July 6: Road less taken: Pilgrimage to the cross

For years, I lived across the street from Parc Mont Royal, the park containing the mountain for which the city is named.  It is a sibling of New York’s Central Park.  Both were designed by Olmstead, featuring meandering paths through wooded areas opening onto open spaces with skyline vistas.

I make my yearly pilgrimage up Mont Royal, making the extra distance to visit the cross atop. This current cross was placed on Mont Royal in 1924 to commemorate another erected in 1643 by then governor, Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, as an act of thanksgiving for saving the fledgling settlement from floods.