One of the good things to come out of last year’s article in the Montreal Gazette about lost rivers was  the opportunity to meet Katarina Soukup of Catbird Productions. After reading the story, Katarina emailed me expressing interest in producing a documentary on the subject using my work as a starting point. I was admittedly a bit skeptical that anything would happen, but after meeting up with her in person it became clear that this was something she was enthusiastic and intent on developing.

A few months later with a director now on board, I brought a small film crew underground during which I rambled on about my experiences and the history of Montreal’s sewer system. The result was this short promotional video that would be used to pitch the documentary to various parties. (Just in case it isn’t obvious, I’m the devilishly handsome fellow wearing the hat and chest-waders)

Since then the documentary has received funding from the National Film Board, Radio Canada and Studio XX. The scope of the project has also grown to include other cities around the world that have made attempts to recover or raise awareness of ‘lost rivers.’

Production is set to begin later this year. More details can be found here or on the project’s Facebook page.

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.

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