Île-des-Sœurs

Since I can’t be in LA to see the latest City Garage show (which sounds great, so you should go!), I have to mollify Frédérique some other way. She’s suggested several times that I visit Île-des-Sœuers. So I finally did.

The bus dropped me off in front of the shopping center on the island. From there, I followed the road towards the south of the island. The island is organized with main roads through the center and around the perimeter, and cul-de-sac neighborhoods in between. The main roads are all bordered by the green way, a lush biking/walking trail.

The island came into the possession of the Soeurs de Notre-Dame Congregation over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, and a convent was built in 1788. The eponymous nuns ran agricultural operations there until the 1950s, when the land was sold to developers. In the 1960s, houses and apartment buildings went in — including much-celebrated buildings designed by Mies van der Rohe.

Today, the island has a very settled, high-class feeling to it. The streets are wide and there are expensive cars in the driveways, gardens are well maintained, and everything is tidy and clean. There are little details everywhere that show that the community cares, whether it’s birdhouses on the green way, public benches in nice shady areas, or whimsical guides on the sidewalk for kids walking to school.

I was heading towards the south of the island where there’s the Domaine Saint-Paul, a protected wilderness area that has some of the original, unlogged native forest. From the greenway, I saw a small trail heading off in the right general direction, so I decided to take it.

The trail meandered between people’s back yards and a series of ponds and streams. The day was already getting quite warm by 10am, but this trail was kept cooler under the canopy of trees.

Domaine Saint-Paul has improved trails, as well as wooden boardwalks through some areas of the forest. There’s also a lake (Lac des Battures, formed as a side-benefit when excavated material from Montréal’s métro system was used to block off seasonal flooding). For all the water and marshy areas, I was lucky, and there were surprisingly few mosquitos.

Emerging from the far side of the forest, I found myself going through a cul-de-sac, and out between two residential towers. There’s a string of parks that ring the island, with the biking/walking trails weaving through. From here, I could see a view of the St. Lawrence river and the rapids in the distance. It was a popular day to be out, and lots of joggers and walkers and cyclists were taking advantage of the sun.

Coming back towards the north of the island, I walked closer to a lot of the residential towers. There are more are being built, and it seems like they have an eye to a river view.

During my time here, I’ve been increasingly leaning towards new urbanist thinking, and these towers provide an interesting wrinkle on that. They seem to offer the housing element of that philosophy, but the island doesn’t have a wide ecosystem for groceries or jobs. In that sense, it has more the feeling of a California gated community or suburb. Of course, it’s not gated. Public transportation is available in the form of the 168 bus line, and there’s a proposed light-rail station. The bike/walk path will get you back and forth to the main island of Montréal, but it seems that the île is car-centric — or perhaps isolated — by design.

Some of the towers have extensive, manicured grounds, and one had a sign to inform people on the bike/walk trail that the area was private. This sign really struck me. As I mentioned above, there’s a the feel of a gated community even while the île is conspicuously open. At several points while on the trail that went between back yards, or cutting between towers to get to the river-side trail, I found myself wondering if I would be told to leave.

There’s an intangible difference in the relationship towards public land here. Part of me thinks that, were this in California, many of the publicly-accessible areas would be closed off. But then I think of places like La Cañada or Palos Verdes or Malibu, and there are similar public trails among the properties there for those who know where to find them.

Anyway, from spending a morning walking around the île, it seems a very pleasant place: green and peaceful. Even with my photographic excesses, I didn’t really succeed in capturing the feel of the place with my pictures. If we’re still here when the leaves start to turn, I’ll make another sortie to the Domaine Saint-Paul, and also explore the eastern part of the island that I missed.