Montréal is very French – residents say
bonjour
more often than ‘hello’. It’s a sociable
metropolis that bustles with people playing
in parks, gathering at festivals and meeting in
outdoor cafés. As it approaches the ripe old
age of 400, Montréal is also one of Canada’s
oldest cities. Stone forts and fur trading posts
hint at its historic past.
PARLEZ-VOUS FRANÇAIS?
French is Montréal’s main language. More people speak
French here than in any city outside of Paris. You greet
friends in Montréal as you would in France – with a light
kiss on both cheeks. Plenty of people speak English here
too, however. The Boulevard Saint-Laurent is considered
the dividing line between French and English speaking
Montréal. Most French speakers live east of the street,
whilst English speakers reside to the west.
FIND THE FORT
Settlers from France founded
Montréal in 1642. Not long after, they
built a fort around the city for protection. If you had visited
Montréal in the 18th century, you’d have seen stone walls
and gates with drawbridges all around. The Pointe-à-
Callière Museum of Archaeology and History still has
underground remnants of the walls.
CHILLY CHILDREN
Montréal is an all-year-round outdoor city. When the weather gets
cold, children pull on their mittens and trudge to their local park. The
city’s hills, ponds and trails are transformed into winter wonderlands
– perfect for skiing, sledging and building snowmen. Montréal has
many winter festivals every year, some of which encourage families to
try new activities such as ice sliding and snow scootering.
WORM PIZZA
Montréal’s Insectarium is one of the world’s biggest bug zoos,
housing everything from long-horned beetles and hissing
cockroaches to furry tarantulas and cobra butterflies. The museum
used to host a public insect tasting event each year, when you could
eat cricket-stuffed mushrooms, worm-topped pizza and other bug-
filled snacks. Tastings still happen every now and then. The word for
eating bugs, by the way, is ‘entomophagy’.
STUFFED
Montréal has around 6,500
restaurants – more per square
kilometre than anywhere in
North America. Locals love
to eat out, chowing down on
smoked meat sandwiches,
bagels and steak frites
(steak
and fries). North African
eateries serve couscous
(a rice-
like dish with spicy stew ladled
on top), and Haitian cafés serve
tassot
(fried goat or beef). The
Montréalais
eat later than in
most Canadian and US cities,
too. Most eateries don’t fill up
until at least 9pm.
SUPER SLOPPY SNACK
Locals’ favourite snack food is poutine
. This mound of chips
sprinkled with cheese curds and topped with brown gravy certainly
looks sloppy, but it tastes gorgeously salty and melty. The snack is
so popular it’s even sold in McDonald’s.
TAM-TAMS JAM
Every Sunday in summer, hundreds of
people gather at the George-Étienne
Cartier Monument (he was one of
Canada’s leading statesmen) to join
a public drum circle. They arrive with
African djembe
drums, little bongo
drums and big bass drums. People
also do yoga, walk on tightropes and
dress in medieval costumes to joust.
The festivities last all day. It’s called
‘Tam-Tams’ after the sounds that the
drums make.