I dreaded this walk along a street I anticipated as being completely ghost-townish. My bad for prejudging it and leaving it undeservedly until almost the end of my project. The street dead-ends into Costco, so, as you can imagine, a steady stream of cars passed me, even if I didn’t see a single pedestrian, rare in my outings. It was just me and all the factories, many of them shuttered. But like many of my industrial walks, it had its own charms. I passed under the mega silos of the Red Roses flour mill. Just think how many cakes you could make with the contents of just one of those silos. I’d be fixed for life. At the beginning of the pandemic, to keep me baking, I sprang for a 20 kilo sack of flour and thought it was humungous, but it was nothing compared to these babies.
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After about two years forced hiatus from my walking project, thanks to Mr. Covid and incidentally getting hit by a truck and ending up in the ER on one of my walks, I’m back to criss-crossing the streets of Montreal. I started off with an industrial walk, along St. Patrick, west of Atwater. I stumbled across what I thought was a playground combining old factory equipment with coloured tubes. Turns out I was way off. It’s a bike hitching post made with old industrial sewing machines from a former factory in the area. The colourful tubes are meant to represent the thread that used to run off of the machines. Almost across the street, saw the infamous pink house, way up at the top of the abandoned Canada Melting Plant silo. Was it Spider Man who clambered up to there to give it a paint job and spruce it up with flower boxes and curtains?
That’s how I've classified my walk from today. Got off the metro at Mount Royal and went up St.Hubert where I stumbled across this lovely vintage kimono store on the corner of rue de Bienville. I didn’t buy anything to wear, but did succumb to a wooden kokeshi doll. This walking project has cost me a lot of bucks so far. Further up St. Hubert, a few blocks above Mount Royal, passed the best ruelle verte I’ve seen so far. In the Ruelle verte program, neighbourhoods jazz up their back alleyways, of which Montreal has plenty, mostly ugly, with plantings, murals, what have you, to make them more liveable playable spaces. This Facebook page shows some interesting ones from previous years in Rosemont. https://www.facebook.com/pg/arrondissementRPP/photos/?tab=album&album_id=899800406763879 Then up to Laurier and the park where Queen Isabella is landscaped all nice and posh.
Had a terrific walk in Pointe Saint Charles today in perfect weather. Took a pit stop in the lovely public library on Hibernia. Formerly a fire station, built in 1891. The park just beside it has everything you might want, a misting station, kitchen gardens, and a bicycle repair station. All the essentials of life. Then down towards the Maison St. Gabriel - built in New France-y times. I felt like Claire in Outlander which I am currently watching. One minute I’m in Montreal, 2019, and the next in Montreal 1660. No hunky Jamie to greet me on the other side, though. Too bad. Saw a lovely, lush garden just outside the museum. It consisting entirely of kale. At least I think it was kale. After that, down rue Sebastopol and up the raised path that gives a spectacular view of industrial Montreal. Saw this little thatched hut along the way. A first for me. Not a roofing style we normally see around here. For lots of this segment of the walk, around Dublin and Hall, it was just me and the construction vehicles, but I was determined to get this chunk of streets done, even if there were tons of trottoir barré signs all over the place. One of the workmen asked me if I was OK. He probably thought I’d lost it. Why else would I be walking up and down streets that were majorly torn up and looked like a monster truck rally? Ended the walk at the stunning mural on rue Knox. It’s 80 metres long. (I read that-I didn’t get out my tape measure. I’m not that devoted to my project.) My favourite segment of it is the newspaper headline, “Mother Nature Wins, Capitalism Crumbles, It’s Anarchy.” Actually, the walk had a little post-script. I stopped in at a café I had spotted earlier in the morning for a little post-walk nosh. It’s Café Clarke on rue Centre, a four minute walk from the Charlevoix metro (That I did measure). Amazing Italian pastries baked on site which I can vouch for. The pizzas and Calzones looked great but I’m saving them for next time I’m in the ‘hood.
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