La Ronde's Endless Summer

Living here in the theme-park capital of civilization, I tend to judge all amusement venues harshly, but anyone familiar with tourism has to respect a park that has been around for 41 years and keeps on going.

La Ronde had festive beginnings, as the midway area at Expo 67 (and one of the most popular areas at the fair).  Most of the exhibits were meant to be taken down after six months, but the midway area was always intended to be a Montreal fixture long after the Worlds Fair had packed up and moved on.

The city of Montreal was the first proud owner of the park, but it has since been sold to Six Flags, who gave it an $83 million makeover and engineered park improvements like the Flash Pass. While La Ronde might have taken on some corporate flavour with the new ownership--the Pizza Pizza stands every four feet, for instance, or the (hello!) $15 parking--the rides have gotten bigger and flashier, and the relatively cheap Season Pass can be used at any of Six Flags' 15 other locations.  If you travel the U.S. and you're into thrill rides, this may be worth investigating. 

Now La Ronde is the second-largest theme park in Canada (second only to Toronto-area Canada's Wonderland), with a collection of 41 rides, including 11 rollercoasters.  According to Expo Lounge, the 1500-seat theatre is basically unchanged from the way it looked 40 years ago and still holds activities and shows.  The biggest draw may be the yearly Montreal Fireworks Festival--fireworks are synchronized to music broadcast on local radio stations, and the show can be enjoyed from dozens of locations close to Île-Ste-Hélène.

"The La Ronde theme park is the only part of Expo 67 in existance today that still serves its original purpose," Expo Lounger Jason wrote in 2006. "I go every summer, and imagine myself visiting Expo 67..."  You can pay homage to history or just ride a screaming rollercoaster, but you have to get to La Ronde before it closes again on October 31.  

Parking-lot access is directly off the Jacques-Cartier Bridge (THE ONE IN MONTREAL!), or get off at the Jean-Drapeau metro station and take a bus directly to the main gate.

(Photos are from one of Expo Lounge's yearly pilgrimages, taken by Stephanie Stockl.  The first is the Goliath, La Ronde's very high, very fast "hypercoaster," and the second shows Le Monstre, one of the biggest wooden rollercoasters in existence.  The red tower in the bottom photo is La Spirale, also historically significant, as it was installed for Expo 67 and is still running today.)

Montreal Votes for Montreal

DSCF7458, originally uploaded by christopher dewolf | urbanphoto.net.

There's been noise in the Montreal blogosphere about who ranked where, but there's lots more to the Montreal Mirror's annual Best of Montreal poll than just the list of Best Blogs.

(And no, Slushblog didn't make it. I think we're a little too G-rated to become one of the most popular blogs.)

As Fagstein mentions, it's basically a marketing stunt--and a really easy feature to run every year--but it's an interesting way to take the city's emotional temperature and see what they're into.

Among the most interesting findings:

• It's Alex Kovalev mania this year.  He's on the lists for Closest to Sainthood, Most Desirable Man, and actually won Best Sports Personality (in a town that has a whole lot of sports personality).  As the Mirror observes, what a difference a playoff round makes--Kovalev is great, but he's got a tendancy to space out, and I'm figuring he's one huge playoff screw-up away from being voted annoying, tacky, and deserving of eternal torment.

• Anglophones won Best Minority.  In an English-speaking publication!  Imagine!


• I like the question they ask on this page, What is the best thing from Montreal to give to a non-Montrealer?  I have personally received #2, #4, #11, and #16, and I will caution you that if you hang around south Florida long enough, one of them is going to offer you #9.  I'm just saying.

• Montreal women are either aging very rapidly, or need eye exams.  Um, the Most Desirable Man list left me...wondering.  Leonard Cohen is the man in the photo here.  Does he deserve to be in the Best Dressed category?  Sure!  Would he be hot if I were, say, three times the age I am now?  I bet I'd be drooling all over my PowerBook.  But this man is ranked ahead of Gabriel Aubrey, a professional model, the hot guy skulking around the Macy's in those commercials (do you get those in Canada?).  Gabriel's not especially my type of gorgeous, but you have to admit he's a fine piece of work.  And where is he?  Buried at #7, behind Cohen and even Roy Dupuis.  What is going on up there, people?  Seriously, now, my favourite montréalais didn't even make this list...probably because he was born in the 1970s and has starred in a movie or two.  Pretty boys don't appeal to Montreal women in 2008.  When it comes to guys, apparently they're only interested on what's on the inside.  Waaaay on the inside.  

I found the Best Of's pretty entertaining this year.  Certain categories improved, others slipped, and some just left me very confused.  We don't know who voted for this stuff or the state of mind they were in when they did it.  But we do know there's always 2009...which seems to be Alex's to lose, and poor Gabriel's to gain.

Correction

OK, that bridge you see in the pretty picture in the last post?  It's fine.  This less-impressive little bridge is the one that has multiple fissures and is threatening to crumble underneath your car and drop you into the icy river any second now.  Let me explain.

Fagstein was kind enough to write us to let us know that it's the OTHER Jacques-Cartier Bridge, which crosses the Magog River, which is having ongoing issues (French only).  Detours are a little rough these days--Radio-Canada (French only) reports that 25,000 cars cross this bridge every single day, but right now they are being re-routed to autoroutes and back roads, like 410 or Bélvèdere--oh, no wait, it says here they're thinking of closing Bélvèdere on May 26!  Things are such a snarled mess that Sherbrooke is considering stepping up the police presence during rush hour.

(Paging AngryFrenchGuy!  I'm about to make a language complaint!  Um, how come I can only get news on this thing in French?  I understand that's the #1 provincial language and all, but what happens if some poor just-got-here-from-the-U.S. Anglophone wants to figure out how she's getting to work in the morning?  Can we get a sentence or two?  Something?  Anything?  I mean, I found NO news on this thing in English.  That's very unusual, even for Montreal.)

With that little language curiosity aside, be careful if your business takes you into Sherbrooke during high-traffic hours.  It looks like things could be a mess until June--or beyond.  And remember, if you're a Montrealer and you see something's wrong on this blog, email one of us immediately and we'll try to get it fixed.  We're not too quick here at Slushblog, but we do eventually get it right.

(Photo from Radio-Canada)

Bridge Work

DSCF9859, originally uploaded by christopher dewolf | urbanphoto.net.

The pont Jacques-Cartier (or the Jacques Cartier Bridge, depending on where you bought your map) is the main artery that connects the island of Montreal with Longueuil, Sherbrooke, and other busy suburban cities. This familiar sight in the city skyline has recently been shut down because cracks have been found in the bridge's infrastructure and...well, cars don't float so well.

I'm not sure why that CBC story says that the bridge is 50 years old. According to the official website--yes, the bridge has an official website!--it opened to traffic all the way back in May of 1930. It wasn't originally called the Jacques Cartier: it was the "South Shore Bridge" during construction, and for the first four years of its life, it was called the "Harbour Bridge." The name change took effect awhile later, as a tribute to the guy who discovered Canada. (Please tell me you knew who Jacques Cartier was. Seriously, I'm an American, and even I knew that!)

Reading the history, I find it unsurprising that it took the traffic people from 1874 until the '30's to figure out they needed a bridge, pick a site, spend years upon years on construction, and finally finish it in the next century, after the original people who wanted to cross the river had probably all died. I don't know who's responsible for getting snow plowed off the streets in a timely fashion, but I'm betting it's the same department.

The Jacques Cartier used to be a toll bridge--25¢ for a car or 15¢ to ride your bike across in the 1950's, which was probably a decent piece of change--but that was abolished in 1962, and now the old toll booths are just offices for maintenance personnel. Hopefully we'll never get back to that.

The bridge is festive in the summer when it's closed to traffic and tens of thousands of people swarm it to watch the fireworks competition at La Ronde amusement park. People also like to protest during rush hour and cause massive traffic tie-ups (apparently to make you hate them, and their cause).

The bridge was closed on Sunday, but I can't find an updated report on its status. Feel free to email me if you have news.

2 Biker Gang Stories

The Hells Angels managed to make news twice in 24 hours, which they haven't done in quite some time.  Today's controversies:

• Riley Cote, a bruiser for the Philadelphia Flyers, ended up in the news because his MySpace page--hello, NHLers have MySpace pages?--had a decent-sized banner promoting the local chapter of Hells Angels.  

Seems that Cote's cousin is a member and he feels he must support him "like he's my brother."  The Hells Angels banners have reportedly been removed from his page, but not before the Winnipeg Sun ran this charming story the night before the Flyers played Game 1 against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

OK, my thoughts here...

1.) I understand treating your cousin like your sibling, since Laura and I have done that with each other that since birth, but if she joins a biker gang, I think I would have to seriously think twice about this whole "blog contributor" thing.

2.)  WHY does the NHL let these guys run around loose on MySpace?  In the name of fan-friendliness, it would be so easy to set up a system (much like this one) for players to have their own pages linking to relatives, hobbies, their weekend rock bands, etc.  The fans would like it, it would give the guys something to do on long flights, and--best of all--the NHL could police the content in the name of that whole "good citizen" rule they've got in the players' contracts.  No more surprise scandals in the middle of the playoffs!

• Stay with me on this next one, it's more complicated than the hockey-player thing.  Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier once dated a girl who was once married to an ex-biker who ended up informing for the cops.  You got all that?

The long version is, Julie Coulliard must like bad boys way too much.  She started out dating a biker in the extreme inner circle of Hells Angels back in the vicious 1990's, then eventually changed her attention to Stéphane Sirios, who wasn't so important in the hierarchy but still ended up giving up his career for his girlfriend.  (Head biker Mom Boucher was nervous about Coulliard switching guys so quickly--he worried she might be working for the cops, and even took out a contract on her once!)  The Gazette explains this much better than I can.

This is all in the ancient past.  Sirios even ended up informing on his old gang for the biker-busting police force, the Wolverines, and Coulliard went on to date even more guys and live happily ever after.  That's the whole story.  Seriously.  But hey, it's a slow news week, so the political opposition in Parliament is trying to make something out of this.  Fagstein also says she's hot--he's got a picture on his blog, so go decide for yourself.

Save the Planet! Have a French Fry!

Here's a headline you never thought you'd see two years ago: the city of Sherbrooke, roughly one hour west of Montreal, has placed a ban on biofuels...for ethical reasons.

That's right.  The plant-based biofuels that were once going to save us all are now being partially blamed for skyrocketing food prices.  Corn, soy, and canola are being diverted from the grocery stores to the gas stations.  Councilor Jean-François Rouleau is quoted as saying, "We want to work with something else that does not come out of the agricultural chain."

Know what I think is promising? They're working on making fuel on reclaimed oil from deep-fat fryers. Now, THERE'S a turnaround: the least green of us--the fast-food eaters--could end up being the ones who save the planet. Weird. But it's not like there will ever be a shortage of the stuff, especially the way Americans eat...

You can read the rest of the CBC story here.

Welcome to Westmount

Spacing Montreal and Urbanphoto paid homage to a much-maligned part of Montreal the other day: Westmount, the traditionally English-speaking neighbourhood where the very hip wouldn't be caught dead.

"Westmount?" one reader teased me, when I told her that a major action sequence in my book happened in this pretty little section of town.  "I can't picture it...old men in their wheelchairs on the porch..."

First, some background.  Westmount is an interesting place--some folks say that Inuit artifacts have been found here that date back to the 1400's, which would make it older than any part of any town here in the U.S.  They had the first public library in all of Quebec, along with all of the best lighting, streets, and houses money could buy at the turn of the century.  It has been its own little city-within-a-city since 1908.  (This photo is a new streetcar line that opened in 1904, courtesy of Coolopolis.)

But Westmount's history isn't all gingerbread and porch swings.  Because of its traditionally Anglophone population, it was a favourite target of the FLQ in the 1960's when terrorism was at its peak in the city.  Several people were maimed or killed before the group was finally hunted down in the early 1970's.  Whenever language wars flare, Westmount is usually considered the ivory tower where all Anglophones in denial still reside, even though statistics point to an increasingly more diverse population.

They might not speak as much English as they used to over there, but they still kept up the tradition of the full wallet.  There was a time in history (a fairly long time!) when Westmount was the richest neighborhood in all of Canada.  The Molsons--yes, the beer-company people--reside in the most wealthy inner circle.  Racer Jacques Villeneuve and Premier Jean Charest live here now, too.  The place is resplendent with private schools, country clubs, and all the other places where rich people like to hang.  And what's on Westmount's border?  St-Henri.  (I have never understood how this happened.)

Check out writer Chris Dewolf's favourite walking route if you want to see the tree-lined streets for yourself.  Taking the metro, you can reach Westmount from the Vendôme or Atwater metro stations.  Have fun.  We'll be here when you get back.

(Color photos from Spacing Montreal)

The Habs Fan Experiment

"I don't think a sporting event could spark a real riot nowadays. The riot squad would stop it right away. The 1955 riot happened because the police decided not to intervene or make arrests. Also the public has changed. Most season tickets belong to companies."

- Montreal Canadiens great Maurice Richard, Journal de Montreal, 30 April 1989. Quote via Coolopolis

Since my Tampa Bay Lightning failed to make the playoffs in most spectacular fashion this year (how's the shoulder, Vinny?), I thought it would be fun to be a Habs fan for the playoffs.  There's a lot of peer pressure in Florida--just yesterday, I saw adorable twin boys dressed in sweaters emblazoned with the bleu, blanc, et rouge, and there's often a "CH" charm peeking out of the neckline of someone's sundress.  They're everywhere, I tell you.  Habs fans are going for global domination.

But when I agreed to root for the Habs for a couple of months, I don't think I was ready for the rollercoaster ride.  I mean, I love the Bolts, but we feel it's okay to smile on a night when they lose.  Canadiens fans don't do that.  The game must be dissected, re-hashed, and combed for errors before anybody puts head to pillow.  When they win, you're a traitor if you say, "Cool game!" and flip to watch the NBA playoffs.  I love hockey, but I don't know if I can love it like that.  I'm not willing to become manic-depressive for several weeks in the spring.

I was urged, not too gently, to ditch my raggedy 2004 Stanley Cup Finals gear in favour of a cute little Habs shirt.  I never got the thing over my head before the Great Quarterfinals Riot of 2008 broke out.  Listen, I get what happened with the Rocket Richard Riot in 1955.  I'll even spot you the chaos after the Cup win in 1993, seeing as how a riot every 40 years still puts Montreal ahead of several major U.S. cities.  But...c'mon, the Quarterfinals?  The first round?  The Bruins?

As one of my relatives said, as we watched the Orlando Magic advance to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in 12 years: "Great.  Do we have to go set fire to a car now?"

I thought this experiment would put me in with one of the biggest, oldest, proudest fan nations on the planet.  I didn't know I'd end up hanging my head by the end of the playoff run.  Our teams down here may not have 24 championships to their credit, but then nobody's ever called in the riot police to hold back the Bolts fans, either.

Hockey elicits deep passion in Montreal--first the riot, and then the steaming backlash the next day.  Not even football gets Americans going like this. If that's the kind of devotion to hockey that  people want to see in the deep South one day, I hope we just stay mildly infatuated, never truly in love.

I'm actually glad the whole thing's over and I can go back to Marty, Jeff, and the coming of Steve Stamkos.  It's a bit of a shame that I don't have it in me to be a real Habs fan.  They'll always be, as The Hockey Blog says, my #2 team.  The Canadiens are saturated with history and the locals are admirably loyal to their team.  I'm walking away with great respect for le Tricolore and a (95%) fun bunch of fans--and I wish them all well, unless they happen to be playing at the St. Pete Times Forum that night.

(Pictures by Encyclopaedia Britannica and Fagstein--I'm sure you can sort out whose are whose.)

Blue Met Weekend

We're in the middle of the highlight of Montreal's literary year.  I speak, of course, of the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival--that special time each spring when writers and artists converge from all over the world to celebrate books.

This is the 10th festival, with the theme "On the Road" and with an emphasis on lots of different languages (even the official site can be viewed in English, French, or Spanish).  Midnight Poutine put together a great report of what's going on in which language, and what it's going to cost you--today's topics range from electronic publishing to travels in India.

This year's Blue Met is being held at the Delta Centre-Ville...and be careful about that, everyone, because there's apparently a second Delta hotel in Montreal (who knew?).  TripAdvisor says it's within walking distance of everything cool in Old Montreal, and this is also the place with the revolving rooftop restaurant you may have heard about (here's a brief report by Urbanphoto).

Sunday's the last day of the festival, and the weather's finally warming up a little, so this is a good weekend to go forth and be literary.  Just be sure to wear comfortable shoes.

(Old Blue Met logo from Radio-Canada)