Country Town in the City
Lachine is an old working-class suburb of Montreal, located at the western end of the Lachine Canal. It’s like a bizarre country town lost in the industrial grime of the big city. Near the canal, twentieth-century duplexes sidle up to nineteenth-century cottages. The stop signs read “Stop” instead of “Arrêt.”
The atmosphere is that of provincial Quebec yet, somewhat unexpectedly, Lachine is diverse. Its main street is kept alive — though barely — but an eclectic mix of immigrant shopkeepers. On its west end is a French bakery run by a Cambodian man who commutes all the way from St. Michel. Nearby, a Somali couple from the West Island keep a halal butcher. Anglophone blacks sell Carribbean groceries. A Russian man deal used records. Across from the IGA supermarket, another grocery store caters to growing numbers of mainland Chinese.
Most surprising of all is a labyrinthine junk store run by an old couple from Texas. Their thick accents belie the fact that they’ve lived in Lachine for more than 30 years. For whatever reason, I have a much harder time of conceiving of Texan immigrants in Montreal I do Chinese, Somali or Cambodian immigrants. Not just in Montreal, but in Lachine, a place that exists beyond the imagination of pretty much anyone who does not live there.
Tags: Exploring the City, Montreal
brad says:
Funny, when I saw the first two pictures I thought for sure they were taken in one of the neighbourhoods along boulevard Gouin east of Pie IX, before you get to the Parc Rivière-des-Prairies. There are a few villages along the river that feel more like rural Québec than Montréal, and there’s even a good-sized deer population as you get closer to the park. The most “rural” or at least exurban-feeling part of the city I’ve seen, though, is the western part of the island from Cap St-Jacques south toward St-Anne-de-Bellevue; apart from the ugly starter castles there are a few old farms there, some lovely old homes, and lots of open land.
September 29th, 2007 at 5:55 am
Desmond Bliek says:
Lachine’s great, isn’t it. Not quite West-Island, but not Montréal, either. Keep posting about that interesting part of the city.
As for villages within Montréal, there was an interesting article in the March 2006 (34/2) issue of the Urban History Review by Caroline Aubin-Des Roches:
Retrouver la ville à la campagne : la villégiature à Montréal au tournant du XXe siècle
Abstract
This article is about the representations of villégiature (summer resorts) in Montreal at the turn of the twentieth century. In the context of urbanization and industrialization of this period, villégiature is analyzed in connection with the search for nature and the desire to break away from the urban rhythm through holidays. The study of Montreal’s newspapers, from 1895 to 1910, shows that despite the wish to leave the city and its negative aspects (pollution, stress), city-dwellers end up replicating many urban traits in the country. This reveals some contradictions. The idealization of a rural nature comes with the desire to modify the countryside to make it prettier and more comfortable, based on holidaymakers’ criteria and needs. The excitement about holidays and free time comes with a fear of vacuity and the organization of timetables similar to the organized rhythm of urban life. Villégiature then appear as a sign of turbulent times and help to understand the influence of urban and industrial changes on urban mentality.
October 1st, 2007 at 11:16 am
Angel says:
I lived down the road of the third picture since 1997. Im 16. I never knew that people looked at our stop signs and thought they were weird!? I thought most stop signs WERE english, all over montreal , except for Quebéc City of course. I go to Toto’s everyday to pick up a soup or have pizza or poutine, Mmmm poutine! Right were your standing to take the picture behind you there was a staircase, that leads to my dentist.. (: Were a close knit community, But we don’t shop at the weird old couples junk store, its so gross, and never open anyways! I don’t know how its still up and running..Anyways interesting website!
April 26th, 2011 at 7:33 pm