Memo from Montreal to Toronto:

 

A green belt is for perpetuity,

not for the convenience

of politicians and their friends;

this housing Ford wants,

it's 1950s suburban development,

letting developers and politicians get rich.

Note: Premier Doug Ford of Ontario is relentless in his support for building houses on the green belt outside of Toronto. I doubt he understands that a population that, in general, supports climate change is not sympathetic to building houses and highways on the green belt. Why not build on land zoned residential? The project is already sullied with corruption.

View from Toe Blake Park

This isn't quite my final installment of what's happening at the St. Pierre River, only an update; now the section of the river that crosses Meadowbrook Golf Course is buried some landscaping is in the works. Planting some shrubs and bushes over the area that was buried. Photos taken on May 18, 2022.

Visiting Meadowbrook Golf Course on the last day of March

Here I am yesterday at Meadowbrook Golf Course. No construction today, no other people, a few ducks and Canada geese, it was a short interlude from the busy city that surrounds us.

If you plan to visit remember that the path is very muddy and you'll need proper foot wear. 

Photos taken on 31 March 2022.

A train passes by, otherwise there is no one here

How far did they get with burying the St. Pierre River?

Not far at all considering they were in such a rush to get construction begun and get the last remaining above ground section of the St. Pierre River buried... As of March 10, 2022 this is what they've done. By now, four months after this work was begun, maybe they could have fixed the source of the problem, private residences incorrectly connected to the waste water pipes, and possibly moved on to the next step, restoring segments of the St. Pierre River above ground. 

Any politician who championed restoring the river would have been considered a hero to the community, they would have been praised for their vision and long-term commitment and effort towards saving a little of the remaining nature in the city. Will a politician be remembered and praised because he promoted condo development? I don't think so. 

Photos taken looking over a fence into Meadowbrook Golf Course from Toe Blake Park in Montreal West.

Burying the St. Pierre River Has Begun

 

Yesterday morning I walked to Meadowbrook Golf Course; it was a beautiful sunny day, not a single cloud in the sky. Court ordered work to bury the last section of the St. Pierre River has begun. On the far right of the above satellite image you can the St. Pierre River, it's just below Toe Blake Park; the river runs in a fairly straight line until it meanders and then, finally, empties into a culvert at the train tracks. I learned a few things in high school Geography and one of them is that a meandering river is very old, that it was once a more powerful river but is not as powerful as it once was, when meeting obstacles it meanders around them rather than over them. However, this river may have never been anything but a creek; it begins as a stream on Mount Royal and then runs across the city to empty out at the St. Lawrence River. Of course, even Mount Royal was once a much larger mountain but has been worn down by erosion and time.

It must seem a big issue is being made of something fairly insignificant. What the river represents is the last vestige of a historical river, it represents the presence of nature in the built city environment that can be relentlessly soulless. All people need the presence of nature as a place to enjoy the outdoors and we know that the outdoors--a forest, a river, a field--gives meaning to life, it restores one spiritually, it recharges one's batteries. This is what the river and the golf course represent, even though most people will never walk here or see the river. That it exists and its possible future use as a nature reserve, a park, or still a golf course is what is important. It is important not to lose this land to more condo construction.

Here are some photographs of the burying of the river. I see that the plan is to dig a straight trench between where the river enters the golf course below Toe Blake Park and where it leaves at the culvert. This water will be diverted into culvert pipes.

This part of the river, that meanders, is cut off 

Visiting the St. Pierre River

An article in the Montreal Gazette (Friday, 19 November 2021), "City to Bury St-Pierre River on court order", got me to finally visit what is left of the St. Pierre River, and I am glad that I did. I've been interested in the St. Pierre River for several years, but as for visiting this last surviving section of the river, it never happened until the other day. My only experience of the river was when walking through the underpass on Westminister Avenue just above Cote St-Luc Road, you can hear the sound of the river as it runs through underground pipes. Today, located in Meadowbrook Golf Course, you can see the only part of the St. Pierre River still above ground, and this will soon be buried. The Gazette article says that the river is polluted, so surrounding trees should be cut down, and the river should be buried, not exactly an approach that fits into our present age of conservation and climate change. In fact, the more I think about it the more ridiculous it becomes, what ever happened to cleaning up the source of the pollution. 

Other cities have buried their at-the-time inconveniently located rivers and some of these cities are working at recovering--better to say, "uncovering"--these rivers. Here we are making sure whatever is left of the river is buried. Sometimes I think of how different Montreal would be had the St. Pierre River not have been buried. Imagine owning a house in the city with a creek running by in the back yard; okay, maybe you wouldn't like this but this is something some of us would love to have. A friend in Baltimore grew up with the Herring Run River across the street from where he lived and where lived later in life. Birds, wild life, even deer could be seen going to the river, it's a green space for animals and people, a sign that some little bit of nature still exists. But it is not to be here. 

Personally, I think this court order only suits developers who have big plans to build on the site, no doubt just what we need, more condos. I am told that the site is protected but, as with most things, I am a skeptic. Here are photographs I took of the St. Pierre River the other day.

Just above the culvert pipe in this photo is the Toe Blake Park; the culvert pipe is for water from the buried
St. Pierre River but it also contains contaminants from local residences. This contamination is the reason given
for burying the river after the area has been decontaminated. The extent of this pollution is unknown to me.