I need to get back into the habit of writing and posting here again. I think a combination of things diminished my motivation a little bit over the past month or so, but I can feel that changing. I just need to iron out a few more creative kinks and I’ll be back at it again.
In the meantime, another photo taken inside one of the driest stretches of sewer in Montreal. This stretch acts as an overflow between the Decarie-Raimbault and Meilleur-Atlantique collectors, though I think I’d need one of the city’s engineers to explain to me how and when sewage actually gets through its three floodgates.
What is clear is that the air inside this stretch isn’t so good. It’s only about 15 feet underground, but I guess that without a steady flow of water, good airflow can be a problem. It seemed alright during the first trip, but after we returned a few days later it was noticeably worse. My guess is that we had unleashed a good deal of noxious gasses during the first trip by walking through some particularly mucky sections. Both manhole covers leading into this little conduit have large slots through them and are designed to allow as much air to escape as possible. A Google Street view reveals that they have ‘ventilation’ stamped into them.
For whatever reason, this one’s also full of old credit and bank cards. No gold coins or wallets or anything fancy like that. Just crummy plastic cards that are well past their expiration date.
Snow dump hatches inside the Decarie Raimbault collector sewer.
For the past couple of years now, I’ve been looking for ways to get inside the sewers found within a northern portion of the island of Montreal. Actually, that statement is a bit misleading since it hasn’t exactly been a high priority.
Covering the areas of Ville St. Laurent, Ahunstic-Cartierville and the Town of Mont Royal, my view towards these sewers was somewhat indifferent. I knew that they were often large (up to 15 feet in diameter), but because they consisted of long stretches and were built a relatively short time ago, I had assumed that they would be quite boring and repetitive. Maybe even duller than the industrial parks and suburbs that they pass beneath.
Drainage basins for the island of Montreal as defined by the City's planning department in 1955. The region in red is the focus of this entry.
These were always the ones I’d get to once I finished exploring more interesting things, but nevertheless I would occasionally find myself looking for ways to access some portion of it. I never had much luck until just recently.
I’ve been asked a number of times if I’ve ever come across anything underground in Montreal that’s surprised me. I never really quite know what to say since most of what I see is fairly predictable. It’s mostly pipes and chambers of varying sizes, constructed out of either concrete, brick or occasionally metal. I haven’t (yet) come across any dead bodies, pirate ships or gold coins — although I did find an old wallet once. What surprises do exist usually aren’t worth mentioning; a section that abruptly ends or a stretch that gets larger in diameter when you were expecting it to get smaller. Not exactly the sort of stuff that inspires answers people are hoping to hear.
Occasionally, though, I do come across things that I’d consider to be quite out of the ordinary and this entry involves one such example.
The lovely three meter wide brick pipe of Toronto's "Humble Howard."
A couple of weeks ago I made a trip back to my old underground stomping (sloshing?) grounds of Toronto to go and have a look at a recent discovery made by a group of local explorers. “Humble Howard”, named after Toronto’s first land surveyor John Howard, consists of a 3 meter-high circular brick sewer that starts at the northeastern edge of High Park and eventually makes it way down towards Lake Ontario. Today it serves primarily as an overflow conduit for the smaller sewers if ever ever the city’s interceptors become overburdened.
The evening I visited the system with Kowalski, nel58 and Controleman led to the discovery of a beautiful (but extremely foggy) connecting sewer built of brick and concrete. Its shape and overall atmosphere gave it a certain warmth and coziness. I would have gladly followed it to its conclusion had it not been so late in the evening at that point.
Inside the combined sewer that was given the nickname "High There."
While I can’t say I’ve missed Toronto that much since moving to Montreal three years ago, I am envious of its range of possibilities when it comes to exploring the underground. Even after a decade of people actively exploring it and looking for new things to get into, there’s still a feeling that there’s still a lot of infrastructure down there that remains untapped.
A shaft underneath Bridge Street once used for dumping snow into the sewers.
Perhaps the most interesting underground features in the Montreal area are found within the old sewers built during the mid to late 1800s. Usually constructed entirely of brick and of sizes up to 9’ in diameter, they often appear to be steeped in history in a way that newer concrete sewers just can’t compare to. They have a warmer and organic quality to them as well that I tend to appreciate. Where concrete sewer systems can feel like cold modernist pieces of architecture, the brick ones seem more like inviting Victorian homes.
A good example of these characteristics can be found within the Point St. Charles Collector. As its name implies, this sewer was responsible for the drainage of the eastern half of Point St. Charles. (The western half was serviced by another sewer that I first started to explore in this entry). The sewer was also responsible for a portion of the neighbourhood once known as Victoriatown. Given that so little from this area can still be found at street level, it’s of some comfort that at least its sewer system can still be found and explored today.
With no rain in the immediate forecast, nel58 and I decided to re-visit a sewer that we had first entered two summers ago. We had to leave at the time because the air quality didn’t seem all that great. I had sort of forgotten about it after getting distracted by a handful of other things around the city. Last night it was considerably fresher. Well, as fresh as a sewer can get, I suppose. It didn’t smell like rotten eggs this time so that was good enough for us.
This was taken towards the end of the Point St-Charles Collector, near the intersection of Mill and Riverside in the area once known as Goose Village. It’s an old one; built between 1864 and 1866 when the city was beginning to develop a systematic drainage plan. Of course it’s had its share alterations over the years, such as the side-pipe in the above photo which had to be patched up with concrete. Other sections have been walled off or filled in with rubble containing a fair amount of old glass and pieces of pottery.
More photos, maps, and historical stuff to follow soon. In the meantime, click the photo above for the larger version and (hopefully) enjoy.
Here’s a bit of video footage from about a month ago near the LaSalle entrance to the aqueduct. I’ve been poking around this general area for about a year now, hoping to find something interesting related to either the former or existing water supply intake pipes. I haven’t had much luck with that yet, but while walking through the woods at the edge of the aqueduct, I stumbled across a manhole cover which led to a fairly large, but half-flooded chamber.
After climbing down a very rusty ladder to a narrow ledge, I lit the chamber up with a spotlight to get a better look. A second ladder, with even rustier rungs, was almost entirely submerged from the flooding. I couldn’t see the bottom. I saw an entry point for water along the side of the chamber facing the aqueduct. On the opposite side of the chamber, two additional channels with ceilings sloping down towards the height of the water could be seen. It was difficult to tell if they were entirely submerged, though. I thought that maybe if the water level there was low enough it might be able to get a better look down through the length of them.
Inside the City of Montreal's former water intake conduit
In my last entry I talked about Montreal’s Aqueduct canal and its role in bringing water to the city of Montreal. In this entry, we’ll begin to go underground, but first, a bit more history…
I mentioned the use of hydraulic machinery and how it was powered by water by the aqueduct. Only a small portion of that water (less than 5%) was actually sent through the pipes and into homes and businesses. By the late 1800s, several problems with this system started to make it less than ideal. The first issue was that demand for water was increasing and more horsepower was required to distribute it. The aqueduct at the turn of the century, roughly a quarter the width it is today, was incapable of providing the hydraulic horsepower necessary to power the pumps.
On top of this, the success of system was often at the whims of mother nature. Low water levels in the summer and ice blockages in the winter frequently reduced pumping capacity. As a result, steam power, which was both cost and labour intensive, would then have to be used as a back-up.
Subscribe: 