At Loyola Park, a quiet place

 

Butters, the wild turkey, visits our back yard

Named Butters by someone, here is Butters the wild turkey visiting our back yard about a month ago. He's caused quite a lot of excitement, from people wanting him relocated for his own safety, to comments about Christmas dinner, to seeing him in Loyola Park. He travels slowly but he's on the move. His sightings make the news on Face Book, most people around here have never seen a wild turkey and certainly not in the city. I've seen him in our backyard and at Loyola Park. He's a big topic of conversation, bringing people together in this time of Covid-19. 

A Place of Quiet in Loyola Park

The new soccer field at Loyola Park has been completed and the children's area has been moved and improved, but thankfully nothing has been done to this quiet area; some things don't need to be improved, they're perfect just as they are.

Let's begin our walking tour of places of peace and quiet in this part of our neighbourhood. 

Edmund at Loyola Park

It's July 2, 2016 but feels like an early fall day, windy, grey sky, rain blowing in; cool until the sun comes out. Here is my grandson, Edmund, playing at Loyola Park. "That's fun" he says after coming down the slide...

A Place of Contemplation in Loyola Park

Soccer, baseball, exercise machines, wading pools for children, these and other activities are available at Loyola Park just a few blocks from where I live. But, also, the City has created some areas for contemplation and quiet, for instance this quadrangle entered through one of four gates. There was also an attempt to restore a small pond from the lost underground St. Pierre River that runs through the park to Wentworth Golf Course. Plants suitable for an aquatic "garden" were planted. The pond failed but the vestiges of it are still present near the baseball diamond. Acknowledging that not everyone is interested in physical exercise is important; it allows for a greater diversity of activities at Loyola Park and other places in Montreal.

Loyola Park

Holy Wells, Montreal (late August, 2010)

Last summer, I wrote here about holy wells in Ireland and in Montreal. Here is the effort of the City of Montreal to deal with a natural occurring well in Loyola Park, in western N.D.G. The bottom photograph shows the site of the well, it's on the far left towards the top. Yearly run-off from the well, or underground stream, has caused the asphalt to lift on the footpath to Fielding Avenue (not shown, but visible in a Google street view of "Fielding and Doherty, Montreal"). This neighbourhood, Notre Dame de Grace, has many underground streams, as do other areas of Montreal. It's not so long ago that this was country...

Update on 10 September 2018: The St-Pierre River, which has been covered with asphalt and buildings, runs under different parts of NDG; it originates in Old Montreal and ends at the Meadowbrook Golf Course in Cote St-Luc. Wouldn't it be great if we could see parts of this river restored aboveground? Re. this experiment in Loyola Park, it failed because some people were afraid it would cause disease as they believed mosquitoes would breed in the water; however, it also dried up and I suspect the amount of water in this experimental area was a lot less than originally estimated... SM