Parc Natural Bois-de-Saraguay

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about exploring new parts of town or sights on the island. The fact is, I haven’t been on very many this year. A family situation which required me leaving Montreal for three weeks in June, busy times at work, and unseasonable heat and humidity have all prevented expeditions. But the weather was pleasant today, and I felt like procrastinating on other tasks, so I set out for this nature park on the Rivière des Prairies side of the island.

First step was taking the metro Orange Line all the way to the end in Côte Vertu. From there, I found a Bixi station and biked forty minutes through varied residential areas. There are many agreeable shady streets, and neighborhoods of single-family residences and duplexes, and clusters of 3-story brick buildings that look like posh condos. In one area, close to a Bombardier Aerospace facility, all of the roads are named for explorers, inventors, industrialists, and scientists (including some I did not know, like Harriet Quimby or Alexis Nihon). I took Rue Charles-Darwin and later Rue des Équinoxes to Rue de l’Équateur!

I got to Parc Noël-Nord, the closest Bixi station to my destination, and fought with the dock for a while to return the bike (they’ve been having problems with some docks, and I’ve had some bad luck with parking of late).

The Parc is nice, with a community garden, swimming pool, BBQ areas, and more, all kind of along an elevated train track. The maps all showed me taking a windy path through this park to get to the nature preserve. So naturally, I followed this path.

Of course, that was wrong. I was meant to go through this well-marked gate…

… and go down one of these inviting paths …

My father used to love quoting from a Far Side cartoon when we would get off-track in our travels. The cartoon depicted a man and woman in a car among swarms of large ant-like creatures, and driver’s saying “this is looking less and less like Interstate 65.” We always quoted it as “Interstate 5” for familiarity reasons, and I found myself mumbling that this path definitely didn’t look much like Interstate Five.

However, this scary little path emerged into a neighborhood of beautiful big houses with well-appointed gardens.

I could see a wall of trees along the side of one street, but I couldn’t see a way in. I followed the street around for a while, and there it was: a wide gravel trail into the woods.

The trail was wide and well maintained, and after just a few steps I felt like I was in a different world of quiet, cool green. Further along, there was evidence of recent water accumulation. And then, before I knew it, I was passing through what I could only describe as a bayou.

The trail ends on another street of big houses, and I continued along the street until I found another gravel path back into the woods. This path paralleled the previous one, and after a while wound through some fields of Joe-Pye weed, goldenrod, and purple loosestrife, where I met a familiar friend.

The trail returned the woods before merging back with the trail I had been on earlier at an intersection I hadn’t noticed on my way in. It was time to head back. Only one problem — there were no bikes at the Bixi station. So I walked further than I intended over to the next-closest Bixis at Parc de Beauséjour. There, I ventured across the lawn to take a look at the Prairie River, and found it well-defended — although, contrary to popular depiction, these dinosaurs were pretty mellow, and didn’t seem to object to people walking amongst them.

After looking out over the fast-flowing northern waters, I hopped on a Biki bike, and took a long rambling ride (that’s what it’s called when you don’t bother to look at the map and get good and lost a few times) back to Côte Vertu metro station, and thence back home.