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.
