Urban Adventurers Take Montreal's Waterways
Running the Lachine Rapids in the St. Lawrence aboard a jet boate.
IT was a spring Saturday in Montreal, and swelling the throngs along the Rue Ste.-Catherine were hipsters in low-slung designer jeans and gossamer tops, wholesome types in costumes straight out of the latest Roots catalog, fashionable families and chic older couples. French and English, Spanish and Italian filled the air. A lively group packed Le Paris, a popular bistro on Rue Ste.-Catherine with antique prints, cheek-by-jowl tables, and classic French dishes like poached salmon and grilled blood pudding.
Kayaking in the Lachine Canal.
As a chattering crowd swarmed the Contemporary Art Museum on the Place-des-Artes and the sidewalk cafes of Old Montreal, in another part of town Don Lindberg, his wife, Sue, and their kids, Brady and Ali, were donning full-body windbreakers and life preservers for a different Montreal experience — a jet boat ride into the Lachine Rapids in the St. Lawrence River.
"They call them Barney suits because they're purple," said Mr. Lindberg. "They don't keep you dry." But probably no suit would, because the jet boat hits a wall of water from 6 to 12 feet tall, as Mr. Lindberg describes it, and the waves "crash over you so that you're completely soaked."
"It was fantastic," he added.
The Lindberg family went through the rapids six times on jet boats run by Les Descentes sur le St.-Laurent on Lasalle Boulevard in southwest Montreal last May. "If we weren't flying home to San Antonio tonight," Mr. Lindberg said, "I'd do it again tomorrow."
Among the millions of travelers who visit Montreal each year, thousands are discovering that they can take a break from galleries and bistros with a taste of citified wilderness in the Lachine Rapids and the nearby Lachine Canal.
Daredevil whitewater boating and quiet canal kayaking lure many out onto the water, and the city is gaining even more fame as a major destination for bicyclists. As the Lindbergs stepped into their Barney suits, cyclists of the hard-core sort were out in force on the path bordering the canal, clad head to toe in expensive-looking biking outfits and gear, the sun glinting off the chrome of their shiny bicycles. The city and its suburbs have more than 200 miles of well-groomed cycling paths, a major reason why Bicycling magazine has twice named Montreal the No. 1 major North American city for cycling. One of the most popular routes is the one bordering the Lachine Canal.
The nine-mile canal, which runs from just west of the Old Port on the St. Lawrence and through southwestern Montreal to Lake St. Louis, opened in 1825 to take cargo ships around the rapids, which roil and churn smack-dab in the middle of the river. The name Lachine may have started out as a sneer. It is said that the 17th-century explorer, Ren챕-Robert Cavelier de La Salle, the first seigneur to hold land west of the rapids, was obsessed with finding a westward route to China, and that his repeated failed attempts led his fellow colonists to refer to his lands ironically as China, or La Chine.
The canal spurred the economic development of the Canadian West, and industry grew up along its banks. After being rendered irrelevant by the St. Lawrence Seaway, completed in 1959, the canal was closed to navigation in 1970. Refurbished, it reopened in 2002 for recreational boating. So now the St. Lawrence River, Montreal's raison d'챗tre, still runs wild through the city while the quiet Lachine Canal is filled with sailboats, canoes and other small craft.
Out-of-towners can rent small boats on the canal from companies like H2O Adventures across from Atwater Market, which has kayaks, pedal boats and five-seat electric boats that go no faster than 10 kilometers (six miles) an hour, the legal limit on the canal.
The canal slices through the city, framed by strips of parkland studded with picnic tables and rows of Lombardy poplars standing like quills. It splits off from the river where ships heading southwest from the ocean and northern Quebec came to the end of navigable waters.
At the canal's eastern end, near the first of its five sets of locks, boats put in close to a massive abandoned grain silo at the Old Port. A Montreal landmark, the Farine Five Roses sign, rises atop a flour mill. The industrial feel of this section of the canal recalls its origins.
Farther along, paddlers and sailors glide past old factories and warehouses, many now converted into lofts and co-ops. Another reminder of an earlier era are the occasional stacks of multicolored shipping containers sitting on Lachine's banks and creating checkerboard patterns against the sky.
Then there are the outskirts of the city, with fewer apartment buildings and more manicured open spaces, and at last Lake St. Louis — a wide section of the river.
The canalside path traces both banks of the canal, which are connected by bridges and locks, in some places; along other stretches, it appears on only one side. In-line skaters zoom along it, passing the joggers, and there's a separate trail reserved exclusively for walkers. The cyclists speed past in their own lane.
Though many of the avid bicyclists are Montrealers, others come from all over North America. The canal and its paths are busiest from April to October, but the most determined cyclists keep going deep into winter, cutting swaths through the snow alongside cross-country skiers.
More leisurely bike riders need not be intimidated by the Lance Armstrong wannabes hunkered down over their handlebars. Plenty of stateside visitors to Montreal rent bicycles for an afternoon of low-key riding along the canal.
A family outing along the canalside bike path, which is shared by joggers and in-line skaters.
The rider with plenty of time can also stop along the path to read signs and maps highlighting local history and landmarks like the 300-year-old Saint Gabriel House, which now holds exhibits on rural 17th-century Quebec life. Near the western entrance to the canal at Lake St. Louis is a cluster of places to park the bike and visit: the Lachine Museum, in Montreal's oldest complete house; the 17th-century Maison Leber-LeMoyne, with collections of Colonial-era artifacts and documents; the Fur Trade at Lachine National Historical Site, in an old stone warehouse with bales of pelts and other trade goods; the Lachine Canal Visitors' Center; and Ren챕-L챕vesque Park, an open-air sculpture garden.
"Lachine is where you go to escape downtown Montreal with all the high-rise hotels and office buildings," Mr. Hayes said.
"It's a very scenic, peaceful ride, and I look forward to doing it every time I come up here."
If You Go
Several companies cater to Montreal visitors who want to experience the Lachine Canal and the Lachine Rapids.
Ça Roule Montréal (27 de la Commune Est; 514-866-0633; www.caroulemontreal.com) rents bicycles, inline skates and stand-up scooters. Bike rentals are $6.50 an hour, $21.75 a day, on weekends; $6 an hour and $19 a day weekdays. (Prices here and below are in U.S. dollars, calculated at 1.19 Canadian dollars to the U.S. dollar.)
Kayaks, pedal boats and electric boats can be rented across the canal from the Atwater Market at H2O Adventures (514-842-1306; www.h2oadventures.ca). A one-person sea kayak rental is $13 the first hour, $8.70 for each hour thereafter; pedal boats are $8.70 and $7; electric boats, $30.50 and $26.
A more leisurely kind of canal boating can be had on L'Éclusier, a glass-roofed boat resembling Paris's bateau-mouche (514-846-0428; www.croisierecanaldelachine.ca/en). Two-hour guided tours, starting from Atwater Market and going to Peel Basin via the St. Gabriel Lock, are given in English and French daily June 24 to Sept. 4; on weekends and holidays May 20 through Oct. 9. The cruises are $14.50; ages 5 to 12, $8.50.
Les Descentes sur le St.-Laurent (514-767-2230, www.raftingmontreal.com) takes visitors rafting and jet-boating on the Lachine Rapids. Rafting trips are $35; ages 13 to 18, $29.60; ages 6 to 12, $20. Jet-boating costs $41.75, $33 and $24.50.
For more information on the Lachine Canal, contact the Lachine Canal National Historic Site of Canada (514-283-6054; www.pc.gc.ca).
1 comment:
Very Good article BrownBlvd,...........glad to hear the enthusiam,of taking numerous white water rides,........Sounds like they obviously had a ball............ the old Hometown has re-invented itself once more,......the rapids rides have been around for sometime now,....good to see they are thriving, HF&RV
Post a Comment