Royal Mount

The mount Royal is a hill of 234 meters (767,7 feet) which dominates the town of Montreal, with the Quebec. It is about the one of the nine Collines montérégiennes located in the south-west of the Quebec.

Names of Montreal, Montérégie and hills montérégiennes

This mountain called mount Royal by Jacques Cartier gave rise to the city which borrowed the name of it: Montreal. Under the initiative of the geologist Frank D. Adams, the hills of the plain of the St. Lawrence surrounding the Royal Mount took the name “mountains royal”, that is to say mount Regii , Latin version of Royal mount.

Today, the term Montérégiennes indicates all the group of hills marking the plain of the the St. Lawrence.

The toponym Montérégie also indicates an area located in the south-west of the province of Quebec and marked presence of Montérégiennes.

Geology

The Royal mount was formed approximately 125 million years ago during an intrusion under-terraine magma. This magma did not reach terrestrial surface and solidified in-depth. The hill appeared during erosion by the Glacier S of the sedimentary rocks neighbouring, more fragile than the metamorphic Roche formed by the contact of the magma and the sedimentary rock.

The mountain has three tops:

• the Large Mountain (234 meters);
• Outremont (211 meters) formerly under the French mode called Sugar loaf;
• the Small Mountain (201 meters) or Westmount mount.

For more details on geology of the hills montérégiennes, to see the section Geology of the hills montérégiennes in the article Hills montérégiennes…

History

The first European to climb the mountain was Jacques Cartier: he was guided there in 1535 by people of the Amerindian village of Hochelaga. He named it in honor of his owner, the king François Ier de France, as he was usually at that time, this, in recognition of that of which he held the mandate.

And with the parmy icelles champaignes, is scituée and sat ladicte town of Hochelaga, close and uniting a montaigne… Us nommasmes icelle montaigne the Royal mount.

The detailed relation of the arrival of the explorer Jacques Cartier is the following one: At the time of its second voyage in 1535, after being itself stopped one moment with Stadacone (Quebec), it goes up the St. Lawrence river until Hochelaga, maintaining the town of Montreal. October 3rd, 1535, it is accommodated in Hochelaga which it visits. Then, it goes up on the mountain located near Hochelaga which it names Royal Mont. It will be the HIGH POINT of its exploration of the the Western Indies. This mountain will give rise to Montreal which will become the Cradle of Canada thereafter.

Twenty and one years later, it in 1556, Venice which just like France was interested in the Indies reproduced in the 3rd volume Delle Navigationi and Viaggi an illustration of the visit of Jacques Cartier in Hochelaga, it in the plan Terra de Hochelaga. Surprising thing, an analysis of this illustration reveals that the 3 hills of the Royal Mont shown with this illustration are accurately reproduced.

The visit of Hochelaga finished, Cartier returns in Stadacone (Quebec) which it reaches on October 2nd and where it will spend the winter. At the time of its third voyage in 1541, Jacques Cartier, become subordinate of Roberval, founds the colony of Charlesbourg-Royal. The following year Roberval arrives at Charlesbourg-Royal that it re-elects France-Roy. Both, this separately, return to the Hochelaga village then destroyed. They try to pass in addition to the saults which on date had blocked the advance inside the Western Indies.

Following the arrival of Jacques Cartier on the Royal Mount, the island on which this mountain was located took the name of the island of the Royal Mount. With time, Royal the Mont toponym made place with the Montreal toponym. Often it will be affirmed that the name of the town of Montreal comes from mount Réal , an orthographical variation introduced either in French, or by an Italian cartographer (" assemble Reale" is mount Royal in Italian). In fact, from this mountain was born a city maintaining a metropolis, Montreal. It was in 1535, that is to say more than one century before the foundation of City-Marie. As for the way used by Jacques Cartier to arrive in Hochelaga, the indications produced by the old documents indicate that Jacques Cartier arrived at Hochelaga by navigable the water way usually used by the autochtones, the river of the Meadows. This river was then known like the " river of Iroquois". In 1603, Samuel de Champlain returned on this island of the Royal Mount. Undoubtedly it went up on the mountain, but he does not speak about it.

This last site describes in particular the locality Sault-with-Récollet, place in periphery of the island where the development began from the island of Montreal. It is on this river that was said, in 1615, the first mass in Montreal. It is also on this river that drowned in 1625 Nicolas Viel, drowning which gave rise to the toponym Sault-with-Récollet. City-Marie will come much later, in 1642.

In 1643, a cross was set up by Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, founder of the colony of City-Marie, to achieve a wish which it had made with the Blessed Virgin after having requested for the stop of a flood devastator. Today, a cross out of metal, set up in 1924, high 31,4 meters crowns the mountain. Its illumination was converted with the Fiberoptic into 1992. The light was always white, but one can change it with blue, red or mauve (this last with died of the Pape).

The Mount-Royal park

See also: Mount-Royal Park

Some 350 years after the visit of the explorer Jacques Cartier on theRoyal one, i.e. about 1875, the town of Montreal created there an green area, the park of Mount-Royal, which were inaugurated on May 24th, 1876, feastday of the Victoria queen. The park of Mount-Royal constitutes one of the most important green areas of Montreal. Timbered mainly, this park was arranged in 1876 by Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape designer of the Central Park to New York.

The park of the Royal mount comprises two view-points, of which most important, the Kondiaronk view-point, overhangs the downtown area. It is at this place that one envisages to set up a monument with that who, the first, climbs this hill and the name of Royal mount gave him, Jacques Cartier. The Royal mount offers other attractions, of which the lake with the Beavers, a small slope of ski, a Glyptothèque external, a small monument with William Mactavish (along the enclosing wall of the Royal Hôpital Victoria), a center of interpretation which bears the name of Smith House, and a very known monument with Sir George-Etienne Cartier, where various cultural events are held, of which the Tam-Tams, an informal meeting which takes place all the ends of the week of summer. People gather there to dance at the rate/rhythm of the Djembé tom-toms. One also finds there a mini market of object artisanal.

The park was seriously touched by the Tempête of glaze of 1998, but nature being what it is, it since found health and beauty.

Several years ago, the Park of the Royal Mount was a place of dredger between men. The path faggot trail which one could simply translate share the path of the queers seems to be less and less popular. It becomes less and less a meeting place with the profit of other places.

Residential districts and institutions

Out of the park, the mountain accommodates on its slopes of the important institutions the such cemeteries Our-Lady-of-Snows and Mount-Royal; the Oratorical Saint-Joseph, the largest church of Canada; the University McGill and the University of Montreal; and of the quite affluent residential districts such Westmount and Outremont.

Other institutions: the Royal Hospital Victoria.