Verdun Waterfront (East Side)

Took a stroll along the waterfront a few weeks ago.

The beach is going to be built behind the Auditorium so I though that would be a good starting point.

As you can see there is not much room immediately down from the Auditorium.

The view looking east.

At the bottom of the hill.

It’s a pretty cool hike, especially nice with overgrowth and that “unlandscaped” or “unscaped” feeling. Think I like unscaped better.

It’s been a great hangout for many years…in the 80’s the old Verdun Motor Boat Club closed down after a battle with the City. I have some pictures in my archives somewhere of a few of their cabins the morning after getting firebombed. It was a weird time and if you ask anyone who remembers those days they will tell you that the boat club, which had been a riverfront institution for many decades, was turfed because Nun’s Islanders did not like the view. Funny to me because there was in the late 80’s an art student from Concordia who did a photographic series on the boat club calling it “a New Brunswick fishing village within view of downtown Montreal.” The Skybound Islanders were not impressed. Going to be interesting to see how they react to the beach.

The path splits a lot along here.

The water is cleaner than it was 40 years ago but not sure just how clean it is, looks like maintenance is going to be a big job with the new beach.

Creativity.

Not a lot of wiggle room.

Would you eat fish from the river?

You could easily live in a fancy place like this.

The Champlain Bridge is over on the right and I wonder how the building of the new bridge will affect the waterfront along here.

If you take the high road you will eventually come upon Verdun’s only dog park located in the far east of Therrien Park. And it even has it’s own bus shelter – a leftover from when a road ran through there.

We have a powerful connection to nature on the Verdun waterfront and I don’t believe we have emphasized or worked on it as much as we should.

Powerboater.

Lushness.

And we arrive at the end of the trail.

This is the place we called Shit Creek back in the day, otherwise known as the estuary of the Saint Pierre river which started up in Cote Saint Luc,traveled down through Turcot and eventually flowed into the Saint Lawrence down here in Verdun. Is this where the city would unleash some of it’s billions of litres of wastewater?