Preparing the foundation for the Meilleur-Atlantique tributary sewer on north shore of Montreal. (Photo source: City of Montreal Archives)
How else dispose of an immortal force
No longer needed? Staunch it at its source
With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown
Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone
In fetid darkness still to live and run —
And all for nothing it had ever done
Except forget to go in fear perhaps.
No one would know except for ancient maps
That such a brook ran water. But I wonder
If from its being kept forever under,
The thoughts may not have risen that so keep
This new-built city from both work and sleep.– excerpt from A Brook in the City by Robert Frost, 1923
While we tend to hear a fair amount about the Lachine canal or the water surrounding Montreal, the creeks of the island never really seem to get much attention. It’s not surprising given just how few are actually left. Some readers might know of Riviere St. Pierre and how it’s been lost, but it’s definitely not the only river or creek to have suffered this fate. Perhaps “lost” isn’t the best word to use. While the majority have been removed from both the visible landscape and our collective memory, their waters can still be found beneath us, flowing through the island’s sewer system.
The relationship between sewers and streams is one that I’ll be returning to often. While the the two may not always follow the exact paths, there are often direct links between where a creek once flowed and where a sewer exists today.
1953 photo showing construction of the 14 foot high Meilleur Atlantique collector sewer in the community of Bordeaux. The creek once known as Ruisseau Provost can be seen running off to the right. (Photo source: City of Montreal Archives)
By looking at early maps of the island like the ones drafted before the mid 1800s, we can get a better sense of just how many watercourses used to flow over the landscape. Using a series of older maps and one provided by the city’s water monitoring group, I put together the following map to give an approximated view of the island’s past and present surface hydrology:
Unlike a city such as Toronto, where traces of former creeks and rivers are often quite obvious, signs of Montreal’s lost watercourses are a bit harder to come by and require a bit more digging.
Take for example all the things that used to flow in and around central Montreal:
Approximate paths of creeks in Montreal prior to the 1800s.
The most we can hope to see of this former network is in a quiet corner of Outremont, where small sections of the creek once known as Ruisseau Springrove appear. Discounting the street in the area named rue Springrove, one could presumably find further evidence of this little stream on the way up Mount Royal. Everything else shown in the map above has been erased from the landscape entirely. Even the twin ponds of Parc Lafontaine whose curves take the approximate shape of the creek that once passed through Logan’s Farm are concrete-lined fabrications. When necessary, their contents drain into the sewer that runs beneath the southern portion of the property.
Generally speaking, one would have to drive a half hour or more away from the centre of downtown, out to Dorval, Ville St. Laurent or the East island before they came across a bona fide creek. Even then, many of these have been partially covered or have had their tributaries amputated. The few sections that do remain visible are often found within either golf courses or areas designated as parkland. They also tend to exist in the small portion of the island that doesn’t make use of a combined sewer system. Not surprisingly, many are also highly polluted.
Charting the evolution of the island’s creeks can often be a daunting task. Older maps from the early 1800s show only approximate paths with many minor creeks apparently deemed unworthy of inclusion. By the time more detailed maps started to emerge around 1820, we see that many of these watercourses had already started to disappear.
Detail of map illustrating the extent to which creeks had started to disappear by 1853.
By the 1870s, little of the original network of streams in the city could be found, having been used to help provide a steady flow of water through the city’s developing sewer system.
Fortunately, many of the areas found outside the city, can be traced relatively well. In particular, the creeks Molson, Raimbault, Provost and portions of St-Pierre can all be seen in a fair amount of detail on maps maps from the 1900s, right up until the early to mid-1950s before they too were driven into the sewer system.
The far-reaching arms of Ruisseau Provost (or Cote Des Neiges) shown here on a map from 1916.
Whereas maps are able to show us part of the picture, books tend to reveal less about most of these creeks. Photographs are uncommon and names are often only mentioned in passing without any further details regarding their size, their flora and fauna, and the role they might have served for those who lived near them.
1950 photo of Raimbault creek which once passed through the burrough of Cartierville. Photo source: Ville St. Laurent Archives.
Confusing matters further are the multiple names ascribed to individual creeks. Ruisseau Provost and Ruisseau Cote-des-neiges were both used for the system that once flowed from the edge of Mont Royal all the way down to the north shore of the island. The English might have had a different name for it altogether. Today the creek’s waters flow through one of the island’s largest collector sewers: the Meilleur-Atlantique, a title which refers only to the main streets it passes under. I don’t imagine it will ever be called anything else, although underground explorers such as myself might someday give it a goofy-sounding name for their own amusement.
So hopefully this gives people some idea of what used to be found on the island. We’ll look at some of these systems in a bit more detail eventually, but I figured it would be of benefit for some to give a general overview out of the way first.
12 comments
Wow, awesome article!
Maybe that can explain why guy-concordia metro station is always leaking water from the roof…
Tout un travail, bravo!
La petite rivière St-Pierre est revenue à la surface durant quelques semaines il y a quelques années lors de la reconstruction du bassin de rétention sous la ruelle au nord de la rue St-Ambroise entre le chemin Côte-St-Paul & la rue Butternut et sous le parc du Lac-à-la-Loutre (l’ancien nom du marais où était l’ancien triage Turcot)…
Un trottoir en béton au sud du canal Lachine entre la passerelle de la rue Beaudoin et le pont du CN symbolise son ancien cours (l’actuel cours de la rivière est discernible sur la rue St-Patrick, juste à l’ouest du n°3700; on distingue dans la chaussée de longues plaques rectangulaires parallèles à l’axe de la rue. Ces plaques servent à insérer des vannes pour en couper le flux lorsque nécéssaire).
La rivière passe actuellement sous le canal Lachine au moyen d’un siphon inversé constitué de quatre conduites, deux d’environ 4 pieds de diamètre, et deux d’environ 1 pied; les petites conduites permettent de conserver un débit suffisant pour empêcher l’ensablement durant l’étiage. Ce siphon inversé a été complètement reconstruit dans les années 70; on peut en discerner les extrémités par la présence, sur la piste cyclable, de deux trous d’homme entre la piste et le mur du canal, vis-à-vis du parc Gédéon de Catalogne.
Quant à l’égoût sous les étangs du parc Lafontaine, il y a une vingtaine d’années, sa voûte s’est effondrée il y a environ 20-25 ans et les étangs s’y sont vidés, ce qui a forcé à ville a reconstruire l’égoût… :)
Le ruisseau Bouchard, à la frontière de Dorval et Lachine est à découvert sur pas mal toute sa longueur; il draine une portion appréciable des terrains de l’aéroport international PET (FART internationsl airport) et, en conséquence, est plein de glycol (déglaçant pour les avions) en hiver, ce qui fait qu’il ne gèle plus… C’est également le cas du ruisseau Saraguay qui passe dans le Bois-de-Liesse (entre St-Laurent et Dollard-des-Ormeaux).
Bel article!
At one time, on the Montreal Tramways Cartierville 17 Route, now Rue Grenet, there was a double-track steel bridge over a very-tired creek just South of present rue Deguire.
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCC&cp=rkkdj18vry7v&style=b&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=28368840&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1
In the Fifties this creek also passed beneath Boul Marcel Laurin just to the South of-then Canadair and was bordered on the South side by a ready mix firm where they prepared concrete and poured it into concrete mixer trucks.
The creek was there filled with concrete plant residues.
The bridges were removed when streecars came off in June 1959, but their piers lasted well into the Sixties.
The Mile End stream on the north side of Mont Royal in upper Outremont is still above ground in 4 sections from the Mont Royal cemetery downhill to almost cote ste-Catherine road. It is an excellent discover-your-city walk.
Thanks, I didn’t know about that one. I’ll have to go check that out sometime.
There is or was a fairly big stream out near the Matrox plant, near DDO. I guess it flows down through the parkland, just to the north.
Anyway, what is remember being cool — literally — was cycling down the road (Brunswick?) one hot summer’s day, a riding through this delicious a wave of cool air as one crossed the creek.
Still in the Waste Island, I remember when DDO’s Centennial Park was being built. I seem to recall extensive trenches being dug to reroute the existing stream(s) so they’d drain into the man-made lake.
Shawn: The one near Matrox would be Ruisseau Betrand. Most of it’s still visible thanks to the Bois de Liesse parkland that it passes through.
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/page/rsma_fr/media/images/ph_bertrand_rsma.gif
Great article! Thank you thank you thank you!
Mile End Creek is mentioned a couple of times in the Autumn 1991 special issue of Continuité magazine entitled “Outremont et son patrimoine”.
“Au numéro 118 [Maplewood]… on appréciera l’un des paysages les plus romantiques de la ville. On y retrouve le ruisseau que l’on a sans doute remarqué au cimetière protestant …, que l’on voit aussi sur le côté nord de l’avenue Maplewood avant qu’il ne disparaisse sous terre. C’est le Mile End Creek, sur les bords duquel les Amérindiens s’étaient peut-être fixés, le ruisseau qui alimentait autrefois un abreuvoir à chevaux sur le chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, formait cet étang qui est devenu le bassin du parc Outremont et continuait pour rejoindre la rivière Saint-Martin” (page 19).
“Le ruisseau du Mile-End formait un marécage à l’endroit du parc Outremont. En 1898, la Ville acquit les terrains inondés où les enfants avaient pris l’habitude de jouer, avec l’idée de le transformer en “parc municipal”. Son périmètre actuel date de 1903, année où l’on fit construire le bassin McDougall et planter 50 arbres sur les bords. Divers terrains de jeu voient le jour en 1906 et l’on envisage l’érection d’une fontaine. Elle ne fut mise en place qu’en 1916 quand l’ingénieur de la Ville en eut choisi le modèle, inspiré par les Groupes d’enfants qui ornent le parterre d’eau du château de Versailles, rien de moins!” (page 44).
Cdnlococo, you seem to have intimate knowledge of the Montreal Tramway company and I would like to ask you some questions in this regard. I am doing a digital map of this and all the railways past and present in Quebec and am in need of your help. Please contact Paul at the email on my website: http://individual.utoronto.ca/sorailmap/
In the early 1960s I remember cycling into Ville St. Laurent to discover the last remaining remnants of Raimbault Creek which was soon after placed into subterranean pipes beneath what is today Hartenstein Park. Prior to the creek’s burial, the nearby streets and houses would experience severe flooding following summer thunderstorms. As you can imagine, the uproar by the affected residents must have forced the authorities to take action. Only Ruisseau Crescent and Rouisseau Blvd. remain as memories of that era. Incidentally, the underground creek now pours into Cartierville’s Riviere des Prairies at the top of Raimbault Park. See:
https://preservedstories.com/2014/04/30/the-creek-that-used-to-run-through-cartierville-montreal-was-called-raimbault-creek/