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.

Brick meets concrete somewhere at the south end of Toronto's "Humble Howard"

That’s not to say that Toronto has better or more interesting stuff (most of the time, anyway) , but because it’s so spread out and is, in many ways, a bit more cosmopolitan, there’s always a sense that one could never run out of new things to find and to try and get into. Just when you think everything in that city has already been cracked, something new and exciting inevitably comes along.

Montreal, on the other hand, tends to feel a bit more finite in its opportunities. While we have an extensive sewer system, much of which can be walked through, it tends to lack in other areas such as steam and service tunnels or infrastructure related to its waterworks. I get the feeling that in a couple of years, I’ll be starting to run out of things to put down on my to-do list. I have no reason to complain right now, not while I still have a pile of things to get to and to try and document well,  but I can feel it coming.

What appears to be an overflow pit for a low-level sewer found on the right side of Rochester's Densmore Creek drain.

Rochester is another city that seems ripe for great discoveries, mostly because it’s an old city, but also because so little of it seems to have been examined in detail thus far. It also features the impressive Deep-Rock Tunnel System, a sewer overflow system that puts Montreal’s interceptor network to shame.

After reading about the exploits of two underground enthusiasts living there, we decided to take the long way back to Montreal and meet up with the two of them. “Trent” and “Whittaker Owens” guided us through a rather interesting storm drainage system that involves a mammoth overflow chamber, colloquially referred to as the “Titanic Room” due to the bow-like structure planted in the middle of the room.

Inside Rochester's "Titanic Room" aka the overflow chamber of the Densmore Diversion Facility.

The rest of the drain is arch-shaped, similar in style, but far larger than Toronto’s “High There” and the Point St. Charles Collector of Montreal.

Inside the big arch that makes up the better part of this Rochester drain.

Also of interest along the way were two flooded stone pits located off to the side with the smell of combined sewerflow wafting up from below. I’m not familiar enough with the city’s system to be able to make sense of how all of this fits together. I’ll leave any explanations to its local explorers who know far more about these things than I do.

Additional  underground reading & viewing:

Toronto
Vanishing Point
Angels of the Underground
Jon Muldoon’s image collection

Rochester

Trent’s Flickr collections

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.

Getting Started

Late 1880s representation of Montreal superimposed with the paths of the Point St. Charles Collector. The oldest portion of the sewer is shown here in red.

The oldest section of this particular system was constructed between 1862 and 1864, a time when the city was starting to implement its first master drainage plan. While some stretches of the creeks running along Craig Street (now St. Antoine) and William had already been covered over, the Point St Charles collector represented the beginning of a new era of widespread and methodical wastewater management. Five additional collector sewers would be built during this same time, only a few years after London and Paris finished developing their now legendary underground systems.

In its initial stages, the outlet of the Point Saint Charles collector was situated at the edge of a drainage channel for the Lachine Canal. This channel has mostly been covered over, but a portion of it can still be seen today underneath the Bonaventure highway opposite Farine Five Roses. In this same area, the Riverside Pumping Station was added in 1887 to help alleviate the system during spring floods. Shortly thereafter, a secondary sewer line was also added. A larger and deeper concrete tunnel would come decades later, and then another one still came during the 1990s with the introduction of the island’s interceptor network.

Today, the area is a confusing mash-up of old meets new technology which is hard to make sense of even when you’re inside.

The underground spaghetti junction found at the intersection of Bridge and Riverside.

Inside The System

Standing inside the lovely 147 year old egg-shaped section.

Using this area as a starting point, one can make their way a short distance into the oldest 4×6′ section of the sewer. I say a short distance, because, for whatever reason, the section approaching Bridge St. is filled to the top with rubble.

As far as you can get through the oldest section of the sewer.

Digging Through History

I imagine there must have been a fair amount of trial and error when it implementing drainage systems in the 1800s. In this case it’s unclear if the tunnel simply collapsed or of it was deliberately taken out of commission and filled with whatever was convenient at the time.

The last 50 meters or so of this section are half full of debris which makes it a bit uncomfortable to get through. It’s strictly crawling-height at this point, with the only payoff coming from being able to play guerrilla archaeologist while sifting through the rubble. Here you’ll find fragments of old glass, pottery and other unidentifiable materials. I’ve yet to find anything valuable inside a sewer in Montreal, but the bits and pieces of objects encountered in some areas are often interesting enough to make a bit of digging worthwhile. Just mind the worms. And the mosquitoes, too.

Various artifacts recovered from within the sewer rubble.

A few minutes of picking through the debris revealed the crown of a dark hand-blown bottle that closely resembles the one shown here for Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters. Regardless of what company the bottle came from, it likely dates from at least the 1870s.

The Second Line

Inside the placid stretch of the collector that was later built during the 1880s.

Perhaps as a result of problems encountered with this older sewer, a second relief line was later built that runs parallel to the original one for most of its course. Its exact construction date is unknown, but it’s safe to say it was probably built during the late 1880s around the same time the Riverside Pumping Station was completed.

A bit of a tight squeeze through a 2×3 foot side-pipe will allow you to enter this section. It has a wonderful arched shape which is common in other cities, but is something that I haven’t encountered before in Montreal. From here it’s easy to get through thanks to a hard layer of sediment lining the bottom that you can easily walk on top of. This 1km long stretch  is almost 7’ in height, but the grit and gravel removes at least a foot from this.

Unlike other sewers built around this time, there were no streams passing through this territory whose waters could be redirected to help keep the system free from silt and other debris. I don’t imagine the smaller sewer connections entering from the nearby stockyards and the Grand Trunk Railway shops could have helped much either.

Things are fine up until you reach the intersection of Bridge and Wellington where the sewer makes an abrupt turn to the west. Here the solid base of debris becomes a sloppy mess that’s less forgiving when it comes to supporting your weight and it’s at this point where things start to get fairly uninviting. The 130 year old brickwork changes to a shorter and much newer pre-fabricated concrete pipe that’s half-full of water. At this point there isn’t much incentive to push forward so your best bet is to turn around, go down Bridge Street and head back out.

What are most likely the roots of a poplar tree that have found their way into the moisture of the sewers.

One interesting feature of this stretch is the vegetation that’s managed to finagle its way in through to the sewer in search of water. The roots of some trees have taken the easy route in through smaller connecting pipes, but in other cases, some roots have actually pushed their way right through the mortar of the brickwork itself—no small feat considering most of these older sewers were lined using 2-3 rows of bricks.

Smaller roots that were determined to find their way to water through the brickwork.

The line of poplar trees and sumac situated in an area that the sewer passes through are the likely infiltrators. Half these trees look healthy, while the other half look as though they’re about to die so it’s hard to say just what effect the sewage is having on them. I’ll let the botanists and environmentalist out there figure this one out.

The line of trees South of Mill Street that are presumably drawing water from the sewers.

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.

Overlooking a portion of the chamber from the ledge.

Not content with being unable to see everything from the vantage point of the ledge, I returned a few days later with my good friend nel58 and (what else?) a $10 inflatable boat from Canadian Tire. Actually, a pool-toy would be a more apt term for it. Either way,  it did the job— at least up until nel58 took it for a spin. Ten minutes later it sprung a leak. Whoops.

The water level ended up coming up to the very top of the two channels I was interested in so that ended up being a bust, too. I figure they both lead into the conduit that I covered in my previous entry. If that’s the case, then there’s a good chance that most of that portion is considerably flooded as well.

A view from the "boat." The two channels that presumably lead into the water distribution conduit can be seen beneath the far wall.

So, all we could really do was go for a little cruise around the chamber using our “disposa-boat.” I can think of worse ways to spend an evening. The acoustics were fantastic and I imagine that during warmer months it would make for a nice little subterranean swimming hole. The water seemed clean enough for it. A variety of graffiti adorning the walls indicates that local kids have used the chamber for various activities in the past, but who knows if swimming was ever one of them.

What was the chamber used for originally? My theory is that it was added after the 1913 collapse of the water conduit. Up until that point, there was only one way water could enter the tunnel- through a small intake situated close to the shoreline of LaSalle. When a new intake system was developed to bring a cleaner source of water into the aqueduct itself, it probably made sense to have that same water be conveyed towards this chamber and  into the conduit. If ever it needed to be drained for inspection or repairs, then stop-logs could be added to serve as a temporary dam.

View of one of the two walled-off inlets found near the midway point of the aqueduct's water conduit.

Similarly, near the midway point of the conduit explored in the last entry, there is another chamber that looks as though it was added around the same time and for similar reasons. There may be others that I just haven’t come across yet. It has two inlets/outlets facing the side of the aqueduct, both of which have been permanently sealed off. There may have been simple control gates here at one point. Another slot for stop-logs runs across the middle of the conduit, dividing the two channels so that if one length of the tunnel ever needed to be taken out of service, the remaining portion could still be used.

Video footage courtesy of nel58.

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.

Another problem was that the water was being brought in directly close the shoreline of the St. Lawrence River, which by this time was starting to become less than pure. City officials maintained that the water posed no health risks. However, there was a concern that drainage from properties situated upstream of the entrance to the aqueduct had the potential to cause future problems. Given that there was still no filtration process yet in place (and wouldn’t be until the early 1920s), engineers were starting to become somewhat mindful of what could possibly be entering the city’s water supply.

20th Century Solutions

To address the shortage of available horsepower, in 1907, after two decades worth of proposals and deliberations, it was decided to widen the aqueduct from 40 to 140 feet. Along with upgrades to pumping equipment, the alteration would provide a total of 2,500 HP during the winter months. A rate of 5,000 HP during the summer was achievable when the aqueduct was free of ice, or ‘frazil‘.

To help improve quality of water, a 9’ concrete conduit running underneath the aqueduct’s north shore was built between 1907 and 1909. In addition, the intake for this conduit would extend towards the middle of the St. Lawrence, where the water was less likely to contain sediment. By enclosing the water inside this underground pipe, the risk of further cross-contamination would also be diminished. The conduit would also serve as a continuous water supply while the aqueduct was emptied during its widening.

Rumour Has It.

I first learned of the conduit a couple of years ago, not through the city archives or maps, but from a message board dedicated to Verdun . In a bit of oral history, an older member recollected a time during his youth when he and his friends would open a manhole cover near the north side of the Crawford Street Bridge and climb down into a ‘9 foot pipe.’ This was enough to pique my interest. I decided to go have a look for myself.

When I arrived, the only manhole I could find in the area was now in the middle of Blvd De La Verendrye- a rather busy thoroughfare. If it was the same one he entered, then it must have been before the 1960s which was when they built the road . I walked further along the street hoping to find other options, but every single one was situated in the road. Feeling a bit dejected, I filed it under ‘things to look for if ever bored’ and left it at that.

A few months passed before I came across another reference to the conduit, this time in a city planning document from the 1930s. I learned that the pipe was connected to the waterworks system. A few weeks later, when Controleman came back from the City Planning department with a handful of sewer maps, one of which made clear where the conduit ran, that it was no longer in use, and more importantly, where the best point of entry was located.

City planning map detail showing aqueduc and the old water conduit (in red).

In what I consider to be a continuation of underground exploration traditions, our entry point ended up being but a few feet away from the manhole that the older gentleman from Verdun once used. A three foot high drainage pipe within Parc Angrignon, just large enough the crawl through, provides a 21st century means of access.

Inside the Conduit.

Manhole chamber (and groundwater infiltration) underneath Blvd. Verendrye

The conduit itself resembles many of Montreal’s older concrete sewers, but with pronounced horizontal lines from the wooden forms that were used during construction. For a century old tunnel, it’s in excellent. The water is, at times, thigh-deep, but it is slow moving and not that much of an issue assuming you have the stamina to wade through it for long periods of time. Sewage can be detected, but for the most part the water is cleaner than what is usually encountered underground in Montreal. I wouldn’t want to drink it, but I wouldn’t mind falling in it either.

As a testament to its cleanliness, small fish can often be spotted over the course of its length. During one trip, I even came across about a half dozen mud-puppies that somehow got swept into the system and have done their best to make this dark tunnel their home.

One of many Mud-puppies spotted inside the conduit. This particular one was close a foot in length.

The Montreal Water Famine of 1913

By the winter of 1913, work had begun to widen the canal an additional 25 feet. This further widening was commenced to help generate electrical power for the city’s lighting systems. Rather than have to expropriate additional land on the south side of the canal, the City decided to make the enlargement on the north shore instead, close to where the conduit ran. It’s here where all sorts of problems began.

In the midst of this second enlargement, a two-foot long portion of the conduit was damaged. Workers did their best to try and repair the break, but a few days later, sixty feet worth of the conduit collapsed. The damage left close to 300,000 people in Montreal without a proper water supply. Adding insult to injury, the event occurred on Christmas Day  — never a good time for catastrophe to strike.

New York Times headline from Dec 28th, 1913.

City workers scrambled to repair the break while the people of Montreal had to receive water through water carts or from properties fortunate enough to have access to Cartesian wells. In one instance, Ogilvy’s department store, with a 1,200 foot deep artesian well in its basement, was able to provide water for people in the area. Meanwhile, large factories such as the Angus Shops had to be temporarily closed, while streets were patrolled day and night to react quickly to the first sign of fire.

Buckets of water being handed out from a casks during the shortage.

The  conduit was eventually repaired four days after its collapse using sections of boiler plate riveted together to form a steel pipe. Wasting no time, the city decided to let water through the length of the conduit as soon as the concrete surrounding the pipe had finished setting.

1913 newspaper clipping showing the repaired section of the conduit as well as the dry aqueduct to the right of it.

The joints held, and close to a century later the steel pipe can still be found. It’s a great deal rustier, but despite this, it’s holding up well.

The steel pipe section today.

While the conduit repair was successful, the city’s confidence in its water supply was severely shaken. An investigative report submitted to the city’s Board of Commissioners blamed the collapse on both the materials used during construction of the conduit as well as the excavation that had been taking place at the time.

More importantly, the report made several recommendations that would help prevent another such calamity from occurring. Based on the report, an emergency supply pipe running from the Lachine Canal to the pumping engines was soon added as a temporary solution. Ensuring a more reliable back-up supply system wouldn’t come until later.

Yesterday and Today.

It’s not clear at this point when the city stopped using the conduit  for its drinking water supply. It likely became obsolete by the time the filtration plant was put into operation during the 1920s. Impure water running the length of the open aqueduct was less of an issue after that. Repositioning of the system’s  intake pipes probably also ensured a cleaner supply as well. Also unclear is when (and why) the City officially abandoned its plans to use the aqueduct for purposes of power generation.

Fresh water flowing out from underneath a syphon that presumably connects to the Des Baillets water treatment plant. A makeshift ladder sits off to the side.

Today the conduit is still in use, both as a sewer for LaSalle and as an overflow tunnel for the Charles Des Baillets water purification plant which was built during the 1970s. The aforementioned relatively clean water and levels of sand (fare probably attributable to the plant’s filtering system.  A walled off section prevents water from the River from entering the conduit directly.  Before this, a section of the conduit has been replaced with a junction chamber with one pipe leading towards the discharge tunnel of the plant.

Junction chamber situated near the Des Baillets water treatment plant. Clean water flows in from the right and raw sewage from the left.

Given that there is currently only one known feasible entry point into the conduit, walking its entire length (and back again) would be a formidable task involving a 16 km round trip. To this date, I’ve walked roughly half its length, but I’m going to have to find other ways in if I’m to see the remaining portions.

Here’s a nice little find from the other night inside one of the older brick sewers running below Rue D’argenson in Point St. Charles. I had originally hoped to see something interesting where the sewer passes underneath the Lachine Canal and towards Rue St. Jacques. That ended up being a letdown with nothing but a dead-end chamber near the Canal’s edge not even worth photographing. Making our way in the opposite direction, we came across something uncommon for Montreal: a 150 meter section constructed using clay tile blocks.

It’s questionable as to why the transition occurs, but it’s possible that the brick sewer was initially laid during the late 1800s and the tile section  later during the early 1900s when the streets south of rue Centre began to fill in a bit more.  The sewer likely discharged into Riviere St-Pierre just ahead of the portion that had been converted into an open tailrace channel for the City’s Waterworks system. From that point everything would have been whisked away to Verdun and out to the St. Lawrence.

1913 map showing the area Point St. Charles formerly known as St. Gabriel. The sewer line discussed in this entry has been overlaid in red.

View this location in Google Maps.

During the beginning of the 1900s these pre-cast tile blocks had started to become a fashionable building material in some cities. It required less time and labour to install than brick which would require the setting of multiple layers to ensure both strength and leak resistance. These tile blocks aren’t at all very common here in Montreal. In fact, I’ve only seen it used in one other sewer in Hochelaga which my friends and I decided to call Ceramique Superfantastique. I’m sure there’s more of it to be found elsewhere around the city, but my guess is that the abundance of limestone on the island pretty much put an end to its use before it had a chance to take off. With limestone came concrete and when construction practices and manufacturing technologies made it a feasible building material, I’m sure Montreal was more than willing to take advantage of it.

Further inside the stretch of ceramic tile blocks, South of Rue Centre.

The rest of the sewer is fairly straightforward brickwork, but with a nice amount of calcite formations to give things a somewhat craggy, organic appearance. Beyond the tile blocks are a set of concrete beams, likely added later to help add reinforcement for the set of railway tracks above. Getting past this point would involve some serious crawling. Since none of us felt like getting a face full of sewer water, that would be as far as we’d go.

Crouched inside the brick-lined sewer underneath Rue St. Patrick.

The West Island of Montreal offers what are essentially the low-lying fruit for underground exploring. The primarily residential areas of Pointe-Claire, Dorval and Beaconsfield all make use of a separated sewer system with one set of pipes for sewage and another for stormwater. Storm drains discharge directly into the river (or Lac St-Louis) and if one knows where the larger outfalls are, one can simply put on a pair of rubber boots (or even flip-flops) and walk on in.

Most of the time this would be considered a good thing, but it seems as though the majority of storm drains in this part of the island were built during the 1970s or later using fairly simple prefab concrete components. Put another way: if you’ve been in more than a few, they’re kind of boring.

Still, they offer a respite from the stress that comes with exploring the combined sewers found elsewhere on the island. You don’t have to worry about manhole covers, e-coli poisoning, industrial contaminants, hydrogen sulfide, rats (if you’re afraid of them) or things getting swept away through three feet of fast-flowing grey water. Every so often it’s nice to not have deal with such challenges.

A  comment left by Jean Naimard in one of my recent entries suggested I take a look at an outfall for a storm drain in Beaconsfield. It’s actually one that my friends and I had first eyeballed this past winter. It was never exactly a high priority, but when plans to go through the next stretch of Riviere St-Pierre with a friend were canceled, I decided to go and have a further look on my own.

Enter “7-UP”

The double outlet of 7-UP. Live or Dead. The Choice is Yours.

The slightly vandalized outfall is found at the edge of Lac St-Louis near a quiet residential street. A box-shaped culvert divided in two carries the water of a small creek (Ruisseau St-James) underneath Blvd St. Charles. The creek soon re-appears on the other side of the street at the edge of someone’s side yard. Seeing this, one might be tricked into thinking there’s nothing more to it than that. However, if you wade through the channel on the left side, you’ll find a second drain that splits off to the north. Unfortunately, this is about as surprising as things get.

Looking back through to the outlet of the west conduit.

The junction where the hidden storm drain splits off to the right.

For the next kilometer it’s straight reinforced concrete pipe. It starts off six feet in diameter then gradually shrinks down to less than four at which point there’s little incentive to go any further.

Standard-issue concrete pipe. Note the lines from the varying water levels.

The only thing to remove a bit of the monotony (and the back-aches) are seven manhole chambers, each marked with dayglo spraypaint by a group of kids who were bold enough to venture through this drain on February 26th, 1972. How do I know the date? Easy. They wrote it on the wall.

The February 26th, 1972 chamber.

One chamber has a customary penis drawn on its walls (labeled “penis”, just in case there was any doubt), another “Far Out!”, while the 7th and final one simply says “7-UP.” I’m guessing even they were bored at that point.

Beyond the juvenile quirks, there isn’t much else that’s worth pointing out. The brain-like flowstone in the 7-UP chamber is a nice touch as are the different types of minnows to be found along the way. Most of the drain is filled with several inches of rock debris, giving things the look and feel of a natural creek bed. Seeing small fish swimming about only adds to this illusion.

Trips to other storm drains in Montreal, especially ones taken during the middle of summer, will often reveal an abundance of living creatures: various species of spiders and insects, crayfish, even raccoons. It’s not quite as exciting as coming across an alligator in the sewers, but given that this is the island of Montreal, you have to take what you can get.

I’ve probably done a poor job pitching things, but a storm drain like this is actually the perfect starting point for anyone interested in exploring the underground themselves. While not as exciting as some of the older sewers in Montreal, it would still give someone a good idea of what it’s like to be underground without any of the risks mentioned earlier. If there were enough interest, I’d like to take a small group of people on an interpretive walk of sorts through one of the storm drains in Pointe Claire. The one I have in mind has a few more things going for it. More on that later, though.

View this location in Google Maps.

Picking up from the last entry, getting beyond the relatively small (yet steep and intimidating) slide of Double Ducker ended up requiring the use of some rope. It’s common for cities to add features like ladders, handrails or even stairs to allow workers to get up and down sloped sections like this, but I’ve yet to see anything like that here in Montreal.

So this time with nel58 and controleman along for the ride, we hammered a
steel piton into the gap where two sections of concrete pipe met, attached a knotted rope and made our way down. Easy peasy, quick and easy.

Controleman making use of the rope. The picture makes the drop look a lot smaller than it actually is. (Photo by nel58)

After the three of us reached the bottom, we headed down around the bend through the four foot pipe. A few minutes later, we arrived at what we had expected this would lead to: the Cote St-Luc Collector (CSLC) sewer. Here, the flow of Double Ducker enters a junction chamber from the right-hand side. A larger conduit, the main section of the CSLC, sits on the left side, perched on top of a slide. The contents of the two sewers flow smoothly over the sloped floor of the chamber eventually emptying into a single ten foot high pipe.

The junction where Double Ducker (on right) flows into the Cote St-Luc collector.

Worth noting here is how you can see this same junction in the river on older maps where a smaller creek veers off towards the West. The sewer system has effectively reversed their roles, though. Now it’s this smaller arm that carries the majority of the river’s flow.

Like its official name implies, the CSLC carries the waste from the predominantly residential community of Cote St-Luc as well as the more industrial areas found towards the lower reaches in Lachine. By Montreal’s standards its a medium-sized sewer, no more than ten feet in height.  It consists mainly of a horseshoe-shaped concrete pipe, perhaps put in place during the early 1960s to accommodate the increasing number of subdivisions being built at the time.

Not wanting to bother with yet another slide, we decided to take the easy route and head downstream first.  After tip-toeing carefully down the sloped floor of the chamber, we began sloshing our way through the concrete pipe that lay before us.

A few minutes later we arrived at an impressive junction chamber which picks up the flow from two other pipes leading into it. One sitting at higher elevations gracefully spills over a ledge into the CSLC creating a tranquil waterfall. It kind of gives the chamber a bit of a Tiki lounge. Les Baxter’s music and drinks served in coconuts would fit in well here. Whenever I think of this section, I can’t help but think of the word Shangri-la.

Looking upstream from a portion of the Shangri-la chamber.

Heading further downstream, it started to become clear that we’d be walking through relatively featureless concrete pipe for quite some time before seeing anything out of the ordinary. We decided to turn around, head back upstream to junction we came in through, and try to get up the slide on the left hand side.

Fortunately, this wasn’t going to require any rope to get up. Its edges were relatively dry and we were able to make it to the top and into the next section of concrete pipe.

Of course, a few hundred feet or so beyond this point, we encountered a much more formidable obstacle, and while it might not look like much in the photo below, it’s one of the more intense slides I’ve ever seen. It’s steep and unlike the other two slides encountered in this system, the water comes down violently, barreling down  through two sections of RCB; a good sign that the sewer was sitting directly below a set of train tracks. If this was in Toronto then there would have been a nice railing or something to hold onto, but like I said,  Montreal tends to lack such underground conveniences.

Looking up into the super steep slide. Note: it's actually far worse than it looks here. (Photo by nel58)

I stood at the bottom about twenty feet behind Controleman, who perhaps not realizing what he was about to get himself into, started climbing upwards. For a moment or two it actually looked as though we’d all be able to make it to the top of this thing. He made it about a third of the way up, but when he ventured from the dry shoulder of the slide and into the water, that’s when he lost control. He started sliding downwards a little, which would have been fine had his one foot not slipped out from underneath of him. Poor Controleman took a bit of a fall, then managed to get back up, at which point he started sliding again, straight towards me. Being a fair bit heavier than myself, I thought he was going to end up knocking me clear off my feet, but I was able to catch hold of him before the situation became any worse.

So now with Controleman thoroughly soaked (and maybe a little bit shaken up too), we decided it would probably be a good time to start heading back out. If we wanted to get past this particular section, it was going to require finding another way past it, perhaps through a manhole further upstream. We gathered up our stuff, climbed back up our rope and made our way towards the infall we entered.

Lessons learned: don’t step out into the middle of a slide, and when in doubt use a rope.

Finally, here’s a very aproximate path of both the Cote St-Luc collector (shown here in red) and the stretch of Double Ducker that leads into it. You can zoom out in order to see the full extent of the system.

View Larger Map

Don’t worry, we’ll get through this thing eventually.

From a distance, the drain (which I’ve named Double Ducker) beginning at the edge of the Meadowbrook Country Club doesn’t really appear to be much. In fact, if it wasn’t for the old limestone construction of its inlet, then I wouldn’t have bothered looking at it more carefully in the first place. The two entry points are all of two feet high. Rarely does that sort of size suggest anything good lies beyond.

It wasn’t until I got closer that I realized that the two channels are actually double this height. Over the years, sediment and other debris has more or less created a dam of sorts, but beyond this it soon dips down and opens up to reveal the full height.

Four feet isn’t all that comfortable a height to walk through, but it’s better than two feet. So I slipped on my chest waders, squeezed through the left side and crouched through 75 feet or so of what appeared to be hastily cut limestone blocks.

I was now passing underneath the original mainline of the Canadian Pacific Railway built in 1886. It smelled less like a man made drain and more like an old cave.

Looking back through to the entrance inside one of the limestone channels.

When CPR built a rail yard parallel to the main set of tracks in the late 1940s, more of the river required covering.

Detail of 1952 map showing Riviere St. Pierre (and its tributaries) passing under CPR's rail yards.

By this time the construction material of choice wasn’t limestone, but concrete. So at this point, the two channels come to an end and a rather ruddy–looking concrete section in the shape of an arch begins; its floor looking as though it had been quickly slathered in place. At this point I could finally stand up. The smell of sanitary flow wafting in from up ahead gave a good indication as to where all this was heading.

At the end of the limestone section with a drillhole in the ceiling bringing in a touch of natural light.

A few feet further and the concrete arch suddenly increases in size with enough room to stand up in and then some.

Looking a little forlorn while standing inside the largest concrete arch section. (Note the imprints left from the wooden forms used during construction.)

Only to become slightly smaller again thirty feet later.

Looking through to the smaller stretch.

And then things get really small with the start of a section built using RCP less than four feet high. None of this really makes sense. Much like actual rivers, sewers have a tendency to get larger as you head downstream in order to accommodate the increasing amounts of water picked up along the way. This small > large > larger > small > smaller sequence is still a bit confusing.

Looking ahead (but not forward) to the upcoming stretch of small RCP.

So at this point, I had effectively crossed the width of the entire railway yard above me. The more refined looking section of pre-fabricated RCP that lay ahead was obviously added more recently. 1973 is the last map I have that shows the river flowing past this point. It was around this time when the city began to implement a more comprehensive wastewater management plan. This stretch was most buried as a part of that effort.

Shining my spotlight down the small pipe, I saw no end in sight, but could hear the rumble of water suggesting bigger (perhaps more interesting) things lay ahead.

I decided to keep going. Here, the concrete is smooth, almost polished. Combined with a fine layer of sanitary “scum” on its bottom and the slight downward slope, it was slippery enough for me to lose my footing a couple of times. After crouching through about 250 feet of this pipe, I eventually reached the source of the rumbling: a seven foot high slide.

Normally getting past something like this would be kid’s play. Even when civil engineers don’t thoughtfully add ladders or step-irons, you can often make your way down safely enough by keeping to the dryer edges. But here there’s no ladder, and given the slipperiness of things, I came to the conclusion that even if I could get down safely (and dryly), I might not be able to get back up so easily.

So I did what any prudent drainer would do: I decided to wait and come back another day, with a couple of friends, a bit of climbing gear and a length of rope.

Coming up in our next episode: Double Ducker meets Ovalflow. Stay tuned.

Standing below a bit of natural light pouring in from above a manhole shaft.

Judging by the pre-fabricated sections of reinforced concrete pipe, it looks as though this portion was constructed a bit more recently. Sometime around the 1970s, perfectly round RCP seemed to have become the standard material for sewers and storm drains in Montreal. It can make for somewhat dull underground experiences, especially when long stretches of the stuff are involved. Fortunately, this particular sewer ended up having a nice combination of other features to help break the monotony.

The visibility was fairly poor, which we’d later discover was the result of cold air blasting in through a little 6″ pipe. During the autumn and winter months, the air inside sewers stays a few degrees warmer relative to aboveground temperatures. When outside air finds a way in, it can can lead to somewhat unfavorable exploring conditions. In this case, a dense “fog” had filled the sewer. The lights of our headlamps only penetrated a few feet in front of us. Regardless, we began making our way northwards underneath Cote-St-Luc.

Sloshing our way through the shin-deep water, we eventually arrived at a nice wide junction chamber. Nothing too fancy or out of the ordinary, but at least at this point the fog had subsided enough to make it a bit more practical to be able to take a photograph or two.

nel58 and myself lighting things up.

We chose to follow the smaller pipe to the right out of which we could hear the rumbling of water; a sign that something a bit more interesting lay ahead.

Fifty feet or so in, we found ourselves inside a  rusted corrugated metal pipe. I have no idea why the change occurs, but it’s there. Maybe it’s a culvert that existed beneath a roadway before the rest of the sewer was put in place. As the picture below can attest it was a bit on the dirty side. I’m always having problems convincing people that sewers aren’t as bad as they might imagine them to be. I’ll admit that a photo like the one below does little to support my claims. Fortunately, these places never smell as bad as they look. Honest.

Being careful not to get a dangling condom, piece of toilet paper or god-knows-what-else in the face, we pressed forward.

We eventually reached a lovely little chamber responsible for the noises we had started hearing from the previous junction.

Accidental modernism found forty feet below.

Sometimes it’s the little stuff that helps make things more interesting. In this case, a curtain of water falling over a diagonal ledge or reinforced concrete beams. As much as traveling through pipes is a part of  underground exploration (which I’ll admit can sometimes get boring), it’s this sort of stuff that we look forward to discovering the most.

Since neither of the two pipes ahead of us were tall enough to stand up in and would likely only get smaller, we decided to head back.

After returning to the first junction, we started heading up the pipe that ran off to the left. It didn’t take long before we realized it would probably be some time before we came across anything other than RCP.  A basic system map from the 1960s  shows the main arm of the sewer continuing on to the northern boundary of Cote-St-Luc. Reaching that point would involve walking against the current for a good 3 kms from where we were standing. Not feeling up to that particular task, heading back downstream from our entry-point seemed like the more appealing option.

Roughly fifteen minutes later, this is what we arrived at this strange little room:

Odd engineering found at the end of the line.

Two relatively dry CMPs veer off to the left and the rest of the wastewater flows through the four foot high square section seen on the right. Shining my spotlight up through this part revealed no end in sight. I figured it was most likely going to be like this for the entire width of the railway yard sitting directly above us. Regardless, I started to crouch down through it.  Soon afterwards, I found that the bottom of the floor dropped off abruptly to the point where I was now up to my waist in water. Realizing my backpack (and more) would probably get soaked if things got much deeper, we decided it would be best to turn around and call it a day.

Next up: Downstream towards Lachine.

Inside the Rockfield combined sewer overflow conduit

Picking up from where we last left off, this stretch takes us through the inside of the Cote-St-Luc collector sewer at the northern edge of Lachine. From here it snakes its way southwards towards the Lachine canal, never straying too far from the original course of Riviere St. Pierre. Approximate round-travel distance: 4 kilometers.

I never look forward to having to cover larger distances inside sewers here in Montreal. The depth will vary, but 2-3 feet tends to be the norm. That might not seem like a lot, but when you factor in the speed at which it’s flowing and the amount of gear these types of trips can entail, it doesn’t take long before it starts to feel like a solid cardiovascular workout. This is especially true when you’re walking against the flow.

Here’s a general overview showing the CSL collector (the dark red line), the estimated path of Riviere St. Pierre and a few of the features described below.

View Larger Map

For the first kilometer and a half, this portion of CSL collector is pretty straightforward: 8×10 feet in diameter with a shape that’s typical of concrete sewers built in Montreal between the 1920s and 1970s. A smooth horseshoe-shaped arch covers a course aggregate floor that that slopes towards the edges. During dry weather, the edges of these types of sewers are usually dry. City plans define this section the “sidewalk”; but that term’s a bit misleading. Due to the angle, it’s actually terrible to have to walk on.

Typical Montreal-style sewer with 'sidewalk'

Because of the broader arc of the sewer and for some of the features described below, I decided to name this length of the CSL Collector “Ovalflow.”

It’s unclear when the sewer replaced this portion of Riviere St. Pierre. While bits and pieces seem to have been covered as early as the 1930s, I suspect everything was eventually reconstructed during the mid-1960s when the entire area’s sewers were integrated into a much broader system.

By the time the sewer reaches the area of Lachine known as Rockfield, things start to get a bit more interesting.

Rockfield regulator chamber.

At this point the CSL collector officially comes to an end inside a rather unusual chamber containing a number of interesting features. As seen in the photo above, on one side of the channel are four cells. All the water flows into the cell closest to the camera at which point it falls down a sinkhole into an even larger sewer- the appropriately named St-Pierre Collector, which we’ll get to in future entries.

Detail of city planning map showing chamber and connecting sewers.

The other three cells contain a metal cylindrical object suspended directly above a three-foot wide hole, one of which is entirely blocked up with sludge. Above these are a number of counterweights and a mechanism (shown here) likely designed to lower each cylinder so that it covers the hole. Since each hole seems to lead to the same sewer further below, I’m not sure what purpose these things actually serve. A water monitoring device (or flowmeter) sits high in one corner of the chamber, but it’s unknown if it has any connection to the large plugs or if it simply sends an alert whenever water levels start to rise.

One of the three 'plugs' positioned above a sinkhole.

Also found in this chamber is the beginning of a rectangular shaped conduit situated roughly eight feet above the main channel of the sewer. The principle here is simple: when the water inside the sewer reaches a certain height, the surplus flow is diverted through this tunnel and out into the open water- in this case, the Lachine Canal.

Entrance point of the Rockfield overflow.

This is one of the drawbacks of a combined sewer system. Most of the time everything gets sent off to the treatment plant as intended, but during heavy rainstorms, the system can become overburdened to the point where sewage spills out into the open water. Fortunately, these events only seem to happen a few times a year, but they’re still a source of significant water contamination. If you’ve been warned not to swim in the Lachine Canal (or elsewhere on the island), combined sewer overflow events are likely the reason why.

Midway point inside the overflow conduit approaching the Lachine Canal.

This eleven by five foot high conduit (known as the Rockfield Overflow) runs for a quarter of a kilometer, but because the outfall at the canal is submerged, one can only travel about two thirds that distance. Any further and you’re soon up to your chest in canal water.

At this point your only choice is to turn around.

Next up: Eastbound Traffic.