In June 2019, we road-tripped from Massachusetts to Québec and stopped in both Montréal and Québec City. Montréal, nicknamed “Québec’s Metropolis,” is the second largest city in Canada after Toronto with a population of about 1.8 million. The city covers part of an island in the Saint Lawrence River which runs from Lake Ontario northeast to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Montréal is named after Mount Royal, a small mountain immediately adjacent to the downtown.
During our few days in Montréal, we walked up Mount Royal to see the city from above, rode the rubber-wheeled Métro, ate delicious vegan food, and explored Old Montréal, the site of the original 17th century settlement of the city. We visited Pointe-à-Callière, Montréal’s museum of archaeology and history built right over an archaeological site that visitors can walk through in museum’s lowest level.
We went to Île Sainte-Hélène, another island in the river between the Island of Montréal and the mainland and home to Parc Jean-Drapeau. This park was the site of Expo 67, the World’s Fair hosted by Montréal in 1967 in celebration of Canada’s 100th birthday. Expo 67 was one of the most successful World Exhibitions. The American pavilion for the fair was a geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller. Only the metal lattice of the dome remains, the acrylic covering having burned in a fire in 1976. Now, the geodesic dome houses the Biosphere. The Biosphere is a museum of environmental science, self-described as the only museum dedicated to the environment in North America.
Continuing to lengthen our list of visited university campuses, we wandered around McGill University. McGill is a public research university, and one of only three English-language universities Québec. However, students must be passively bilingual; instruction is in English but both languages are informally used and French is accepted on some assignments. Lastly, I enjoyed the Redpath Museum, McGill’s museum of natural history. The Redpath was the first building constructed in Canada with the intention of being a museum.
