Built within an exceptional watershed, Montreal is intertwined with the waterways that ring its island and flow beneath it in underground networks. Even as the city has pushed its suburbs deeper into the interior of the island and onto the mainland, the daily lives and leisure activities of its inhabitants remain closely bound to water. Montreal, City of Water focuses on water not only as a physical element of the landscape – both shaping and shaped by urban development – but also as a sociocultural component of the life of the city. In exploring the dynamics governing the relationship between Montrealers and their environment, this unique study considers the role of water in the production and transformation of urban space over two centuries. It traces the history of urbanization and shines a light on current concerns about water pollution, river rehabilitation, and renewed public access to the riverfront – and the power relations involved in addressing those concerns.

One of the oldest metropolitan areas in North America, Montreal has evolved from a remote fur-trading post in New France into an international center for services and technology. A city and an island located at the confluence of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers, it is uniquely situated to serve as an international port while also providing rail access to the Canadian interior. The historic capital of the Province of Canada, once Canada's foremost metropolis, Montreal has a multifaceted cultural heritage drawn from European and North American influences. Thanks to its rich past, the city offers an ideal setting for the study of an evolving urban environment. Metropolitan Natures presents original histories of the diverse environments that constitute Montreal and it region. It explores the agricultural and industrial transformation of the metropolitan area, the interaction of city and hinterland, and the interplay of humans and nature. The fourteen chapters cover a wide range of issues, from landscape representations during the colonial era to urban encroachments on the Kahnawake Mohawk reservation on the south shore of the island, from the 1918-1920 Spanish flu epidemic and its ensuing human environmental modifications to the urban sprawl characteristic of North America during the postwar period. Situations that politicize the environment are discussed as well, including the economic and class dynamics of flood relief, highways built to facilitate recreational access for the middle class, power-generating facilities that invade pristine rural areas, and the elitist environmental hegemony of fox hunting. Additional chapters examine human attempts to control the urban environment through street planning, waterway construction, water supply, and sewerage.

Excerpt from Report on a Preliminary Survey for the Water Supply of the City of Montreal In compliance with your instructions of 15th June last, Ihave made the necessary Survey for ascertaining the practicability of bringing water from the head of the Lachine Rapids, for the purpose of affording - not only an ample supply for consumption, but also sufficient power to force this supply into the different wards of the City, and into suitable Reservoirs. My instructions were directed towards this particular plan of supply - but as I have been requested to compare it with other proposed or possible ones, I will first allude to the subject of water supplies in general, and to the particular facilities available to Montreal, for securing an abundance of this invaluable element. Three modes of water supply are usually open to the Engineer, the selection from which is to be determined by the positions of the city or town to be supplied. The first is by Gravitation, - where water can-be obtained at a high level, and be brought into the Cityi in such manner as to supply its highest districts by, its gravity alone. This is undoubtedly the best method, where sufficient head and volume of water are attainable at a justifiable outlay. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

"Report of the Dominion fishery commission on the fisheries of the province of Ontario, 1893", issued as vol. 26, no. 7, supplement.