The Hill That Got into the Name
Jacques Cartier climbed the hill on his journey along the St Lawrence and called it Mont Royal. Montreal’s name probably grew out of Mont Réal, the Middle French form: the likeliest explanation, not a settled one. Cartier named the rise; the spelling followed its own path, and the city ended up named after something people could stand on.
Montrealers call it “the mountain”, as if no further identification were required, though there are three summits inside that one word. The park and the protected historic and natural district around it both carry its name.
On a map the hill looks like a patch of green between blocks of city. Walk into it and the buildings vanish behind the slopes.
The Ceiling Written in the Ground
Montreal’s building rule begins with a contour on the mountain. City planning documents set the ceiling at 232.5 metres above sea level, the elevation of the summit. “Above sea level” matters: a tower starting on higher ground has less room to rise. One downtown tower stands on higher ground than its neighbours, so it had to stop shorter than they did; its spire was set to line up with the summit.
The business district holds the tall buildings, while the city protects views towards Mount Royal and out from it. Towers are welcome, provided they defer to the hill. A mountain never submits revised drawings.
Look down a street of office buildings and the roofs break into different levels. Behind them, Mount Royal rises in a broad line of trees.
Olmsted Refused to Dress the Hill as a Garden
Frederick Law Olmsted, who helped design Central Park in New York, was hired to plan Mount Royal Park. He urged Montrealers to give up the idea of a park full of ornamental flower displays; the paths and the planting were there to emphasise the mountain. Apparently a public park need not behave like a flower show.
Olmsted thought of the ascent as part of the experience, not merely the nuisance before the view. He planned routes that could be used by people with differing physical abilities, including convalescents in wheelchairs. His planting scheme placed denser shade trees down the slope and thinner planting higher up, so that the hill would feel higher than it is.
An economic depression cut the work short, and the park opened with considerable departures from his plan. Today Chemin Olmsted, a broad gravel road shared by walkers and cyclists, still zigzags up the slope past the artificial Beaver Lake. There is no formal garden axis to follow, and no flower bed waiting at the top.
The Towers Seen from the Chalet
At the Kondiaronk Belvedere, in front of the Mount Royal Chalet, the downtown buildings finally enter the composition. The terrace is a stone semicircle, and the office towers fill the middle of the view below it. The city’s plan lists this lookout among the views that new buildings must not compromise, so the towers are expected to stay in the picture without taking it over.
The chalet behind you, designed by Aristide Beaugrand-Champagne, went up as a make-work project during the Great Depression. The terrace is named after Kondiaronk, the Wendat chief whose influence led to the Great Peace of Montreal. I would not try to name each office tower. I would look at where their roofs stop.
A Cross Above the Trees
A cross stands on Mount Royal, carrying a story that predates the park. Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, the founder of the French settlement, had promised to put a cross on the mountain if the settlement was spared rising water. He later carried a wooden cross up the slope.
The cross there now was paid for by a public campaign across Quebec and built to be lit, a landmark meant to be seen from the streets below. It does not count towards the ceiling. A tower cannot claim extra floors by pointing to the metal above the rock.
The Drums at the Foot of the Slope
On summer Sunday afternoons, drums start up by the George-Étienne Cartier monument on the eastern slope of the park. The Tam-Tams bring drummers and dancers onto the grass; the city does not arrange it, and nobody hands out a programme. People play, dance or listen, with the stone monument for a landmark.
Up at the summit, the mountain is an elevation figure in a planning document. Down here it is a slope to sit on while somebody else keeps time.
