Escape Winter Blues (not really you have to wait till June)

Circle mid-June on your calendar.

That’s when Montreal gets its “urban beach” at the Old Port, Metropolitan News has learned.

I braved the snow and the cold and checked out the beach-to-be on Thursday.

My mission was to explore the Old Port’s Clock Tower Pier, where, as of this summer, Montrealers will be able to forget about winter.

When it was announced last year, the beach was panned by some because no swimming will be allowed.

There’ll be sand, Adirondack chairs, a boardwalk, a bar and showers and mist stations to cool off. Work on it started in the fall, including the installation of large blue parasols now covered in snow in ice.

The Plage urbaine au Vieux-Port will open in mid-June and run until Labour Day, Julie Mailhot, a spokesperson for the Quais du Vieux-Port, told me.

It will not be free but the entry fee has not been set yet, Mailhot said..

I poked around the Quais du Vieux-Port website and found a document (PDF)suggesting a season pass for a family will cost $58 plus taxes.

Claude Benoît, president of the Old Port of Montreal Corp., said in a speech last Maythat the federal agency wants to spend $180 million revamping the Old Port by 2017, the year Canada celebrates its 150th birthday and Montreal turns 375. The agency is spending $3 million on the beach and another $400,000 for “reception and service pavilions” for the beach.

Here’s the official video:

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Below are some photos from Claude Cormier + Associés Inc., the urban design company that developed the beach project. (More on the project, including more photos, on this page of Claude Cormier’s site).

In winter, the Quai de l’horloge is a nice (though desolate) place for a walk on a cold, snowy day, with views of the icy St. Lawrence River, the Jacques Cartier Bridge, Old Montreal and the 1920s cold- storage facility turned luxury condo complex at 1000 de la Commune St.

I took a few panorama photos on Thursday (here and here and here).

Some more photos from my walk:

And a bonus video:

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Our new beach was inspired by the beach on the Seine in Paris:

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Below is a photo, by The Gazette’s Pierre Obendrauf, of the Clock Tower showing off the new lighting unveiled in December. Completed in 1922, the clock tower is a memorial to merchant seamen who died during World War I.

- Andy Riga