Au Revoir, Montreal Countdown (Part Un)

With Cannes over, I am into the final countdown of many a thing: finishing my thesis and, thus, not being in school for the first time since 1988; the end of my tenth (and favourite) apartment in six year;s and most sadly, the end of my time in Montreal, a city in which I have fallen in love with ten times anything I ever felt toward its predecessor, Toronto, which I spent twice the time in.

Anyway, to coincide with the 66 days I have left before my yearly August 1st put-my-shit-in-a-truck day, I’ve decided to try and visit, or re-visit, all of Montreal’s highlights, and, of course, put them up here for essentially my own amusement and archival use.

First on the tour was the Lachine Rapids, which I’d never been to, mostly due to its non-pedestrian friendly location on the south end of the city’s shipping yards. I’m partially paraphrasing Wikipedia here, but to quickly educate: they are a series of rapids on the Saint Lawrence River, between the Island of Montreal and the south shore. As for the impressive part. They contain the largest standing waves in the world. This is because the water volume and current do not change with respect to the permanent features in the riverbed, namely its shelf-like drops. Seasonal variation in the water flow does not change the situation of the waves.

Yesterday, with a car thankfully, I found the rather hidden rapids (behind a “highlight” in its own right, the wild Habitat 67, which I’ll post later on), as well as a bunch of hunky Quebecois surfers who were riding the world’s largest standing waves. Thats pretty much the whole story, but I’ll share some video and photo of them: