Montreal is a city that refuses to be reduced to picture postcard clichés. Here, the gritty dep and styled food-market, the narrow ruelles and the wide boulevards, the laughter and longing, all exist side by side, unposed and unrehearsed. Montreal Unfiltered is an invitation to witness the city as it truly breathes: raw, restless, and radiant in its imperfection. These photographs trace the pulse beneath the surface, capturing moments where the city’s true spirit flickers – in the crunch of a cyclist powering through snow at night, in the quiet dignity of a solitary reader, in the small sidewalk flower plots and community gardens. This is a city of contradictions: winter’s hush and the noisy summers, solitary figures and crowded streets, languages colliding and coexisting. Let these images draw you into Montreal’s daily poetry – its grit and grace, its shadows and sudden bursts of color. Here, nothing is staged, nothing is concealed. This is Montreal, seen not through a filter, but through the honest lens of life itself.
Last weekend I was at a friend’s party in Montreal and sitting next to a man I had never met. It was noisy, a lot of people speaking excitedly and simultaneously, so the man leaned over towards me and asked me my name. I told him and he looked me straight in the eyes with narrowed pupils while still leaning forward, and let loose The Question: “what kind of a name is that”? I almost fell off my chair. I’ve been living in Canada now for twenty three years and I’ve never been asked that question. When I lived in the United States it was common follow-on to an introduction, but not here. He seemed kindly enough so I explained that my father was Syrian blah blah blah but I was pretty shocked, and I was (and I am) sorry that my multi-decade string of non-exceptionalist Canadian behavior has ended.
Canadian-US border crossing in different times.
Crossing the border
Yesterday my wife drove down to the Canadian/US border. We hadn’t gone across it since the new US president’s inauguration but she needed to have a paper notarized. Faced with the choice of either driving to Ottawa (183km) and presenting herself at the US embassy (50USD fee) or going across the border (100km) to the always-friendly town clerk in Champlain NY (∅USD), it was a no-brainer.
She found the main border crossing a desolate place, not a single other car waiting. There’s been a lot of talk in Canada about phones being searched and hostile border control guards, but she had no problem entering the US. Returning to Canada she was asked to roll down her back window and given a one-over, so it’s pretty obvious that Canada is not encouraging its citizens to enter the US. And why should it? Things have happened quickly since January 6, on both sides of the border, and a lot has changed.
A different view
As a dual Canadian-US citizen I get to see things from an unusual vantage point, having lived in the US until I was fifty, and then having lived more than two decades in Quebec. It’s only been during the Vietnam War, and now more recently, when some few Americans have looked seriously to Canada as an alternative place. We left earlier than the current wave, but for similar reasons – we saw what was coming, and thought that the move north to a saner country would be a good idea – even if we didn’t know quite what we were getting into.
The lead-in to the second Iraq war, New York City demonstration February 2003. The names change, but the issues remain.
The federal election this week, where Mark Carney was elected the new Canadian Prime Minister, has capped a rude Canadian awakening to the dangers of sharing a border with a rogue elephant of a state. It’s been a revealing election. Nothing has done more to make me feel Canadian than this period, and the election results reinforced our choice (though we were pretty blind) in making Quebec our home province. The election vote stripped away the weepy rhetoric that often prevails in Quebec, and what was revealed was a province that supported Carney and the Liberal government (43%) versus the American-Elon-Musk inspired Conservative party of Pierre Poilievre (23.4%) by a margin not even closely matched in any of the other provinces. In December of last year you would have been hard pressed to find anyone in the province who would call themselves a Liberal. That’s an exaggeration, but not much. So it’s been quite a change. I don’t see Carney quite as positively as I’d like to, but I was still pleased.
Prior to Trump II many Canadians possessed a romantically foggy view when looking south. So the last few months have been like the breakup of a formerly “idyllic” marriage: first disbelief, then anger. Trump’s ascendancy this time has only been lightly garbed in reality show politics. His second ascent represents an amplified and aggressively threatening continuation of the bullying conservatism that, over the years, has shown its face in many guises – from the blatant McCarthyism of the Forties and Fifties, through the filth and duplicity of Nixon, morphing into the smoothly front-facing corporate faces of Reagan and the Bush family. That’s not even getting into the Democratic side, which has had its share of failings too. The toxicity has always been around, either in the foreground or just below the surface. The difference now is that it’s fully out and fully vengeful, with a clear road map driving its behavior. Whether Trump II will “succeed” in its destructive course is no longer in question, the damage has already been widespread and generational in scope. The question for us in Canada is how to minimize its effect while steering a way through the geo-political/economic storm. Even if the US courts reign in the Executive branch, and Congress reasserts itself instead of playing dead, trust has been broken. Canada has largely been able to avoid the militarization of society and social breakdown that’s been happening in the United States for decades. However, even though the economic consequences of tariffs have been enough to dramatically accelerate political change here, dealing with them is nothing compared to prospect of having to deal with an increasingly aggressive and politically fragmented country thrashing around to the south. That’s the scary prospect. Let’s hope a path can be found, both internally in the US as well as for us and others.
I probably have the distinction of being the only member of my family ever to have eaten camel. Or is it the shame? My father was so shocked when I told him what I had done that his normally eloquent vocabulary left him stammering. I think he was, in reality, half-horrified and half-amused.
Camel meat restaurant in centre with vertical windows. The street vendor on the far right is selling fresh almonds. Al Malek Faisal Street, Damascus, 2000.
There was a comment in the last thread about how different my experiences seem. I’ve always enjoyed a kind of rough-and-tumble form of travel, which is how I ended up in the camel restaurant. But in a larger and more general sense I’ve been wondering if I gloss over the negative sides of places too much – Montreal and Mexico City, for example.
I’ve also been thinking how I could, just as easily, take my photographs from Mexico City and paint a rather dismal picture of the place – make it into a place that no sane person would want to travel to.
Is this the sort of thing you want to breathe? Afternoon in Mexico City… This hurts both the eyes and the lungs. According to WHO statistics, Mexico has the dubious distinction of placing four cities in the top 35 pollution rankings worldwide. Mexico City ranks 23rd. Above it are Torino (12), Milano (16), Beirut (18), Athens (20) and just below Paris (28). Full rankings here, based on 2009 data. View from Torre Latinoamericano late in the day, March 2016.
Do you see what I mean? And that’s not all, by any means … there’s plenty that I have photographed – and could show – to back up an argument about the badnesses and injustices in Mexico, or Montreal, or even Vermont.
It’s a requirement in journalistic photography that you’re supposed to be honest about what’s shown, but the warp lies in what’s not shown (or talked about). I certainly am showing what I like about Mexico, but I also have plenty of negative opinions (and photos to support them), and not limited to Mexico.
I do think, however, that it’s important to see both sides of a coin. Is that glossing over? Yes, I think it is sometimes. But I think it’s also useful to talk in different terms, especially about a place that gets editorially stomped on. I said in an early post, before going there, that I wanted to present a positive view, since so much of what’s published is negative.
On our last day in Mexico I was speaking to a young Mexican man who was working behind the desk in our hotel. He was young and hip-city-relaxed, with spiky black hair and lime-green framed glasses. He and I had just settled up the bill so he knew we had been there for a relatively long period of time and he wanted to know why. It’s not a hotel frequented by North Americans – most of the people who stay there come up from the South instead. In an abbreviated answer I said we liked the hotel and the neighborhood. He response was that most North Americans – by which I assume he meant Americans – complain about staying there because they don’t want to stay in a “ghetto”.
Well, if that’s a “ghetto”, then I guess I’m really out to lunch. But I don’t think I am. It’s a relatively affluent upper class neighborhood, nothing like the rich ones but nothing like the poor ones either.
I’ve always liked living in these in-between neighborhoods. In Montreal we live in a pretty swanky part of town – The Plateau – but under the caché it too has its rough edges (though nothing like the other places).
I hope I won’t avoid politics, the environment, and social issues on this blog. But most of the time I’d rather not go at them head-on. There is a lot to talk about, in Canada as well as in Mexico. I’m not blind about this, but personally I get tired of feeling inundated by other points of view. I know that mine seep out, and whether you agree or disagree, I hope most of all that you will feel welcome here (and able to say what you think). That’s the way I’d like it to be, and it’s a roundabout answer in my general approach to this blog. I hope it comes through, because it’s not always easy.
Perhaps you remember the market photo a few posts ago (scroll down). I thought, as a contrast, a photo from last weekend would be fun. It’s Montrealers coming out of the winter funk and flocking to one of our largest markets – the stalls are still confined to the indoors but in everyone’s mind it’s already spring!
It’s ironic that Bernie Sanders gets tagged as insensitive to race issues – it’s not his problem – it’s Vermont’s. Vermont has a lot of positive qualities, but one is not ethnic diversity.
The situation was worse in the 1960s though.
As a kid I always felt like I didn’t fit in. I didn’t. My classmates, almost without exception, came from old New England stock and to me, a youngster, it felt like cultural and personal exclusion. In our family we ate different foods, we talked about different things, and we were almost completely ignorant of pop culture. It may not have been exclusion, but it certainly was difference.
I don’t know what I was thinking dressing in a coat and tie, it certainly didn’t help. Perhaps my warped mind thought if I did wear a tie I’d be mistaken for a teacher, and I could hide behind that.
Directly below me is the only other person (I believe in the school of about 200 children) who didn’t fit into the white ethos – she is part Native American.
People often think of Montreal as being binary between French and English, but the delicious reality is that it’s a jumbled pastiche of many ethnic groups. That’s been something that has greatly enhanced our lives. Even the people who think of themselves as “Francophone” or “Anglophone” are often quite sophisticated in their knowledge of other cultures, and often follow that up with speaking other languages. We had not always dreamed of Mexico. Our interest sprung from two sources.
One source was two of our best friends – Éric and Diana. Their lives are a jumbled mix of both their Francophone and Spanish families. Diana grew up in Cartagena. Their home resonates with Spanish, which they speak as their base language, French, and English and the warm smells of a lot of good food. Éric and I became fast friends based on interests and personalities. Diana too loves her heritage and language (which she teaches at a college level) and has done a lot to encourage our interests in Latin America.
The second source, and where the interest in Mexico specifically started, is with our friend Magda. She has a quiet centering and wisdom that’s rare and which I greatly admire. When we first told her we wanted to go to Mexico (four years ago) she sat down with us and made a list of all her favorite places in the City, and it was from that list that we started our attachments.
I didn’t talk about it at the time (because I didn’t have his permission) but we were with Pablo, Magda’s brother, when my phone was stolen. He was angry because he hadn’t picked up on what was happening either. This photo of him was the same day, on the Metrobus, after things calmed down and we coming back down towards the Centro.
I would be totally remiss if I made it sound like solely Mexico connects personally with Montreal. There are many strong ties especially to the US, to England, and to France. Another of my earliest and best friends is from Bangladesh (with many other places in-between). His mother, Gayatri (here visiting), and I have developed an affection for each other. She visits each summer, and in this photo she is with our good friend Vivian.
I’ve been thinking about these ethnic mixings because last night I watched the documentary film Discordia detailing the student conflict at Concordia surrounding the (attempted) visit by Benjamin Netanyahu in 2003. It’s not a pretty story, but it’s emblematic of society trying to work out differences in a way more profound than superficial sharing of foods. I recommend it if you are at all interested. This link should play to all countries.
Since moving to Montreal in 2006 we’ve done a steady rotation of food shopping which consists of visits to an Arab-derived supermarket (Marché Adonis, now a province super-star), Kim Phat (an “oriental” supermarket), Costco, the farmer’s produce market just north of us (Jean-Talon), and a kind of mongrel restaurant supply warehouse full of food called Mayrand. I say “mongrel” because I’ve never been able to identify its ethnic group. It’s housed in an old industrial building with loading docks shoved right into the aisles, and its employees speak various languages. Unlike other places here, Mayrand seems to have no particular ethnic focus. It’s also seemed an odd place because it’s never appeared to have any particular ambition to be anything other than what it is. Which is a noisy warehouse with hand-lettered signs catering to the restaurant trade but accepting anyone as customer. Unlike modern box stores, there are no flashing-light barricades put up when a forklift is working, and it’s up to you to dodge the wheeled traffic and figure out the signage, which is often creative.
All that is about to change. Next week, after probably decades in its current form, Mayrand is about to move to a new location which promises to be more – what ever that means. In honesty it may be a good move for them. From personal experience I can say that we’ve converted some of our friends to shopping in places like Adonis (the Arab market), but I don’t believe a single soul has visited Mayrand. I don’t know why. Perhaps there’s a dark secret I am not privy to, or that it’s just too free-form and gritty.
We’ll see – I have a feeling the new space will be a lot different plus they are positioning it close to a Costco.
I’ll actually be sad to see the old store go. I like the bustle and the amorphous nature of it … that it’s all by itself in how it sees retailing and it makes no pretensions. If you like it you are welcome to shop there, and if you don’t there are a lot of other places just up the road.
This shows restocking by forklift. Normally there would be more people in the aisles, but this was late Sunday afternoon during a snow an ice storm, so there were fewer customers than usual.
Now the different part
Part of why I enjoy travelling so much are the contrasts. We have market shopping in Montreal too but in our reality it’s seasonal. Jean-Talon, our “outdoor” market, retreats into a heated space (much smaller) during the winter so it’s still possible to shop there. But there’s a big difference between biking to the market for a few vegetables, and hassling with the car for the same. So during the winter we tend towards the warehouses, and in the summer we eat market food.
But last week shopping in Mexico looked like this for us:
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just a contrast in style but a contrast in content as well.
I look on the boxes in Montreal and most of the fruit and vegetables are either from the US or Mexico, but none of it is as fresh and abundant as is easily available in this local market.
I lamented earlier in these posts about how there hadn’t been a red plum tomato sighted in Montreal since the end of October. I can report currently that the situation has eased somewhat but still what’s available looks nothing like these unwaxed and fresh tomatoes.
Or the vegetables this woman is bagging.
But Mexico wasn’t ahead everywhere! Quebec really shines in cheeses, which I am grateful have no season. We bought one farmer’s type cheese in Mexico that was mixed with jalapeño peppers (that was okay), but there was none of the variety (and quality) that we have up here.
But I’d be lying to say that I don’t like the idea of being able to shop year-round in a market, and a market close to home. But we do the best we can. Like I said, it’s a snow and ice storm today, which really does not mix with this lifestyle.
