Walking Along the Shore

Photos: April 26, 2016

While the temperatures have been a bit below normal, the sun has graced us with its presence. A friend of mine and I walked along the water's edge from Lasalle through Lachine. We were accompanied by the song of birds.



Everywhere you could see signs of spring taking hold. There is a delicacy in the emerging leaves; they wear the lighter shades of their colour palette, slowly darkening as they grow full.



There is a vibrancy and rhythm to spring - the very name implies action.



While I felt energized, not all creatures did. This fellow seemed quite content to just lie there and watch us.



There was lots of action up high in a tree. This squirrel hopped from branch to branch feasting on the new growth.



Another day I'll sit and gaze out at the water. But for now I love the feeling of walking in spring.

Lachine Fur Trade Museum

This lovely spot was once a centre of trade. It was the warehouse where piles of pelts would be stored and then sold. The river was not navigable by ships much past this point due to the Lachine Rapids. The fur traders travelled inland by canoe and brought the pelts back to Lachine to be traded for goods and money. This is now a museum, though I must confess I have never been inside. There is a cycling path and a walking path along the water - to be explored another day.



Nearby the bushes are sprouting. Soon the landscape will be transformed.

Looking at the Past

I was headed to a recorder lesson, but got there early, so I strolled through the neighbourhood. There are many murals giving us a glimpse of the past. I felt like one of the ghostly red figures peering in as if through the mists of time.



I only had time to capture a few before I went off to my lesson - another way of peering through time as I am playing early Italian baroque music, trying to understand the style, the rhetoric and hopefully, bringing a bit of the past to life through music.

Monarch on Clover

Monarch on Clover, a photo by susanvg on Flickr.
Photos: July 27, 2013

Who knows how much longer we will see these beautiful butterflies flitting among the flowers. Their numbers have been declining. Their wintering grounds are threatened by logging. They certainly added a flash of colour to my walk - this time with a friend along the water in Lachine



The milkweed is blooming. This is where the butterflies lay their eggs so the newly hatched caterpillars have food to grow on. It is miraculous to me that these creatures fly such enormous distances to places they have never been. Those that are born here have never been to the wintering grounds in Mexico. Those born in Mexico have never been here, yet each year they know just where to go.



We were lucky to spot of a heron. It caught some dinner while we watched - a concentrated look at the water, followed by a quick stab down and then it swallowed its catch.



A family of Canada Geese swam close to shore. The young are almost the size of the parents now. They have time to gain strength before their flight south.

A great day for a walk!

Day 119: Maison LeBer-LeMoyne

Day 119: Maison LeBer-LeMoyne, originally uploaded by susanvg.

Montreal is a mix of old and new. Like many cities, some of our heritage has been lost to new developments, but we are getting a little better at preserving our history. This old house, now part of a small museum is thought to be the oldest intact building on the island. The house was built in 1669 (about 25 years after Montreal was founded) and housed the oldest fur trading post in Lachine (a suburb of Montreal). The fur traders set out from here and not Montreal because it was past the Lachine rapids which were not navigable by boat. Now a museum, the house was built on land bought from René-Robert Cavelier de LaSalle, the first Seigneur in this area (better known as an explorer) to house the employees of LeBer and Le Moyne.

I try to imagine it at the time it was built. There were certainly no electric or telephone wires! It was surrounded by dense forest, facing the river. A small colony grew up around the fur trade as the coureurs des bois needed provisions and the traders needed a place for their goods. The steep roof was built that way so snow could not accumulate. Even today there are occasional roof cave-ins in modern buildings because people do not clear the snow off them. But it is no longer winter and my thoughts are on the beautiful spring weather.