Small or large, urban parks are even more a part of our daily lives in the summer. But what makes up their soul? Which one occupies a special place in our hearts and in our routine? For this series, The Duty goes through some of them, sometimes accompanied by readers who wanted to share their story. Today: the Promenade-Bellerive park in Montreal.
As you travel through the asphalt desert of Notre-Dame Street in Montreal’s east end, you pass stacks of containers and come across wheeled behemoths. About ten blocks after the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel, an oasis finally appears. It’s the Promenade-Bellerive Park.
Maurice Gohier does the tour every morning at dawn, during a journey of nearly 5 km. “It’s a prescription from my cardiologist,” says this retiree, who used to work in the security field.
Armed with his camera, he immortalizes the sunrise over the St. Lawrence River. Other elements of the landscape capture the attention of his lens: tree swallows taking over nest boxes, red foxes jumping on the shore, wild rose bushes, cruise ships plying the water.
“My best memory was six years ago, during a winter when it was very cold very early in the season. On a day of -20 degrees Celsius, I was lying on the ice and taking pictures of ice flowers. It is the crystallization of humidity that forms small frozen lotuses,” he says, stars in his eyes.
With its 22 hectares, the Promenade-Bellerive park is one of Montreal’s largest parks, although it seems little known. It is the only one in the Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough to offer access to the banks of the river. In a way, it is a gap in the middle of the industrial Port of Montreal, which extends for nearly thirty kilometres. It also connects several smaller municipal parks.
Sporting brown glasses, a gray beard and a bear claw around his neck, Mr. Gohier sets out to show his haven of peace to the Duty, along with two other regulars.
” THE party “The Saint-Jean celebrations in this park helped build my identity from the age of 10 or 11,” says Dominique David, dressed in blue and white. She is now the one organizing the celebrations, as she is the general director of the Société d’animation de la promenade Bellerive.
Yoland Bergeron, for his part, regularly pinches himself while admiring the view of the Parc national des Îles-de-Boucherville and the Montérégie hills from his yellow house. “What more can I ask for?” he says with a big smile, leaning on the handlebars of his bike.
Citizen battles
Until the 1980s, it was a blue mountain of salt that stood in front of his home, at the eastern end of the park. “We had to fight hard to get that moved,” says Mr. Bergeron.
He also led a citizen mobilization aimed at countering port expansion projects and substantially improving the layout of the park, inaugurated in 1964. From 1965 to 1975, construction waste was dumped into the river along the bank, thus expanding the park, according to the Société d’animation de la promenade Bellerive. The park was then gradually expanded by adding sections.
In 1989, Mr. Bergeron appeared in an article by The Press entitled “Citizens protest against the erection of a fence between their park and the river”. As president of the Bellerive promenade committee, he denounced the construction of a barrier two meters high and 365 meters long, at the request of the port authorities to “allow docking along two small quays”.
Today, a modest chalet welcomes visitors on the west side of the park. A river shuttle stops just across the street, to pick up passengers bound for the Boucherville municipal wharf or Charron Island. A procession of new mothers parades by with strollers.
Walkers encounter a wide variety of trees along the trails: ornamental apple trees, Japanese lilacs, poplars, Chinese elms, staghorn sumacs, aspens, willows and horse chestnuts, to name a few. “Linden trees make great concoctions,” enthuses M.me David.
There are also several interpretation panels, which tell us in particular that wealthy families had established estates or summer houses in the 19th century.e century and early 20th centurye century, before the sector became heavily industrialized.
Swimming dream
Along the path that runs along the river, citizens have made their way to the shore. The wave is bordered by a beach of stones and gravel. In a wider area, the city has installed large wooden lounge chairs. Swimming is still not permitted, despite promises to do so by the mayor of Montreal. The website of her party, Projet Montréal, indicates that authorization from Fisheries and Oceans Canada is pending. The borough of Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve has indicated that soil contamination is slowing down the project.
In front of Yoland Bergeron’s house, the duc-d’Albe (quay on metal piles) where salt-laden boats used to dock has been opened to the public. As you walk along the piles, you can see the park’s boundaries, marked by huge cranes on one side and cargo ships on the other. However, you should avoid getting lost in the landscape and stay alert: the risk of tripping over the prominent planks on the quay is indicated by orange paint.
“The base is not maintained. The infrastructure is aging,” laments Mr. Bergeron. Because despite the historic victories that delight the three friends, the Promenade-Bellerive park deserves more care. In particular, they are asking for better maintenance, water fountains and toilets in more than one location.
They also feel that their corner of paradise is not safe from industrial pressures. The Port still owns part of the land, which is leased to the City of Montreal. In order to protect it, Maurice Gohier would like the park’s shoreline to be recognized as a component of the Boucherville Islands National Park.
“In the past, citizens would go to the other side with their boats. The islands have always been accessible, people fished, hunted. The population has always had a connection to water here,” reports Mr. Bergeron.
The two men intend to do everything to ensure that the voices of citizens guide decisions on the future of what they call “their jewel.”