Our evening walk through Westmount Park during a snowy Thursday evening.

The frozen lagoon traces the path of the former Glen Stream that used to flow from “Westmount Mountain”.

The stream’s path was north to south – the same direction as most (former) waterways that flowed through the island of Montreal.  (Today they still flow in a series of underground in conduits).

During the usage of the French seigneurial system (established in the 1600s) farm land (“rangs”) was distributed  to farmers on a north-south basis allowing each to have access to a source of water.

That is why most of Montreal’s residential streets run north to south and those that are commercial in nature run east to west – a living reminder of our former agricultural heritage.