Your Feet Leave Traces in the Soft Snow That Surely Will Not Last: MONTREAL

[Kilgore Trout]

These photos were taken in December 2006 and January 2007. I wasn't able to post them on the ezboard forum because the server kept timing out.

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[EnviroTO]

Thanks for the pics. That is a strange Wanted poster. Wanted by the customers of Bens... a server to work at the restaurant?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

no, it was during the long strike that ultimately led to bens' demise. the union put up "wanted" posters for every employee.

 

[Long Island Mike]

KT: Nice MONTREAL tour! It amazes me that pic#90 looks just like Philadelphia with the alley,rowhouses and graffiti. My biggest question,though is how English speakers are treated there today-I know some French conversationately but as an Anglo speaker how are things today? LI MIKE

 

[ganjavih]

English speakers are treated very well in Montreal... I think the city has finally found a kind of balance between preservation and protection of French language and culture and respect for Anglos. Anyway, the city has become so multicultural that bickering about this stuff just seems silly now. I've never felt uncomfortable here as an Anglo.

 

[Hydrogen]

Nothing like freezing rain to make one just loooooooove winter.

 

[urbandreamer]

I wanna kiss u

mtl: a city that reminds me of well-dressed woman--many layers of fabric i slowly uncover until i ....

thanks...hard to believe it's been a year since i was last there (a terrible rainy and cold april weekend that made me--for a few days--actually hate mtl!)

I have one request: could you do a photo tour of other more "working class" neighbourhoods--h-m, st michel parc extension etc--just to show the other part to the city? (Just like toronto is more than south of bloor st.)

btw, for those asking: i live in the junction/annette corridor--quiet enough to sleep at night but just a 10 minute subway ride to the annex

 

[Long Island Mike]

Ganjavih: Good to know that English tongue in Montreal is not a problem-I had almost no trouble on my trips there in the mid 80s-before the PQ language problems. As you said-being a multicultural world city that MTL is-English is no problem-one question I have is the West Island still an Anglo stronghold in towns like Beaconsfield? As said-good pics! LI MIKE

 

[Observer Walt]

Chris I mean Kilgore, thanks for the photos. I loved looking at your pictures back in the day when you posted monthly. I gather you will be resuming this tradition. Montreal is an endlessly interesting city, often more so than Toronto IMO. It has a completely different "feel". Language is only a small part of that; the culture, the history, the physical environment ... all just different enough to be quite distinctive.

 

[Pep'rJack]

In central Montreal, anglos are treated perfectly fine - the further from the core you get, the more likely you are to encounter problems, but it's pretty rare in any case. There is almost as much english as french spoken in the centre - I recall frequently feeling a bit frustrated because francophones would almost uniformly decline to converse with me in french no matter how much I encouraged so, led with such, etc. In short, no one really cares much about language downtown, and hasn't for a while now, despite 'the troubles' - Montreal and Quebec aren't really the same thing.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

^ They know before you open your mouth which language you're more comfortable using.

 

[Bogtrotter]

Excellent pics. I like the ones with the ice glistensing on the tree branches- reminds me a bit of the ice storm.

With regards to language- even at the height of PQ and Bloque popularity never did I feel uncomfortable as an Anglo in MTL. In smaller cities such as Sherbrooke, a mostly french speaking city surrounded by many anglo towns in the Eastern Townships, you sometimes got the cold shoulder or even encountered outright beligerency. But things are a little better there now from what I here.

 

[RJR123]

Excellent pics. I like the ones with the ice glistensing on the tree branches- reminds me a bit of the ice storm.

With regards to language- even at the height of PQ and Bloque popularity never did I feel uncomfortable as an Anglo in MTL. In smaller cities such as Sherbrooke, a mostly french speaking city surrounded by many anglo towns in the Eastern Townships, you sometimes got the cold shoulder or even encountered outright beligerency. But things are a little better there now from what I here.

Judging by the electoral success of the ADQ outside of Montreal, I don't think these towns are warming up to "outsiders" very well.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I have one request: could you do a photo tour of other more "working class" neighbourhoods--h-m, st michel parc extension etc--just to show the other part to the city? (Just like toronto is more than south of bloor st.)

Now that the weather is nicer I hope to travel more extensively around the city. I've posted plenty of photos of those neighbourhoods before, though. For example, you can see my Park Extension photos on Flickr here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/christopherdewolf/tags/parkextension/

There's only about 40 of them right now but I hope to expand that number soon after my camera is repaired. It's a really great neighbourhood and I live just south of there --- 5 minutes on the 80 bus.

Soon enough I'm also going to make my usual estival visits to Verdun, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (or Homa as some people now call it), St. Henri, the Point, etc. I've never actually explored St. Michel and I've never even been to St. Leonard so I plan to make trips out there too.