The past month or so has been interesting, to say the least. I suppose that followers of this site are used to sporadic updates by now. Usually it’s because other things are keeping me busy or distracted and while my trip to Greece has certainly kept me busy, this last bout of inactivity stemmed from more serious matters.
A local news broadcast from Toronto is a good a primer to the situation:
“The drains, too, this hot weather, at their grated bars tell tales of the stagnant petulance imprisoned within them.” – regarding the Craig Street sewer, Montreal Witness, 1872.
“It was a constant fight against humidity, disease and decay. It seemed as though all the crap that had oozed from the slums of Montreal for over a century had collected here.” – Marcel Talon’s account of the sewer, 1993.
Since launching this website just over a year ago, three questions I’ve been asked most frequently have involved what sewers smell like, how I get down there to begin with, and whether or not I’ve ever run into anyone else while inside of them. The first two make a good deal of sense. After all, who wouldn’t want to know what raw sewage smells like? And how does one get inside a sewer?
But the third question involving encounters with other people is a curious one mostly because it hasn’t happened yet. Not only that, but I can’t ever imagine it happening either- at least not here in Montreal. Our sewers aren’t exactly the most easily accessible things in the world, nor are they the most hospitable of places. I’m not even sure how often people working for the city venture underground to have a look at things these days. The preferred method seems to involve the use of remote controlled video inspection systems.
The question likely stems from the often mythical stories from elsewhere around the world involving people found underground, from the “Mole People” of New York City, to the Cataphiles of Paris. Of course, Hollywood movies and various popular works of fiction have long relied on the underground as a staple home to a variety of miscreants and monsters. Perhaps it’s scenes such as this that come to mind whenever a city’s sewers are mentioned:
Most well-known stories involving the underground tend to be set in places other than Montreal though. CBC journalist Brian Stewart once stated: “No one has ever sought to rhapsodize over Montreal’s sewers, however, and certainly no one ever famous has seen fit to hide there.”
But despite this, it would be a mistake to pretend that there hasn’t been a long history of people who have passed through these systems.
For the most part, this aspect of Montreal’s history may not exactly be the stuff that legends are made of, but it is one that deserves to be documented in more detail than it has already.
While in Toronto this past weekend, I managed to take a (very) quick dip down into an overflow section of the Garrison sewer system. Thanks to Michael, Jon, Jeremy and Bryan for the short but sweet tour. I plan on setting aside an entire weekend in the near future to be able to see more of what this historic system has to offer.
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.
I Finally got my camera and lens back in working order. Well, more or less. There are still a couple of minor problems, but at least it still takes pictures which is more than I thought it would ever do after it fell in the water. This was taken last night inside an inspection shaft for the island of Montreal’s interceptor network. The sewer at the bottom is roughly six storeys below grade and runs directly into the island’s wastewater treatment plant. Put another way: it’s nothing we’d ever dare try and wade through. Besides, these shafts are probably the most interesting thing about the system.
Oh yeah, and a proper update’s coming soon.
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.
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.
Here’s a little quote that I discovered the other day that I’m quite fond of. Taken from the book City A-Z, which conveniently enough, can be browsed through online.
The sewers are the hidden underground beyond time. Unlike the carefully counted, quantified, rationalized into the time-space orders of the above-ground city, the sewers are the randomness of what is left over. These are mythic bowels of the city, repository of unacknowledged histories. This is where all sorts of family dirt ends up.
*Insert obligatory “sorry for the lack up updates” statement here*
A fresh post is coming up tomorrow and it’ll be far better than this one, I promise.
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