Where the poor are buried at Cote des Neiges Cemetery (5)

Where the poor are buried at Cote des Neiges Cemetery (4)

Where the poor are buried at Cote des Neiges Cemetery (3)

Where the poor are buried at Cote des Neiges Cemetery (2)

Where the poor are buried at Cote des Neiges Cemetery

Visiting Thomas D'Arcy McGee's mausoleum at Cote des Neiges Cemetery

Winter at Cote des Neiges

At Cote des Neiges Cemetery, Montreal

I've walked in Cote des Neiges Cemetery many times, including winter when some roads were closed due to the snow. I know it seems "morbid" to some people--hanging out in cemeteries--but walking in cemeteries has always been very pleasant for me. Like many people, when in foreign cities, I visit museums and historical sites, but also cemeteries. It has to do with an interest in family history, but in Montreal cemeteries are also places with green spaces and the quiet of the country in the city. Increasingly, cemeteries are nature preserves. There is bird watching, walking, and even some biking through the cemetery. Most of all, there is a sense of history and a place of quiet that you rarely find elsewhere in the city.

Cote des Neiges is the traditionally Catholic cemetery in Montreal, owned by the Sulpician Order that once owned the Island of Montreal, and still owns Notre Dame Basilica in Old Montreal, the College de Montreal, and Le Grand Seminaire de Montreal just east of the corner of Sherbrooke Street West and Atwater. This is the cemetery for Montreal's French and Irish and now many others, new people who live here, who are a part of the multi-cultural aspect of the city that helps make it the interesting place that it is.

A quiet day at the cemetery, but isn't it always a quiet day there?

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, various images

A day in April, 2010 (2)

A day in April, 2010 (1)

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, April 21, 2010

In this row of four mausoleums, located at Montreal's Cote des Neiges Cemetery, Thomas D'Arcy McGee's mausoleum is the second from the right. Several years ago McGee's mausoleum was renovated, perhaps by the Canadian government. This visit was on an overcast day--on April 21, 2010--not far away, I found wild flowers (mostly triliums) beginning to flower.

I've written here before about McGee, he was a great orator, one of the Fathers of Canadian Confederation, and a poet.