The Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2013 – Road Trip! {Letter “M”}

I am very excited to be taking part in the Blogging A to Z Challenge 2013.  This is actually my third challenge; the first year I featured a recipe for each letter and last year I drew on  my nursing background and used “parts of the human body” as my inspiration!

This year I have decided to change things up a bit.  I live in Canada and believe it is one of the most beautiful countries on the planet; so I have decided to feature a different Canadian “place”, for each letter of the challenge.

I am very much looking forward to seeing how everyone interprets the Challenge and I would love to have you join me, as I crisscross this vast country on my Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2013 – Road Trip!

I feel “M” is the perfect letter for this lag of the challenge, as the city I will be taking you to today, I have travelled through, twice in the past ten days.  If you are just dropping in for the first time, I had to take a few days off last week as I had a totally unexpected, but fun, “actual” road trip to participate in.  You can read more about it at, Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2013 – Virtual Road Trip & Actual Road Trip!

So, as I resume this amazing virtual road trip and without further ado, “M”  is for  Montréal, Quebec!

Population:  City 1,649,519 / Metro 3,824,221 {2011 census}

Language:  French is the city’s (as well as the province’s) official language and is also the language spoken at home by 56.9% of the population in the city of Montreal proper.

Some Notable Residents:  There are many, many notables who hail from Montréal;  in fact there is an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to them.  I’ll mention just a few here:

• Jean Béliveau – former NHL hockey player
• Pierre Trudeau – former Prime Minister of Canada
• Leonard Cohen – poet and singer
• Marc Gagnon – Olympic Gold Medal speed skater
• Samuel Bronfman – liquor magnate
• Céline Dion – singer
• Guy Laliberté – founder and CEO of Cirque de Soleil
• Dr. Wilder Penfield – pioneering neurosurgeon, founder of the Montreal Neurological Institute

CLIMATE – Montreal lies at the confluence of several climatic regions and enjoys four distinct seasons. Usually, its climate is classified as humid continental.  Montreal’s summers are humid, and range from warm to hot, with a daily average of 21 to 22 °C (70 to 72 °F) in July; temperatures in excess of 30 °C(86 °F) are not uncommon.  Winter in Montreal usually brings cold, snowy, windy, and, at times, icy weather, with a daily average of around −10 °C (14 °F) in January.

The lowest temperature in Environment Canada’s books was −37.8 °C (−36 °F) on January 15, 1957, and the highest temperature was 37.6 °C (100 °F) on August 1, 1975.

HISTORY – Archaeological evidence demonstrates that various First Nations native people occupied the island of Montreal as early as 4,000 years ago.  By the year AD 1000, they had started to cultivate maize. Within a few hundred years, they had built fortified villages.

The Island of Montréal was long inhabited by the St Lawrence Iroquois, one of the tribes who formed the Five Nations Confederacy of Iroquois. In 1535 French explorer Jacques Cartier visited the Iroquois village of Hochelaga (Place of the Beaver) on the slopes of Mont Royal, but by the time Samuel de Champlain founded Québec City in 1608, the settlement had vanished.

In 1642 Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve founded the first permanent mission despite fierce resistance by the Iroquois. Intended as a base for converting aboriginal people to Christianity, this settlement quickly became a major hub of the fur trade.  After the British conquest of Montréal in 1760, Scottish fur traders consolidated their power by founding the North West Company.

Montreal was incorporated as a city in 1832 and was the Montreal was the capital Canada from 1844 to 1849, but lost its status when a  mob burnt down the Parliament building and for strategic reasons, the government established Ottawa as the capital, as it was located more in the interior of the nation.

The Canadian Confederation of 1867 gave Quebecers a degree of control over their social and economic affairs and acknowledged French as an official language.

Mount Royal Montreal Lookout {Photo attribution: Jeangagnon (CC)}

Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal {Photo attribution: Jeangagnon (CC)}

 Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.  {Photo attribution: Tango7174 (CC)}

Bonsecours Market in Old Montreal {Photo attribution: {Photo attribution: Tango7174 (CC)}

Our visit to Montreal has been very exciting, all the walking, great food and fun has made me very sleepy; time to head to bed for a good nights sleep because tomorrow we will be saying au revoir to Montréal and heading to our next destination, somewhere beginning with the letter “N”.

Past visits on the A to Z Challenge 2013 – Road Trip:

• A is for Alma, New Brunswick
• B is for Banff, Alberta
• C is for Cornwall, Ontario
• D is for Dawson City, Yukon
• E is for Edmonton, Alberta
• Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2013 – Virtual  Road Trip & Actual Road Trip! 
• L is for London, Ontario {Resumption of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2013 – Road Trip!}

Complete listing of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2013 participants.

CREDITS – Map source – About.com Canada Travel (altered to add place name).  Information contained in this post was obtained from AC Canada, Wikipedia, Montreal Archives and Tourisme Montreal.