Montreal

—Montrealer, n.

/mon'tree awl", mun'-/, n.

a seaport in S Quebec, in E Canada, on an island (Montreal Island) in the St. Lawrence. 1,080,546. French, Montréal /mawonn rdday annl"/.

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City (pop., 2001: metro. area, 3,426,350), southeastern Canada.

It occupies about one-third of Île de Montréal (Montreal Island), near the confluence of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers. The metropolitan area encompasses Montréal and other islands, as well as both shores of the St. Lawrence. It is built on the slopes of a mountain, Mont-Royal, from which the city's name is derived. English and French are spoken throughout the city, which is the chief centre of French-Canadian industry and culture. The site was occupied by the Huron Indian settlement of Hochelaga when visited by French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1535. The first European settlement was founded by the French in 1642 and was given the name Ville-Marie de Montréal. Rapid colonization based on the fur trade began in the first half of the 18th century, and the city soon grew beyond its walls. It surrendered to British forces in 1760 and, with all of New France, became part of the British North American empire in 1763. Montreal served as the capital of Canada from 1844 to 1849. It is one of Canada's chief ports for both oceangoing and inland shipping. It is Canada's second-largest city and a major cultural centre, with a complex of theatre and concert halls and several museums. It is the seat of the English-language McGill University and Concordia University, and of the French-language University de Montréal and the University du Québec à Montréal.

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▪ Quebec, Canada

Introduction

French  Montréal 

   city, seat of Montréal region, Quebec province, southeastern Canada. It is the second most populous metropolitan area of Canada. The present city proper occupies about three-fourths of Montreal Island (Île de Montréal), the largest of the 234 islands of the Hochelaga Archipelago, one of three archipelagoes near the confluence of the Ottawa (Ottawa River) and St. Lawrence rivers. The city is built around and up Mount Royal (Mont-Royal), which rises 763 feet (233 metres) above sea level (some 660 feet [200 metres] above the island shores). The several independent cities and towns that constitute Montreal's metropolitan area cover Montreal and other islands, as well as both shores of the St. Lawrence. Montreal is the major seaport on the St. Lawrence River and Seaway (Saint Lawrence River and Seaway), lying between the navigable waters of the open Atlantic Ocean to the east and of the Great Lakes to the west. Area city, 141 square miles (365 square km); metropolitan area, 1,644 square miles (4,259 square km). Pop. (2006) city, 1,620,693; metropolitan area, 3,635,571.

Character of the city

      Along with New York City and San Francisco, Montreal is one of North America's most cosmopolitan cities. It is often said to be the second largest French-speaking city in the world (after Paris), a boast that is sometimes disputed. English and French are Canada's two official languages but, in accordance with a law passed for Quebec province in 1977, the use of English in schools and in government and commercial activity is restricted. Yet, in several areas of Montreal, one must still express oneself in English to be understood fully. This phenomenon reflects decades of dominance by the English-speaking minority over Montreal's economic life. With the advent to power in 1976 of the Parti Québécois—which advocates political independence from and economic association with the rest of Canada—“normal” tensions between French- and English-speaking communities have fluctuated.

      In spite of politics and unrest, Montreal remains a city of great charm, of vivacity, and of gaiety, one of the most appealing in North America, as well as one of unquestioned modernity in its physical appearance and way of life. Thus it was chosen as the site of the International World Exposition in 1967—Expo 67—and it hosted the 1976 Summer Olympic Games.

Landscape

City layout

   The layout of Montreal has been affected throughout its history by the river and the natural rises of the terrain from it, including the slopes of Mount Royal. These factors produced a general southwest-northeast pattern of growth, and since its incorporation the city has been divided by Boulevard Saint-Laurent (St. Lawrence Street) into western and eastern sections. Such designations as street, avenue, and boulevard are virtually interchangeable in Montreal, and the ensuing confusion is enhanced by the use of both French and English place-names for thoroughfares and other city and suburban sites.

City centre

      Since about 1958 the centre of Montreal has been transformed significantly, abetted by post-World War II prosperity, by preparations for Expo 67 and the exposition itself, and by an administration intent upon grand designs. Built with the aid of U.S. capital and developers, Place Ville-Marie comprises a cruciform building more than 40 stories tall and many underground shops, restaurants, and theatres, linked to which are nearby skyscrapers with similar underground complexes. Together they form a downtown area that provides the metropolis with an answer to New York City's Rockefeller Center, with an underground commercial, culinary, and artistic life among the most advanced in the Western Hemisphere. Similar change has spread throughout the city, often obliterating historic landmarks, but still preserved is the historic centre known as Vieux-Montréal (Old Montreal). There seekers after nostalgia stroll amid reminiscences of the past that are in striking contrast to the city's overall momentum into the vanguard of urban modernity.

People

      The 1871 population of Montreal proper—about 133,000—increased some 10-fold in the 20th century, although the pace of metropolitan planning and population growth slowed by century's end; the regional population continued to increase, however. Immigration from abroad practically ceased during World War I, but a steady flow of people continued from other parts of Canada and from the United States. Although the birth rate among Canadians of French descent dropped markedly, immigration from the Continent reduced the percentage of Montrealers of British descent after World War II. French-speaking citizens account for about two-thirds of the population, with the English-speaking proportion increasingly eroded by immigrants from all over the world. Religious affiliations generally follow ethnic traditions, with Roman Catholicism by far the dominant faith.

      On the other hand, newcomers to Montreal quickly learn that English is the more practical tongue, for in Montreal as in most of Canada—except Quebec city and smaller centres of Quebec province—English is the primary language of commerce and industry. The economic upper classes are mostly old Montreal-bred English-speaking families, with a sprinkling of French and others. The middle classes are more mixed, whereas the lower economic stratum continues to be made up mainly of French and Irish Canadians and of new immigrants. Thousands of blacks have immigrated from the United States, most of them settling in the lower part of Montréal-Ouest. The instabilities of Montreal and of Quebec province as a whole are largely the result of the continuing sociolinguistic separateness of and economic disparity between the two major ethnic groups. Majority political power has been achieved by the French community, but equivalent weight in other areas has been slower to arrive.

Economy

Trade and industry

      Montreal suffered in the 1970s from a “Go West” trend, to the benefit of Ontario and the western provinces rich in oil and natural gas. It remains, however, the headquarters of most of the largest Canadian banks, railroad lines, and insurance companies, as well as for the International Civil Aviation Organization, an agency, affiliated with the United Nations, that sets the rules and standards for international air traffic. The city is also an important shipping and industrial centre.

      The centuries-long colonial fur trade that penetrated the continent to its westernmost territories formed the city's earliest commercial ventures. Soap making, brewing and distilling (among John Molson's main civic legacies), and wood and leather fabrication are longtime Montreal industries. Innumerable other products of a modern manufacturing economy emanate from the city's factories, and the trend has been toward such high technology products as telecommunications equipment and pharmaceuticals. Services account for the largest share of the regional economy and employment.

      Shopping areas abound throughout the city, in the more remote residential sections as well as throughout the supermodern underground city of streets and shops that has aided Montrealers to carry on in spite of the 5 to 10 feet (1.5 to 3 metres) of snow dumped on the city each winter. This deluge of snow from November through April is among the most significant factors in Montreal's life, costing the city millions of dollars annually to remove it from the streets.

Transportation

      The perennial grumbling of Montrealers about municipal transportation is more an exercise of democratic rights than a reflection of reality. Compared with those in other large cities, bus and subway lines allow easy movement throughout the area at relatively low cost. The subway, called the Métro, has four lines running under the city and to Longueuil on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. Each station is different in architectural design and artistic decor. Public transportation dates from 1847, and by 1868 buses mounted on sleighs replaced rail cars during the winter. By 1894 the entire system had been electrified and the last horsecars withdrawn from service. Montreal is also served by two airports (both under the same authority): Montreal-Dorval handles domestic and international commercial flights, and Montreal-Mirabel handles charter flights and air cargo.

Administration and social conditions

Government

 From the present city hall, sixth in the city's history, Montreal is governed by a mayor and a 65-member council (consisting of Montreal's mayor, 19 borough mayors, and 45 elected council members) and a 12-member executive committee selected by the council. A Montreal Urban Community replaced the Montreal Metropolitan Corporation in 1969. Its responsibilities, for the whole of Montreal Island and Bizard Island to the north, include assessment and tax collection, traffic control, water and sewage services, police and fire protection, and antipollution activities. It is governed by a general council and an executive committee.

      The metropolitan area embraces numerous cities (including Montreal), towns, villages, and parishes. The changes in the region's economic structure and increasing business and white-collar employment, intensified by the growing modernization of the city, have brought about some of the main administrative problems. The French-speaking majority, most of whom were relegated to blue-collar jobs for decades, reacted against this historical pattern with some success, attributable in part to legislation and to the goodwill of the more moderate elements of the two communities.

Education

      As throughout Quebec, a dual school system for Roman Catholic and Protestant students is supported from the public treasury. The language of instruction—French or English, respectively—rigidly follows the religious division.

      Montreal is probably the outstanding city of Canada in terms of higher education. McGill University (founded 1821) and Concordia University (1974; formed by the merger of Sir George Williams University, founded in 1929, and Loyola College, founded in 1899) offer mainly English-language instruction, whereas the University of Montreal (1876) and the University of Quebec at Montreal (1968) serve the French-speaking population.

Cultural life

 With its Place des Arts, museums, public libraries, art galleries, bookshops in most European languages, symphony orchestra, publishing houses, theatre companies, and free public lectures at the universities, Montreal must be accounted a major cultural centre.

 The Place des Arts is a complex of concert and theatre halls in downtown Montreal. Adjacent to it is the Museum of Contemporary Art, which was founded in 1964 and moved to its present location in 1992. Also nearby is the Complexe Desjardins, an exciting example of modern architecture; the complex, with its multilevel terraces, balconies, mezzanines, and sunken plaza, comprises three office towers, a public square, a hotel, and several restaurants and retail stores. Art instruction is given, among other places, at the Museum of Fine Arts. Besides a conservatory of music, faculties or schools of music offer instruction at the universities.

      In the 1930s only a few bookshops existed, but today bookshops can be found in all districts and shopping centres; and “new Canadians,” as new immigrants are called, can buy books, reviews, and magazines in their native languages. The Municipal Library has several branches, and special libraries are located throughout the city. Publishing houses, both English and French, prosper.

  Montrealers are great sports enthusiasts. Ice hockey is foremost, the Montreal Canadiens being one of the most storied franchises in the National Hockey League, but other indoor and outdoor sports have many adherents. The city also has a professional Canadian gridiron football team, the Alouettes. In winter the slopes of Mount Royal are covered with skiers. The Montreal Olympic (Olympic Games) Park, site of the 1976 Summer Games, has a sports stadium seating more than 70,000 spectators; Montreal Tower, an inclined structure 552 feet (168 metres) tall with three observation floors that are accessible via cable car; Montreal Biodome, in which four separate ecosystems have been re-created; and a sports and fitness complex containing six swimming pools. Adjacent to the park is the Montreal Botanical Garden, with more than 20,000 plant species and an insectarium. Lachine Canal National Historic Site preserves the path of the ship canal at the southern end of Montreal Island that was used to bypass the rapids there on the St. Lawrence River until the seaway was constructed.

History

Early settlement

      The site of Montreal was called Hochelaga by the Huron Indians when Jacques Cartier (Cartier, Jacques), a French navigator and explorer, visited it in 1535–36 on his second voyage to the New World. More than 1,000 Indians welcomed him on the slope of the mountain that he named Mont Réal, or Mont Royal. More than 50 years elapsed before other Frenchmen returned, this time with Samuel de Champlain (Champlain, Samuel de), the founder of Quebec city. Hochelaga had disappeared, replaced on the shores of the St. Lawrence by a settlement that Champlain called Place Royale.

      It was not until May 1642 that Paul de Chomedey, sieur (lord) de Maisonneuve, founded today's Montreal. He built dwellings, a chapel, a hospital, and other structures, protecting the settlement against Indian attack with a stockade. He named the aggregate Ville-Marie. The community was granted its first civic charter by King Louis XIV in 1644, and Chomedey became its first governor. The first hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu, was founded in 1644 by Jeanne Mance and the first school for girls in 1653 by Marguerite Bourgeoys. Almost immediately a society of priests, Les Messieurs de Saint-Sulpice, took charge of education for boys.

      The real development of Montreal began during the first half of the 18th century. Land grants were made, and farming was developed outside the original fortifications. Colonization was initiated under the French seigniorial system, in which a landowner leased portions of his holdings to numerous farming families. For many years Montreal was a base for explorers and traders, and by the end of the 18th century outlying settlements—Saint-Henri and Lachine to the west and Longue-Pointe and Pointe-aux-Trembles to the east—had taken root, later to become part of the city or of the Montreal Urban Community.

      By 1672 the population of Montreal had reached 1,500, but it did not obtain city status for another 120 years and was not incorporated until 1833. The city surrendered peacefully to British forces in 1760 and, with all of New France, became part of the British North American empire in 1763. In November 1775 Montreal was occupied by American Revolutionary forces, who retreated in the spring following the abortive siege of the city of Quebec by Benedict Arnold (Arnold, Benedict) and thus failed to secure Canada for the new United States. In 1796 Canada's first public library was opened in Montreal, and in the following year daily postal service was established between Montreal and the United States.

Evolution of the modern city

      In 1809 John Molson—entrepreneur, brewer, banker, and carrier—linked Montreal and Quebec by water with the first Canadian steamship. Canada's first bank, the Bank of Montreal, was founded in 1817, and the Lachine Canal, forerunner of the St. Lawrence Seaway, was started in 1821. In 1825 Molson, the “Montrealer par excellence,” provided his city with a splendid theatre, and gas lighting appeared by 1838. A Committee of Trade, forerunner of the Board of Trade (1842), was founded in 1822, and from 1844 to 1849 Montreal was the capital of Canada. On April 25, 1849, a mob put fire to the Parliament building, possibly on the ground that it had lost its vocation. In 1847 telegraph links were made with the cities of Quebec and New York; in 1853 a shipping service between Montreal, Liverpool, and the Continent was begun; in 1856 a railroad to Toronto opened; in 1858 a transatlantic cable to Europe was laid; and in 1861 the city's first horse-drawn tramways began operation. Fires destroyed hundreds of buildings in the early 1850s, and an economic slump provoked numerous bankruptcies in 1857. The Confederation of Canada was proclaimed in 1867, and 10 years later the city had its first labour strike and first telephone conversation with Quebec. It had its first electric lighting in 1882, electric tramways in 1892, and the first automobile along its streets and movie houses along its sidewalks in 1903.

 By 1900 Montreal's population reached 270,000, and it began to annex several cities, towns, and villages on its outskirts. It purchased Île Sainte-Hélène (St. Helen's Island) in 1908, the site, with two neighbouring man-made islands, of Expo 67. Montreal's famous ice-hockey team, the Canadiens, was founded in 1909 (and has since won more National Hockey League championships than any other team). In 1922 several mergers gave birth to the Canadian National Railways Company (CNR), which, like the Canadian Pacific in 1881, established its head office in Montreal.

      The world wars gave impetus to the economic life of Montreal, as they did to most industrial centres of North America, and in January 1947 the U.S. Congress began to consider a joint venture with Canada for building the St. Lawrence Seaway. In 1959 the need for a Montreal Metropolitan Corporation was recognized by the Quebec provincial government (which, like others in Canada, has exclusive jurisdiction over municipalities). In 1960 the Metropolitan Boulevard, a throughway encircling Montreal, was opened. In 1962 construction was started on the Métro, supervised by engineers from the Paris Métro; the system was inaugurated six months before the opening of Expo 67. With the growing recognition of Montreal as a major world centre following this universally acclaimed exposition, it became the first non-U.S. city to be awarded a major-league baseball franchise. The team, the Montreal Expos, played in the city from 1969 to 2004, when it was moved to Washington, D.C., and became the Nationals.

      The 1976 Summer Olympics (Olympic Games) were a financial disaster for the city. The high cost of building and maintaining facilities, including the stadium (now home of the Expos) and the tower, placed a heavy burden of debt on the province. Adding to Montreal's economic difficulties was the Quebec separatist movement, which began in the 1960s and included occasional acts of violence in the city by some groups. During the 1970s and '80s many corporations that had their headquarters in Montreal moved them to Toronto, partly in response to the enforcement of French-language usage guidelines in Quebec. Economic conditions remained generally stagnant at the beginning of the 1990s but then gradually began to improve. Notable was the increase in high-technology fields, such as aerospace engineering and electronics.

      In 1995 the province narrowly voted against secession from Canada. Although that measure failed, a plan was put into action to merge all the separate municipalities on Montreal Island under Montreal city. This took effect on Jan. 1, 2002, with the former municipalities becoming districts of the city. However, a number of these districts objected to the new arrangement, and in 2005 all the former municipalities were permitted to vote for continued affiliation with Montreal. Ultimately 15 chose to de-amalgamate, and they became municipalities again in 2006.

Cyrille Felteau Willie J. Chevalier Ed.

Additional Reading

Firsthand accounts are the narrative journals of Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain; and the Histoire du Montréal of François Dollier de Casson (1672). Standard works include William H. Atherton, Montreal, 3 vol. (1914); Stephen Leacock, Leacock's Montreal, rev. ed. by John Culliton (1963); Kathleen Jenkins, Montreal: Island City of the St. Lawrence (1966); Robert Rumilly, Histoire de Montréal, 5 vol. (1970–75); and Gerald Clark, Montreal: The New Cité (1982). John Irwin Cooper, Montreal: A Brief History (1969), is a good summary, although some interesting details are omitted. Also of interest is the article on Montreal in the Encyclopedia Canadiana (1977). The numerous publications of the Montreal Economic Research Bureau, including the Abridged History of Montreal, rev. and enlarged (1970), are both informative and reliable. Jean-Claude Marsan, Montreal in Evolution (1981), is a history of Montreal's architecture and urban development; and Annick Germain and Damaris Rose, Montréal: The Quest for a Metropolis (2000), addresses economic and social issues.Cyrille Felteau Willie J. Chevalier Ed.

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