St. Lawrence River – Montreal

“My positive quality experience is located in the neighborhood where I live. This place came into its own in all its liberating power at the beginning of the lockdown decreed in March 2020. The Parc de la promenade Bellerive is located on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, in the Tétreaultville neighborhood (Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough) in Montreal. I walked this park morning, noon and night to escape the stress of adapting to a new situation. This public place allowed me to connect with the plants and their calming power. I saw the shapes, colors and sizes change with the seasons. I didn’t try to know the names of all the types of trees that live in this park; I followed their growth, their power of attraction. My favorite tree, an olive tree – I didn’t know we had olive trees in Quebec – has very low branches. It is the perfect playground for children. I’m afraid it will get hurt! I didn’t think a tree had so much power and then Susanne Simard’s book, Finding the Mother Tree, accompanied me on my daily walks for a while.

I have lived the seasons to the rhythm of this place that has become more and more familiar. I have felt the warm summer wind; the surprising autumn wind; the cold morning wind, which calls for respect and confirms that I am solid and adapted to my environment.

I spied the wildlife that cohabits as best it can with the humans who frequent the park: squirrels, foxes, geese, woodpeckers, swallows, and even a poor disoriented whale lost in an inhospitable river between Quebec and Montreal.

I spied the family celebrations that multiplied in this place and the rituals of immigrant families: weddings, baptisms, birthdays…

I’ve listened to so many books haggled over in this surreal context of a global pandemic; some of the most powerful passages are now associated with where I heard this author or that actor read a meaningful passage: Yuval Noah Harari, Hope Jahren, Rebecca Solnit, Joan Didion, Annie Ernaux, Margaret Atwood, and the others you’ve made me feel good; even Laura Spinney’s essay on the Spanish flu has found its way into my worried ear.

When you think about it, it’s so simple: finding refuge in a park as a reaction to being confined to your home. However, this type of refuge was not accessible to everyone. The quality of the built environment is also about fostering this connection to space, to plants, to the blue sky for people who found themselves isolated and unable to go outside. We have not all been equal in this pandemic.” (Booklet Positive Lived Experiences of Quality in the Built Environment 2023, p.215).

Link to Google map: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5943518,-73.5201762,14z

Photos of Promenade Bellerive Park with an IPhone by Lyne Parent