Montreal Heritage – Between River and Mountain
Tour Description:
This year marks the 375th anniversary of the foundation of Montreal, Canada’s second largest city, famous for its vibrancy as a cultural hub. This tour will offer an overview of some of Montreal’s iconic landscape and urban features, and of recent efforts to protect and promote them, namely on the occasion of the city’s 375th anniversary. The Mount Royal, the city’s namesake, will be the point of departure as we explore how this small mountain has contributed to shaping the city. Our next stop will be the Pointe-à-Callière Museum of Archaeology, a unique institution in North America which has recently unveiled a new pavilion exhibiting the remains of the city’s birthplace, the 1642 ‘Fort de Ville-Marie’, an acclaimed project focused on the conservation and presentation of a complex layering of archaeological remains. The day will end with a guided tour of Old Montreal and the Old Port, exploring the history of conservation efforts in the city, and close off with a stop at one of its terraces.
General Itinerary:
Note: The itinerary has changed! The Old Montreal phase at the end of the day will now be free exploration at the participant’s own pace. Tour leaders Ève and Jean will suggest some compelling options that a tour-goer may wish to see.
- 8:00 – 10:00 Drive from Ottawa to Montreal
- 10:00 Meet at Smith House, Mount Royal Park, walk to lookout, presentations on the Landscape Atlas and nomination to Canada’s WH tentative list
- 12:00 – 12:30 Lunch on Mount Royal
- 12:30 – 13:00 Scenic drive
- 13:00 – 14:30 Musée Pointe-à-Callière (admission fee covered by CIPA)
- 14:30 – 16:00 Free Exploration!
Tour of Old Montreal and “apéro” at a terrace
- 16:00 – 18:00 Drive Home
Tour Leaders:
Ève Wertheimer is a conservation architect with Parks Canada and member of the ICOMOS Canada board of directors. Prior to joining Parks in 2015, she has held various positions in heritage conservation, within the federal government as well as in the private sector and at the municipal level. A native Montrealer who has recently returned to the city, Ève is eager to share her enthusiasm for its heritage and stories.
Jean Laberge is an architect specialized in the evaluation and conservation of cultural heritage. He holds a Bachelor of architecture from the Université Laval, a Masters in Communications from the Université du Québec à Montréal, as well as a certificate in Built Heritage Conservation from ICCROM. Jean has been working for the City of Montreal for 28 years, where he has held various positions, namely as an architect responsible for design and implementation of conservation projects on several municipal buildings, as a project and asset manger, as an analyst of various projects on heritage buildings in the Ville-Marie borough, and since 2007, as the project-lead for heritage value statements for buildings and sites across the city. More recently, Jean was responsible for providing content for the submission of Mount Royal to Canada’s Tentative List for World Heritage Sites, as well for the annual Opération Patrimoine Montréal, a celebration of the city’s heritage. Jean has been a member of ICOMOS since 1996.
