By Louise Legault

I’ve long wanted to retrace the passage of the Saint-Pierre River in today’s Montreal. I seized my chance when I met Virginie Destuynder from Hippo Vert l’Avenir.

A student in hydrogeology at the École de technologie supérieure, Virginie superimposed former Université de Montréal Professor Valérie Mahaut’s map of ancient watercourses, trough lines and watersheds on the island of Montreal onto today’s street grid. Thanks to Virginie’s map, we were able to pinpoint many of the places where the river has left a trace. Our tour offered a few pleasant surprises.

Bringing two maps together: the rivers of yesterday and the streets of today.

A quick glance at the map reveals a number of wetlands that are part of the river’s footprint (circled in green on the map). They are identified in the Interim Control By-law (RCI) adopted by the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM) in 2023. Many of these properties are owned by Canadian Pacific, and adjoin the largest rail yard in Eastern Canada.

The City of Côte-Saint-Luc is undoubtedly the city of the Saint-Pierre River. Côte-Saint-Luc is an honorary member of 200 mètres – Gardiens de la rivière Saint-Pierre et de ses droits for its participation in the campaign to save the last visible section of the river on the Meadowbrook golf course. No fewer than ten of the sites visited on this first tour are in Côte-Saint-Luc.

A footbridge in Côte-Saint-Luc’s Nathan Shuster Park. Photo Louise Legault

Among the surprises we discovered was Nathan-Shuster Park (1), at the very top of Cavendish Boulevard, a charming woodland with landscaped paths and a footbridge over a wetland. Guess which river it is? Côte-Saint-Luc has also preserved two other woodlands, the first in Pierre-Elliott Trudeau Park with landscaped trails (the St. Pierre River is said to occur nearby in a fenced wetland (2) alongside the Canadian Pacific rail yard). The second woodland, Ashkelon Forest (3), is located on the grounds of City Hall on Cavendish Boulevard, a wetland identified by the RCI. In fact, there’s no better remedy on a hot summer’s day than to find yourself in the shade of these tall trees.

Also of note in Côte-Saint-Luc are the soccer fields at the Aquatic and Community Centre (4) on Mackle Road and Allan J. Levine Park (6). Are they to be considered geomorphs, given their elongated shape? A geomorph is a landscape feature that retains the shape of a geographic feature, despite the absence of the latter. Allan J. Levine Park, for example, stretches between Wentworth and Blossom avenues, aligning one sports field after another.

A pair of mallards at the temporary pond on Côte-Saint-Luc Road. Photo Jo Ann Goldwater

According to the map, three tributaries of the St Pierre flow through the Meadowbrook golf course: the one in the axis of Guelph Road (7), the one that crosses Côte-Saint-Luc Road (8) and the one that crosses the course in a long meander, giving it its name.  The Côte-Saint-Luc Road tributary comes back to life every spring, flooding the neighbouring wet meadows, part of the golf course and forming a temporary pond at the entrance to the golf course (9). A small bridge could have marked the spot where it crosses Côte-Saint-Luc Road, but a less picturesque culvert was chosen instead.

A quick hello to Toe Blake Park (10), another geomorph whose triangular shape bears witness to the river’s past presence.

Pond at the end of Mackle Road, CSL, unfortunately overgrown with phragmites. Photo Louise Legault

Les amis du parc Meadowbrook would have liked to see the temporary pond on Côte-Saint-Luc Road (9) added to the list of CMM wetlands, as well as a permanent pond at the end of Mackle Road (5). Surprise: a wetland at the southern tip of Meadowbrook (12), on the other side of the railroad line, was chosen instead.

Our tour would not be complete without a mention of the Côte-Saint-Luc Shopping Centre on Côte-Saint-Luc Road (13). In the document Un pont vers 2040 Imaginer ensemble l’avenir de Côte-Saint-Luc Guide du processus de révision du plan d’urbanisme published by the City of Côte-Saint-Luc in 2022, the presence of an area of undeveloped land between the two railroad tracks behind the shopping center was highlighted: was this where people used to swim in the 1950s?

Some people also told us they remembered the river at Hampstead Park (14), which is also shown on our map.

Come to think of it, this system of wetlands and streams would have formed the perfect basis to create a natural rainwater management system that could have absorbed the overflow during heavy rains – increasingly frequent with climate change – and relieved Montreal’s struggling sewage system. With the burying of the St. Pierre River at Meadowbrook, however, the system is missing a key element. Maybe the St. Pierre can be daylighted in the future and bring back that possibility.

On May 9, 2024, les amis du parc Meadowbrook and Sauvons la Falaise were invited to participate with many other environmental groups and representatives of the City of Montreal and the academic community in a co-design workshop that focused on three green corridors being contemplated in Montreal:

– A link between Meadowbrook and the falaise Saint-Jacques

– Connectivity in the greater southwest, notably between the Lachine Canal and the St. Lawrence River

– The Ruisseaux corridor, linking the St. Lawrence River to Rivière-des-Prairies in east-end Montreal.

Organized by the Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montréal and UQAM’s Pôle sur la ville résiliente, the workshop identified the challenges of these projects, possible solutions and partners which could lend a hand.

With regard to the link between Meadowbrook and the Falaise, several possibilities were identified, ranging from a two-way bike lane on Brock Street South in Montreal West to facilitate access to the Bande verte via the de Maisonneuve Boulevard bike path (which could definitely use some greening!), to the continuation of a stretch of bike path on West Broadway in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce to join Hydro-Québec’s green corridor in Montreal West. Many of these suggestions appear to have been included in Montreal’s 2019 Bicycle Plan, but have not been implemented to date.

Participants also discussed the possibility of opening up the Saint-Pierre district by creating a bike path along Milton and Ronald avenues to reach the Bande verte. Unfortunately, a veritable spaghetti of railway tracks and power lines dubbed the “Bermuda Triangle” prevents any direct access by Lachine residents to the Meadowbrook site.

The main obstacles to connectivity and active mobility were found to be the presence of road and rail infrastructure, and the absence of bicycle paths in Montreal West. Participants also noted the dangers posed by the pedestrian and bicycle tunnel under the St. Pierre Exchange, which cyclists travelling to and fro cross at their own peril.

Also on the agenda was the conservation of the Falaise arc (the Falaise actually extends all the way to Dorval, and is visible along Highway 20), which in places consists of thin strips squeezed behind buildings.

A question of environmental justice

In examining the possible links between the falaise Saint-Jacques (in the center right of the map) and Meadowbrook (opposite, in the center left), we turned our attention to the map of the area’s vulnerabilities, particularly its vulnerability to flooding.

We were struck by the fact that lower-income neighbourhoods are often the most vulnerable (sections in red and orange on the map), with Saint-Pierre (VSP) – in the middle of our illustration- and Westhaven (WH) – a bit further up-being two examples.

To find out if your area is vulnerable to flooding, look up the Atlas des vulnérabilités web site at https://atlas-vulnerabilite.ulaval.ca/

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

With the support of several Montréal environmental groups, Les Amis has submitted a brief to the consultation being held until June 21 on the Namur-Hippodrome project presented by the City of Montréal in April 2024.

The groups reacted to the presence of the St-Pierre River on the old hippodrome. Les Amis and its partners have been defending the River for many years and have seen promises come and go: ponds on the Bande Verte were supposed to recall the river and the lac à la Loutre it formed at the base of the falaise Saint-Jacques but in the end we were told that the height of the water table did not allow this. And let’s not forget the canalization of the St-Pierre on Meadowbrook in 2022, following an unfortunate court order.

The restoration of the St-Pierre River on the hippodrome would enable the rehabilitation of the whole St. Pierre watershed. Studies have shown that this would lighten the load of the Rockfield Basin and the Westover-St-Luc and St-Pierre collectors which are already at capacity. Although this water is not waste water, it nonetheless finds its way to the water treatment plant and adds to the cost of treatment before finally ending up in the St. Lawrence. Rehabilitating the watershed could supply water to the ponds promised for the Turcot Park and possibly help in the return of the river on Meadowbrook.

To read the brief, click HERE.

You can also participate in the consultation by supporting our brief. Visit Réalisons Montréal (https://www.realisonsmtl.ca/namurhippodrome) to find out how.

A 1 mm long daphnia as observed by David Fletcher in the ditch on the Hippodrome (Photo David Fletcher)

David Fletcher of the Green Coalition in the ditch that the St. Pierre River flows into on the Hippodrome (Photo Louise Legault)

A bee garden created by Poliflora at the Hippodrome: enough to forget the Décarie Expressway (Photo Louise Legault)