The Intrepid Montreal Snowshoers of Yore

Illustration of a night procession by the Montreal Snow Shoe Club on Mount Royal in 1873. (Public Domain)

Commentary

In the 19th century, men of Canada’s greatest city, Montreal, used to test their mental and physical stamina every week during the winter, no matter how severe the weather, by traversing “the mountain,” also known as Mount Royal, on snowshoes.

These were the men of the Montreal Snow Shoe Club, founded in 1840 with 12 members, and flourishing into the mid-1880s. They were hearty Anglo-Montrealers (it is easily forgotten that in 1850 Montreal had an English-speaking majority). Known for their stout spirit and blue headdress, their feat was part of “the glory of the old Montreal,” wrote John Lesperance, an American participant.

Lesperance wrote a nostalgic short story in 1882 called “Tuque Bleue: A Christmas Snowshoe Sketch.” While the vignette, published by Dawson Brothers of Montreal, is of doubtful literary merit, the story at least has the virtue of a happy ending.

The snowshoers were quite well known to residents of Montreal familiar with the city’s charming history, popularly retold by longtime Montreal Gazette writer and editor Edgar A. Collard (1911–2000) in a regular column starting in the 1940s.

Mount Royal is now criss-crossed with many walking trails, some of which possibly coincide with the paths of the Tuques Bleues. One of these is a three-kilometre trail high on the mountain that is today groomed especially for snowshoers, accessible from Smith House or the Beaver Lake Pavilion.

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Nearly 100 years ago the intrepid snowshoers used to assemble and chit-chat at the old wooden gates in front of McGill College, on Sherbrooke Street, replaced in the 1920s by the Roddick Gates, before stepping off.

They met on Saturday afternoons. The signal to begin was the sound of the bells of Christ Church Cathedral, the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Montreal, a few blocks away. The leader would exclaim “Up! Up! All Up!” and the men would form up single file or “Indian file” as it is called in French (and sometimes in English), a compliment to the indigenous tactic of marching in a line to conceal from enemy trackers the number of warriors travelling.

They would cross the McGill campus, go up McTavish Street, cross Pine Avenue, and plunge into the woods. Navigating through the bush, they went up the south slope of the mountain, and over to the north side, the Côte-des-Neiges or the “snowy side” and through the Côte-des-Neiges cemetery. (If a participant got “mal de racquet” or leg cramps, or found himself unprepared for the challenge and needed to drop out halfway, he could simply navigate west until he hit “the road,” today called Côte-des-Neiges.)

There in those days stood various hotels known as Lumkin’s or Prendergast’s or Moore’s. Each establishment had a cozy saloon bar where the snowshoers could repair for biscuits, cheese, cider, and ale (apparently they eschewed hard liquor), and a few hours of singing and storytelling. These were accompanied by rousing, bombastic speeches, toasts, and replies.

Then they got their snowshoes back on and headed back up the north slope to return to their homes in the city— but not before they had stopped in at L. Tetu’s famous café on St. James Street near St. Peter Street. Those hotels no longer stand. Indeed, the site where Lumkin’s once stood is now dominated by the mighty St. Joseph’s Oratory, completed in 1967.

Spirited men on the march like to sing—and the snowshoers sang many songs, including “Tramp Over the Mountain,” to the tune of “Dixieland.”

We take our places on the snow shoe trail

And do not fear the piercing gale

March away! march away!

March away, o’er the snow

O’er mountain top and valley low

To Cote des Neiges we tramping go

March away! March away! March away, o’er the snow!

Chorus

To Cote des Neiges let us haste away

Hooray! hooray!

In darkest night or pale moonlight

Tramping to the hill of snow

Away! away! Away to the hill of snow

Away! away!

Out west to the hill of snow.

In later years the snowshoers would stop at the grave of Nicholas “Evergreen” Hughes, one of the most famous organizers, and sing “Auld Lang Syne” in the moonlight, just as many Canadians traditionally do on New Year’s Eve.

In the sentimental story by John Lesperance, two snowshoers become enchanted by two French Canadian young women. The women are Mabel Blaine, described as “a blonde of the purest type,” and her friend Louise Tardif, a brunette “with roguish black eyes.”

“Yum, yum,” the men remark crudely. “Plump? All these French girls are. … Plump as a partridge.” (Seriously? The reader sighs. Or as the kids would say, “gag.”)

Lesperance’s story reaches a climax on Christmas Eve at the city’s Notre-Dame Basilica. The two couples are present.

“Boom! went the great bourdon of Notre-Dame announcing the jubilant tidings of the Saviour’s nativity—an echo of that song which once the shepherds heard on the illuminated plains of Bethlehem. It was the summons to the midnight mass.”

Afterwards they are guests at a traditional French Canadian meal in the middle of the night, known as “réveillon.” After coming first and a close second in the race over the mountain, the two men wed their loves and, presumably, attain to blissful happiness.

Since 1997 a group of businessmen called “Les amis de la montagne” have held an annual fundraiser called the “Tuques Bleues Celebration.” This has revived the snowshoers’ memory. They march by night and, of course, are rewarded with food and drink.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.