by Frédéric-Back Park was once a dumping ground; a quarry and a landfill almost the size of Monaco, infested with rats, roaring with waste trucks, belching potent gas, dirty with 40 million tons of trash. So dirty, in the 1970s, residents of the surrounding Saint-Michel – Montreal’s most ethnically diverse neighborhood – took to the streets in protest.
But looking around the park today, everything is green and serene; the Herculean regeneration project is almost complete. Butterflies support milkweed and echinacea meadows, sunflowers nod in the summer heat, new trees push out, neat gravel paths by cyclists. And, just in case, a fleet of alien spaceships puts the grass…
Olivier Lapierre, who is showing me around, notices my confusion. “The white areas? They are wells to capture biogas.”
All that trash, now rotting under the field, releases methane, a major cause of climate change. These wells pump it to a power plant, where it is used to create electricity. “They are phosphorescent and glow with dusk,” says Olivier. “They feel a bit sci-fi. Functional and fun.” Like Montreal itself.
According to the Global Destination Sustainability Index, Montreal is the most sustainable city in North America. But while Quebec City has a strong eco bent, it’s rarely without a fun edge. And Frédéric-Back literally has a playful edge.
The new park is located near the city’s Circus Arts Quarter: the famous Cirque du Soleil moved its headquarters to Saint-Michel in 1988, and later established the National Circus School and the Tohu circus and community complex here. It’s all part of revitalizing the area and bringing culture and entertainment to smaller people; Tohu offers free bike and snowshoe rentals to explore the park, as well as running lower-cost events. Guide Stephanie (also a grocer and cyclist, of course) shows me into Tohu’s large, sustainably designed circular auditorium. “The huge rear doors are tall enough for a giraffe, wide enough for an elephant,” she tells me. “That being said, we never tried.”
Montreal is a city of festivals: jazz, comedy, snow, beer – there’s always something going on, every time you visit. For me, it was the Cirque Complètement Tohu Festival (held in July), which Olivier helps run. And its bravura centerpiece is the Giant: a free, twice-nightly performance in which a daredevil troupe flips, leaps and leans on a 50-foot-tall metal man. I join the crowds gathering under the skyscrapers in Place Ville-Marie. As the sun sets, the music starts, the lights turn and the show begins. Unbelievable! So far so fun.
I don’t want to go home after that either. I was staying at nearby Humanti, a sleek hotel-apartment complex – it calls itself a “vertical village” – designed to connect the city, visitors and the local community. It is a former Futura Best Project finalist, an award that recognizes buildings whose distinctive architecture and environmental ethos offer a glimpse of what the future might hold – and there are plenty of clever ideas here. I particularly liked the abundance of natural light and the Canadian art, and – a nice detail – the gym’s wooden eco-machines, which use water resistance instead of electricity.
Olivier tells me that Montreal is a city that “rewards the wanderer”; where you’re happy to make your own discoveries, drifting through a neighborhood, rather than ticking off sights. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a city with French as its official language rewards the flâneur lifestyle. So that’s what I do.
The next day I follow my nose up leafy Mount Royal, the big green lung of the city, and down through affluent Outremont, with its cool cafes and Art Deco theater. I enter Little Italy, through duplex streets with spiral staircases – an architectural classic of Montreal – and into the cornucopian Jean-Talon market, full of fresh and local products.
I browse in an eco-friendly way at the old shops in Mile End – some, like Annex, are mostly designer boutiques that are very fashionable. And I end up at the counter of Wilensky’s Light Lunch, a kosher cafe-deli that hasn’t changed much since it opened in 1932. I order the Special, an all-beef salami and bologna roll, for $5.01, along with a cherry-cola from the soda fountain. The guy next to me orders a Special Special too, he’s a wolf, then someone else orders.
After all this, I need my rest, so I take a bus towards the Old Port, to taste the sustainability of the city in peace. In the 1950s the Arthur Cardin was a ferry; Now, with a bit of recycling, it has been restored to Bota Bota, a floating spa powered by energy harvested from the St Lawrence River. Even eco-heroes can relax here.
The design is extremely slick, a nautical-meets-Scandi vibe that flows through the hot pools, cold pools, steam rooms, saunas and relaxation garden. I move around, cooling off and draining myself, enjoying the amazing views across the river and skyline, and up to the sprawling industrial silos, built when Montreal was the world’s largest grain port. However, for all the fancy areas of the spa, I like the simple deck that no one else had; here, I descended the caged-in steps for a dunk into the St. Lawrence itself, watched only by the ducks.
Actually, the passengers on board the Petit Navire can see me too. When I take a ride on this pleasure boat myself a little later, we steer close to Bota Bota – without disturbing the spa bathers inside. Petit Navire’s fleet is fully electric powered; super quiet, zero-pollution and carbon-neutral certified.
“It’s like running two hair dryers,” says Captain François as he steers around the old port, along the Isle of St. Helena and into the Sainte-Marie stream. Historically this fast flowing undertow was a formidable obstacle for ships trying to dock here. For us today it’s just fun. The fizzing water takes up the boat and, whoosh, we are driving fast towards the Jacques Cartier Bridge. Those hair dryer batteries have to work a lot harder to get us back on track.
I have a little time to kill before the big end of my trip, so I head to Pointe-à-Callière, Montreal’s archaeological museum, located on the site where the city was first founded in 1642. And it was great, especially the underground exhibitions. , where Montreal was wonderfully discovered. Through artifacts and excavations, I explore the layers of the city, from traces of native livelihood to the original wooden palisade, the first cemetery, a munitions store, cobblestone streets from the 18th century, the remains of the Wurtele Inn.
But, to finish, I walk from the basement to the big top. Every year Cirque du Soleil puts up a strong tent near the old port; these days, it’s blue and white – the brightly colored canvas reflects heat and greatly reduces the energy needed for air conditioning. I’m going to see Echo, the company’s latest show, which has a theme of balance in nature and the importance of connections in creating an internal world. Echo delivers its eco-message through human skill and dexterity at most. Performers do impossible things around a giant Rubik’s cube, itself twisting and changing shape. I would rather not have a soul in the audience without their hands in their mouths, their hearts in their throats, or gasps, screams and loud mouths.
After two hours after I was bamboozled, I emerged, a stupid grin stuck on my face. In light of this, Montreal seems like just the kind of world I’d happily live in.
Basics
Air Canada (00 800 669 92222; aircanada.com) flies London-Montreal from around £350 return. Doubles from C$220pn (£130) room only at Hotel Humaniti (001 514 657 2595; humanitihotel.com). A three-hour session at Bota Bota costs from C$70pp (£41) (botabota.ca). Boat trips with Petit Navire cost from C$25pp (£15) (lepetitnavire.ca). For show listings, see tohu.ca and cirquedusoleil.com. For more information, see mtl.org/en.
