A Visit to Mystical Lands

It was hot and very humid, The air had that silky quality that promised rain, but no rain came.

I went off to see what I could find in the cool forests of Mont Royal. I took the métro to Peel Street and walked up the steep street towards the park.

This led me through McGill University. Parts of McGill have a Hogwarts-esque quality. Castle turrets peek through alleyways, and there are machicolated towers guarding the sports fields.

I didn’t spend much time among the towers, though, instead entering the cool dark woods of Mont Royal. There are intersecting trails and dirt roads, all winding around the mountain. The trail I chose led to the Grand Escalier du Mont Royal: 537 wooden steps up to the Mont Royal Chalet. I didn’t count the steps myself. Elsewhere, the number cited is 525, 400, or 339! In any case, they’re a nice way to get up the mountain.

OK, both those pictures are lies. The woods are only that dark if you darken the image to prevent ridiculously overexposure of the hot spot of the sunbeam, and that’s not the Grand Escalier at all, but the similar-styled Duluth Street entrance stairs. Were they the actual Grand Escalier, they would be packed with joggers, hikers, wanderers, and tourists like me.

Regardless, at the top of the actual Grand Escalier du Mont Royal, your erstwhile narrator emerged with the thronging masses at the Belvédère Kondiaronk and the Mont Royal Chalet.

Though I got up there early, the crowds were already arriving. By late afternoon, the terrace will be filled, and the railing two or three people deep with selfie-takers. The view is spectacular, but it seems the most popular time is around sunset.

I didn’t wait for sunset. Did I mention it was hot? The sun was beating down relentlessly. There’s ice-cream for sale at the chalet for tourist prices, but little COVID-safe shade, so I headed back down into the green woods below.

While traveling down a shady trail, I espied something unexpected, hearkening back to the Hogwartsy playing field.

Going through an overgrown gate, I found myself on the grounds of Royal Victoria Hospital, built in the 1890s. Viewed from the forest, what I thought was a massive castle is merely the F-Pavilion, one of at least eight giant wings of the complex. Over on the other side, the H-Pavilion is notable as one of the first purpose-built nurse’s residences in Canada.

The entire Royal Vic is currently undergoing renovations.

Interestingly, based on the evocative name I saw on maps, I initially mistook The Royal Vic for Ravenscrag, a mansion built in the 1860s by Scottish-Canadian shipping magnate Sir Hugh Allan (it was eventually donated to the Royal Victoria Hospital in the 1940s). It turns out that this is just one of the smaller buildings on the premises.

For completeness, here’s a picture of the actual Ravenscrag:

Well, the lands visited may have been evocative and filled with architecturally interesting buildings, but it turns out they were not so mysterious after all.