adds to the dignity of the altar, but there is a warmth to Notre Dame and, when its massive organ sounds its 6800 pipes, there’s joy too.

Come to Montreal prepared for joy, to be charmed even pampered. And remember what Thoreau said in 1866, "With bon jour and touching your hat, you may go smoothly through all Quebec."