Mount Royal is a hill in the city of
Montreal, immediately west of downtown Montreal,
Quebec,
Canada, the city to which it gave its name.The hill is part of the Monteregian Hills situated between the Laurentians and the Appalachians. It gave its Latin name, Mons Regius, to the Monteregian chain.The hill consists of three peaks: Colline de la Croix (or Mont Royal proper) at 233 m (764 ft), Colline d'
Outremont (or Mount Murray, in the borough of Outremont) at 211 m (692 ft), and
Westmount at 201 m (659 ft) elevation above mean sea level. It is often called a mountain, as there are no actual mountains in the Montéregie region.
Mount Royal Park:
The mountain is the site of Mount Royal Park one of Montreal's largest greenspaces. The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also co-designed New York's Central Park, and inaugurated in 1876, although not completed to his design.Olmsted had planned to emphasize the mountainous topography through the use of vegetation. Shade trees at the bottom of the carriage path would resemble a valley. As the visitor went higher, the vegetation would get more sparse to give the illusion of exaggerated height. City officials wanted a reservoir atop the mountain instead and Olmsted planned a grand promenade around it.
However, Montréal suffered a depression in the mid 1870s and many of Olmsted's plans were abandoned. The carriage way was built, but it was done hastily and without regards to the original plan. None of the vegetation choices was followed, and the reservoir was never built.
The park contains two belvederes, the more prominent of which is the Kondiaronk Belvedere, a semicircular plaza with a chalet, overlooking downtown Montreal. Built in 1906, it is named for the Petun chief Kondiaronk, whose influence led to a major peace accord between the French, Iroquois and other Indian tribes in 1701. As of 2009, the Kondiaronk chalet's snack bar is being shuttered, with plans to replace it with healthier fare.
Wintertime:
Mount Royal Park currently hosts a tubing and toboganning run on one of the former alpine ski slopes, as well as 7 groomed cross-country ski and snowshoe trails which total 18 kms; equipment rental is available onsite.The former alpine ski slope, currently used for toboganning, featured a T-bar and a 100-foot drop. Mechanical lift devices were first installed in Mount Royal Park in 1945. In the 1940s, there were two and a half miles of ski slopes available. A ski shop was first installed in the park in 1938. Prior to that, in the 1920s, one of the best ski jumps in Canada was the one on Mount Royal, near Cote des Neiges.
Transmission tower:
The park is also home to the CBC's Mount Royal transmitter facility, which comprises two large buildings (one used primarily by the CBC and one used by the private television stations) and a very short (about 100 m (328 ft)) candelabra tower, from which nearly all of Montreal's television and FM radio stations broadcast. Because of the proximity of this tower to public areas of the park, in recent years significant concerns have been raised about radio-frequency radiation exposure; at several points formerly accessible to park users near the tower, radiation was found to be significantly higher than that permitted for the general public.
Cemeteries:
There are two cemeteries in the area:
Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery (Catholic),
Mount Royal Cemetery (non-denominational but primarily Protestant, and including several small Jewish cemeteries) — all of which are now running out of space. In 2008, the refusal of the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery to cede land that it uses as a depot blocked a planned expansion of the park.
Adjacent Landmarks:
Outside the park, Mount Royal's slopes are also home to such Montréal landmarks as St. Joseph's Oratory, Canada's largest church;
McGill University and its teaching hospitals, including the Royal Victoria Hospital and Montreal General Hospital; McGill's Molson Stadium, home to the CFL's Montreal Alouettes; the McTavish reservoir; Université de Montréal; the École Polytechnique de Montréal; the Îlot-Trafalgar-Gleneagles historic block; and some well-off residential neighbourhoods such as Upper Westmount and Upper Outremont.
