She simply calls it “the island.” Like when her mother, exhausted from managing a household of seven people “crammed” into a five-and-a-half, would shout, “We’re going to the island!” Or when her cousins, driving over the bridge right next to their apartment, would shout out the window, “Come join us on the island!” The family would then set off on foot over the Jacques Cartier Bridge to cross the St. Lawrence River and spend the day on Île Sainte-Hélène—their island.
“There’s not a corner of the island that I didn’t know when I was young,” says Monique Langlois, 81, as she walks, cane in hand, along the paths of her childhood. “I think I knew every tree. Oh, my God, it was beautiful!”
The family of three children lived in the Faubourg à m’lasse, a working-class Montreal neighbourhood located at the foot of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. “We were on a third floor. My mother also took care of her sister [qui avait fait une dépression] and his father [qui était veuf]. » With seven occupants, the small apartment — located on a treeless street — left little room for privacy. “We were outside a lot.”
Without a car, the family mostly traveled to the island on foot, sometimes dragging a small cart filled with supplies behind them. “The island was like home,” she says. “It was like our backyard.” Once there, her mother would spread a tablecloth on a picnic table for the upcoming meal, then place a blanket on the ground for rest and (finally!) settle down on a bench to read her photo novels. “She needed to get out of the house. She loved the island.”
Children in freedom
The children were then left to their own devices. “We walked, we ran around the island. We had nothing to play with, but we played,” says Monique. The woods became endless hiding places; the paths, fast routes to their imagination. The children sometimes collected empty bottles as treasure to sell. “We knew all the nooks and crannies of the island. My mother was never worried.”
On weekends, her father, like her cousins, often joined them. However, no one in the family had a telephone. “I think one of them would leave on the streetcar to say: ‘There’s a picnic on Sunday!’ We had no telephone, no car, and look how many of us were gathered together,” says Monique, showing vintage photos where about twenty heads are gathered in front of the lens, all smiles.
“And the food that was there!” she recalls. The tables were filled with sandwiches, salads, pies and drinks. “It was all homemade. It was healthy. I think we were being eco-friendly without knowing it.” The one who worked as a professional in school libraries still keeps as a relic of that time the metal box that her paternal grandmother brought to the island. “She would arrive with a beautiful leatherette bag, inside was her thermos of tea and her metal box in which she put her sandwiches. It was ceremonial!”
View of the city center
Back then, from the picnic table where Monique’s family gathered, the view of the river and the city was clear. “We could almost see our house in the Faubourg on the other side.” Today, you have to climb a hill to overlook the trees and shrubs and reach downtown Montreal and, beyond, Mount Royal. “It’s incredible how close you can be to nature so close to the city. It’s a magnificent site.”
In the evening, a policeman would go around the island “with a siren on his bicycle” to warn those who were still hanging around that the last bus would soon be leaving. “Then we would pack our things and leave.” With a clear mind, the family would return to their small home. It was not easy to live with seven people in a five-and-a-half, without hot water or a fridge, Monique recalls, “but we were happy despite everything.”
Expo 67
When the Universal Exhibition set up shop on the islands of Sainte-Hélène and Notre-Dame in 1967, Monique of course explored it diligently. As a young worker, she would leave the office at the end of the day to explore the world that was opening up to her. “I visited all the pavilions.” Every time she went to Expo 67, Monique would write down her discoveries in a journal. “In the end, I counted the number of dates I went. Sixty-seven times. Bingo!” A coincidence that still makes her laugh today.
Now, the tradition — three generations old — of going to the island for picnics has faded in Monique’s family. “Even before the Jacques Cartier Bridge was built, my grandparents would go there by boat,” she says. About ten years ago, the younger generations were invited to the island. “It was a great picnic. We wanted to show them what we had experienced. But we’ve never done it again since.”
The island, however, continues to hold a special place in Monique’s heart. In the same way that French singer Joséphine Baker sang “j’ai deux amours / mon pays et Paris,” Monique hums “j’ai deux amours / mon faubourg et mon île” to the same familiar tune, as she gazes at the expanse of greenery around her. Let’s bet that with this fervor, she will soon convince her brother and sister to return to the island for a picnic… and maybe even bring their grandmother’s metal box.