Paris of the North

O Canada. It’s just like the Unites States, except with socialized medicine.

And then there’s Quebec, where the locals speak French. All the lakes, rivers, and towns have French names. You’re more likely to meet a Pierre or Claude than a Jason or Mark. I hear they love Jerry Lewis movies, too. Quebec, you could say, is a lot like France. Except colder.

Montreal is the second largest Canadian city, which is like saying Cedar Rapids is the second-largest city in Iowa. It isn’t the capital of Quebec, but it possesses a mystique that other Canadian cities lack. Some consider Montreal the Canadian Paris, a sort of Paris Lite, because it possesses all the glamour of the original City of Light, but half the pretension.

Like Paris, Montreal has earned a reputation of a “sin city,” due to its infamous nightlife, but where Paris boasts famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, Montreal boasts an underground city shopping mall. It’s a very pleasant mall, but the Eiffel Tower it ain’t. Then again, putting a mall underground is an ingenious way to circumvent the frigid winters.

I had high expectations when I visited this Paris of the North. From a distance, the city appeared large and impersonal, its skyscrapers huddled together as if trying to ward off the cold. As I approached, however, the skyscrapers parted, and I found my way to Old Montreal, where the narrow streets by the original port produced a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood of markets and galleries. English was common, spoken with that alluring accent. And the natives all seemed friendly. Not like Paris at all.

I expected to find nude models and playwrights waiting for Godot. I expected to see mimes on every other corner … getting beaten up by hockey fans. Montreal is home to the arts to be sure, but it’s also home to the Canadiens (aka, les Habitants or just the Habs), one of the proudest, winningest franchises in any professional sport—except maybe for the Evil Empire that is the New York Yankees.

I was disappointed. The mimes were nowhere to be seen, and the hockey fans pretty much kept to themselves. Canadians are generally a polite people, not usually given to beating each other up, although I’m still sure they’d make an exception for mimes.

The Rue Saint Catherine—rue means avenue for you English-speaking rubes—runs through the center of downtown. On my way to Square St. Louis, Montreal’s bohemian hangout, I cut across the campus of McGill University. It was autumn, and school was in session. I turned a corner and happened upon a hot-dog-eating contest. This isn’t something you expect to see in a city like Montreal. In fact, it’s not something you expect to see anywhere outside Coney Island.

I stopped to watch, transfixed in horror. Only then did I realize how close I still was to the United States. Parisians would never have permitted such a spectacle. They would have strung up the participants and force-fed them pâté de foie gras.

The crowd was littered with beer-drinking students. I tried to score a free drink, first posing as a college student, but I was a few years past college age and quickly outed. I tried to pawn myself off as a visiting professor. That didn’t work, either. I left empty-handed, with nothing to sustain me except the memory. Unlike the winner of that contest, however, I feel no pain when regurgitating this morsel of a tale.

The Paris of the North? Not bloody likely. It’s a pretty place, sitting on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, but it’s not as raucous as Las Vegas, Nevada, or as picturesque as Savannah, Georgia. While Montreal is the second largest French-speaking city in the world, that doesn’t mean it’s a cultural hotspot. It’s not even home to the Hockey Hall of Fame—that honor goes to Toronto.

Lessons Learned: If you decide to vacation in Montreal, the City of Festivals, remember that it’s like most other major cities. Expect to find pleasant tree-lined rues. Expect to eat well. Expect to see beauty in the hills, buildings, parks, and people. But don’t expect Paris.