Have you seen the Saint-Pierre River crossing Côte-des-Neiges or the Saint-Martin River wetting Old Montreal? Impossible: the city swallowed them up long ago. But the Rivière à l’Orme, in the west of the island, still flows.
Montreal’s newest river is receiving special attention, despite its modest size and sometimes inglorious route through a highway and an industrial park.
“It doesn’t look like much, but it’s really alive,” explains Jean-Philippe Poulin, from the City of Montreal’s Environment Department. The course is indeed far from spectacular, with its low flow and the dense vegetation surrounding it.
We often see all kinds of birds, we see herons, kingfishers. It’s not empty. It’s a beautiful environment that we have here.
Jean-Philippe Poulin
Elsewhere on the island, rivers have been channeled over the centuries, often because they were used as sewers by Montrealers at the time. Others have fallen victim to the drainage of the wetlands where they originated, such as Grand Lac à la Loutre, in the area of the current Turcot interchange.
Mr. Poulin is one of those responsible for monitoring the Orme River, the last vestige of a bygone era. Several times each summer, he takes samples at various locations in the river to check the quality of its water. He has been frequenting it for more than 20 years.
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Jean-Philippe Poulin is one of those responsible for monitoring the Orme River.
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Jean-Philippe Poulin and Maximilien Mariage take a sample from the river.
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Another sample in the Orme River, from the Gouin Boulevard bridge.
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Maximilien Mariage and Jean-Philippe Poulin, from the City of Montreal’s environmental department, in their work truck.
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Very close to the bridge on Gouin Boulevard that allows crossing the river, he plunges a probe into a bucket that he has just filled. With the help of his colleague Maximilien Mariage, he also fills a whole series of small bottles. Destination: lab.
“What makes up our water quality index is a set of parameters: microbiology (fecal coliforms), suspended matter (such as soil), we detect metals,” he explains.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Water samples are taken from different locations in the river.
And to urban river, urban problems. “One of the important contributions that we have for the river is the storm water network that comes from Highway 40. It drains a large area and discharges at the head of the river.” Sometimes with contaminants from the highway.
Another form of protection
Sue Stacho also takes care of the river in her own way.
Along with a group of activists, the high school teacher fought for months, until 2018, to limit real estate development around the last river on the island of Montreal. Real estate developers wanted to build a new neighbourhood of nearly 6,000 homes there.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Sue Stacho and Alison Hackney, from Save L’Anse-à-l’Orme
“I discovered the river one day, while cycling,” says the resident of the west of the island, near the intersection of the Anse-à-l’Orme road, which runs along the river for nearly four kilometres.
When Sue Stacho saw in 2016 that “surveying and subdivision work was beginning” in the area, she got involved by creating – with others – a group called Sauvons l’Anse-à-l’Orme. Petition, political pressure, public guided tours: a real campaign of opposition to the project emerged.
The development would not have directly affected the river, which “was already protected.” But “the river would have been impacted,” adds Jamie Kinsman, one of the partners in Sauvons l’Anse-à-l’Orme.
“Before, it was all agriculture here,” he continues. “Nature has taken over, but you can still see the traces of the stone walls that the farmers built. You can walk in the forest and come across a stone wall.”
Their fight ended shortly after Valérie Plante was elected to Montreal City Hall. Her administration rejected the development project and instead expressed its desire to see the creation of a “great western park” that would include the Rivière à l’Orme.
“Still wild”
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The Orme River is home to many aquatic species.
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The Orme River, with the Lac des Deux Montagnes in the background
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The Orme River has a diversity of habitats offering significant biodiversity.
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This immense territory (15 times the size of Mount Royal Park) will eventually be managed by the City of Montreal’s major parks department. These teams already manage several parks that will be included in this project.
There is truly a mosaic of habitats that supports significant biodiversity around the Rivière à l’Orme. It’s pretty much the last part of the island of Montreal that is still wild… to a certain extent.
Marie Lafontaine
To the east of the river: the former agricultural wasteland returned to nature that Sauvons l’Anse-à-l’Orme wanted to protect. To the west: the Bois-de-la-Roche agricultural park, land that has been brought back into cultivation in recent years as part of community projects.
“It’s one of the richest parks in terms of aquatic birds,” she adds. “The same goes for herpetofauna (amphibians, reptiles), we also have 14 species that were counted in 2019-2020. In short, it’s really the diversity of habitats that haven’t been too disturbed yet.” Her services also conduct a census of map turtles – a species in a “precarious situation” – in the area every spring.
The Orme River, the last specimen of its species, also deserves the conservation efforts that are being made of it.
8 kilometers
This is the modest length of the Orme River, from its source south of the A40 to its mouth on the Lac des Deux Montagnes.