There’s an interesting piece in the Gazette this morning on some archaeological finds located in a nondescript warehouse on Place d’Youville. Archeologists from the Université de Montréal and the Pointe à Callière museum have been digging on the 400-square-metre site since 2002.

They have found such treasures as aboriginal arrowheads made of European copper and stone, 17th-century French pottery and animal bones. The 40,000 artifacts catalogued each year reveal some of the networks and habits shared by those who lived around the settlement of Ville Marie. Last year, excavators began to uncover what they believe to be the oldest stonework in the city and, unexpectedly, a blast furnace used to extract iron from ore about 2.5 metres below the floor of the building. The little fort, established by a French religious society in 1642, was the first permanent European settlement on Montreal Island.

In addition, glass beads uncovered at the same depth as the walls predate the fort by at least a decade. The beads were made in France and brought to North America by seasonal traders who might have set up an outpost on the same site as Ville Marie.

For more details, check the article on page A8 of the Gazette.

Isn’t this just the best July ever? Some of our friends have complained that it’s been too wet. Truth be told, I wasn’t around for the first couple of weeks as I was out on the West coast visiting family. (I’d like to think I brought back the idyllic weather.) And sure we had a rainy day on Friday, but that was a gift. A gift of green grass. Plus it was the perfect time to escape to the cinema for a few hours. (I took in Ratatouille, cute flick.) But the temperature has been delightful. Warm and NOT humid. I haven’t even put our air conditioning to use yet. Just opening the windows and letting the summer breeze through is perfect. I’m sure we’ll have a few hot, muggy spells, and when we do, I’ll be ready to hole up and read Harry Potter. The only complaint I have is that we’ve already gone through our propane tank for the bbq. At this rate, I’ll have to fill it again before the summer is through. It’s hard to believe that I was complaining bitterly about the snow and cold just 3 months ago.

Today the Gazette finished its 26-part series on the A to Z of Montreal. If you missed any here they are:

‘A’ Is For Airports
‘B’ Is For Bells
‘C’ Is For Character
‘D’ Is For Door
‘E’ Is For Escarpment
‘F’ Is For Food
‘G’ Is For Garlic
‘H’ Is For Horse
‘I’ Is For Imagination
‘J’ Is For Jockey
‘K’ Is For Ketchup
‘L’ Is For Laundry
‘M’ Is For Mardis
‘N’ Is For Night
‘O’ Is For Ouch
‘P’ Is For Pigeons
‘Q’ Is For Query
‘R’ Is For Recording
‘S’ Is For Seeds
‘T’ Is For Trolleys
‘U’ Is For Under
‘V’ Is For Vanished
‘W’ Is For Water
‘X’ Is For … Kisses
‘Y’ Is For Yeast
‘Z’ Is For Zeitgeist

Does that list work for you? Which one do you think the Gazette got most right? .. and which one is the least appropriate? It’s only fair in that case to add what you think they should have chosen for the letter they got most wrong.

I’ve heard so much complaining lately of the weather.. Personally, I’m rather enjoying it. It’s not hot and humid.. A little rain isn’t so bad..

Nevertheless, here’s a little something for everyone who’s on vacation

I think anyone who lives in town, has “their street”. By this I am not referring to the street that you actually live on, although it could very well be that same street, but instead the street that you buy your bread, cheese, groceries and booze on.

For the past 15 years, I have lived near St-Laurent, or The Main, between the streets of Pins and Rachel. That has been “my street”. It’s the street where I purchased my weekly goods and it’s the street I rode up daily after a workout.. to see what the kids are now wearing, what new shops are opening and of course how long the line outside Schwartz’s is.

Since that time I’ve seen The Main change dramatically, and dare I say, for the worse.

The Main, back 15 years ago, was a street with two faces. The face during the day was a face of ‘old world’ shopping (for lack of a better term). It was the home of the St-Laurent bakery. That bakery with the really crabby ladies who served up some fantastic bread. Find me another bakery that makes a Russian bread..

It was the home of Warshaw’s. The grocery store that sold everything under the sun.

At night, it was and still is, the street for trendy clubbing.

But slowly the Main is losing it’s daytime status. The St-Laurent bakery closed and replaced with a shop that sells overpriced Puma sneakers (how they pay the rent on just that is beyond me).

Warshaw’s closed to be replaced by a drug store with the most disgusting facade on the street. I simply refuse to walk in there because of that facade.
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It’s done. It’s all done and I don’t want to have to do it again for another 2 years.. At least !

Moving that is. Oh my gawd, what a pain in the back. And, I can’t even really complain as we hired movers this time.

The mayhem started weeks ago as I started to dump tons and tons of crap that I have accumulated over the past 10 years that I lived on De Bullion. I’m a nerd and nerds love to collect useless electronics. Remember the Zip disk made by Iomega? The one that suffered from the click of death Ya, I still have one and it still clicks whenever I put a Zip disk in it.. Oh, and I have never purchased another Iomega product since then.. Ya, like it wasn’t defective..

It was a nerd museum in that old apartment.. I had VGA 600×800 screens! Yes, plural. There was even a 386 that booted Linux (and not much else).. Anyhow, thankfully Montreal has éco-Centre where you can dump electronics, and gobs of other stuff you don’t want and Renaissance where you can rid of clothes and sporting goods you no longer want..

But even with that, it was still a good 5 HUGE construction garbage bags..

$2000 later (yes, that’s right) for the movers, 60 boxes that had to be packed and unpacked and then flattened and then shipped off to be reused elsewhere and one aching back and very sore legs (not good for a cyclist) and we are all settled.

Now I remember why I only move every 10 years.

One might have hoped that the Célébrations Canada website would help us all get into the party spirit. However as Kate McDonnell says its coy design and programming make it nearly impossible to find a simple listing of events.

With a city with so many talented web designers, it’s a shame to see such a poor example of User Experience In Montreal.

Nevertheless a Happy Canada Day to all our readers.

People who know me, know that I HATE the heat.. Give me -30c over +30c anytime. Yes, I know, I sound nuts but I get Uber cranky when the heat kicks in. That’s because when it gets hot in this city, it gets humid. Except, this week. This weather, is very rare IMHO. It’s so rare that it’s hot and not humid.

It’s that sticky, icky, I think I’m gonna barf humidity that gets me.. You know the kind when you wake up at 3am and you feel like you slept in a vat of ooze ?

I have a friend of mine who is in town who lives in Bogata. She told me that where she lives, it rarely goes above 20c.

Oh to dream.

So for now, I’m on alert, but I’m not complaining. This heat is OK, as long as it doesn’t get sticky. The best way to determine the sticky levels, is to watch the Dew Point. Environment Canada and Meteo Media both report it. Anything over 17c as a dew point and I start complaining.

This website, which is a amateur website for weather nutters in Quebec shows the various models that will predict dew point for the coming days. Go down to the section that says “Official and model forecasts (GEM data comes from EC) :” and look for “météog” and there you will see the various predictions for various lengths of time.. When you open the chart, look for dew point.

But if you don’t care anywhere near as much as I do, it looks like the sticky factor will stay low for at least the next 5 days.

Phew!

According to local media reports, an agreement in principle has been reached between the STM and the Syndicat du transport de Montréal. Both sides must still ratify the agreement, which would end the four-day old transit strike.

In other news, a protest called yesterday to denounce the striking STM workers drew exactly three people: the organizer and two of his friends. Maybe if they had offered to provide transportation…?

UPDATE: The agreement has been ratified. According to the STM, bus and metro service is being gradually resumed and will return to full service by Saturday morning. Negotiations between the STM and the union will continue with conciliator Jean-Pierre Gosselin.

I was lucky enough to go on a three days fishing trip to the Mastigouche Nature Research with my father and brothers. It’s only a 3.5 hrs drive (accounting for the horrendous Friday afternoon traffic) and yet it’s a completely different world:

• In Mastigouche, going out for sushi involves using a row boat.

• Montrealers who complain about potholes have obviously never driven there. I have never been so happy to own a small four-wheel drive.

• Consequently, we rarely exceeded 45 km/h. What’s your average speed on residential streets?

• In Mastigouche, it is socially acceptable, and even expected, for you to get drunk every evening.

• You can actually see the stars up there. Fortunately I was out during the few weeks of the year where we can do that without losing extremities to frostbite or bodily fluids to thousands of blood suckers.

• If you thinks that rents are bad, you haven’t been paying $284 a night for a 4 bed log cabin.

• No depanneurs, we drove 43 km each way for for some potatoes, bread and mushrooms.

• Montreal has pigeons and seagulls, Mastigouche has quails and loons. At least you can eat one and buy food with the other.

• Cells phone won’t work up there. Come to think of it, there are a lot of places on the island where they don’t work either.

• No electricity, which means that the dominant smell in the cabin is propane…I’m sure that for some places this would be an improvement.

• And for now, neither has decent public transport.