Preparing the foundation for the Meilleur-Atlantique tributary sewer on north shore of Montreal. (Photo source: City of Montreal Archives)

How else dispose of an immortal force
No longer needed? Staunch it at its source
With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown
Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone
In fetid darkness still to live and run –
And all for nothing it had ever done
Except forget to go in fear perhaps.
No one would know except for ancient maps
That such a brook ran water. But I wonder
If from its being kept forever under,
The thoughts may not have risen that so keep
This new-built city from both work and sleep.

- excerpt from A Brook in the City by Robert Frost, 1923

I’ve already written a bit about how most of Riviere St. Pierre has been lost, but it’s definitely not the only river or creek to have suffered this fate. Perhaps “lost” isn’t the best word to use. While the majority have been removed from both the landscape and our collective memory,  their waters can still be found beneath us, flowing through the island’s sewer system.

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