2023-08-06 15:30:00
Journalist Louis-Philippe Messier travels mainly on the run, his office in his backpack, on the lookout for fascinating subjects and people. He speaks to everyone and is interested in all walks of life in this urban chronicle.
Why doesn’t Montreal have anything that compares to the infinity pool and the “water mirror” by the river that allow people in Quebec to enjoy the spectacle of the St. Lawrence while bathing in a water crystalline?
Let’s face it: unless you have a passion for fecal coliforms, river swimming is never a fully enjoyable experience.
The solution, Quebec may have just found it: bathing facilities located almost on the river so as to seem to merge with it.
That’s what you’ll find at Station de la Plage on Promenade Samuel-de-Champlain, which has been a resounding success since it opened on July 5.
There is the spectacle of the St. Lawrence and its presence, even its smell, without wading through the algae viscosity.
The basin of the large infinite swimming pool seems to communicate with the waters of the river. The illusion is even more striking with the water mirror, dark like the natural waters behind it.
A photo taken of you in there will give the impression that you are in the St. Lawrence.
If we observe the installations from the river, we see that at least ten meters separate the installations from the river itself.
Louis-Philippe Messier
Pleasant even in the rain
Murphy’s Law obliges, I visited the Beach Station on the WORST possible summer day, Friday morning, in the rain, in the windy grayness, alone, by 17 degrees.
The basin reflected the cloudy vault like a mirror. It was beautiful, but nothing like the happy noise of a normal day at the Station when it’s sunny and it’s overflowing with people.
“It’s difficult to walk from the pool to the office across the beach, you constantly have to step over people,” a lifeguard told me.
The bells of the Saint-Michel-de-Sillery church (which you can see above) ring the midday Angelus when I immerse myself in the surprisingly cold waters of the basin.
“Normally, the water is warmer, but there is something broken in the pump or in the system,” explains a lifeguard.
Right next to the basin, there is the “water mirror”. A kind of micro paddling pool, an inch or two deep, on which you can walk or lie down.
We’re not supposed to go into the real river, under federal jurisdiction. But I wanted to compare the artificial ponds and the real thing.
The muddy beach is littered with seaweed, dead grass and small wet branches. Fragments of rock sting my feet. The water is lukewarm and muddy. Poor river… By contrast, it has never seemed so unsavory to me!
You can stretch out on the water mirror. Louis-Philippe Messier
Where in Montreal?
Where might a station like this be built in Montreal? I asked the man who is for me “Monsieur Fleuve”, the boat pilot Simon Lebrun.
For him, the metropolitan place par excellence would be… the Peel Basin.
“It’s a vast unused body of water in the heart of a densely populated area with direct access by bike and public transit,” he says.
A free infinity pool in the heart of the city would be an instant tourist classic.
We hope that the example of this success in Quebec will inspire other municipalities with similar projects.
Stevens LeBlanc/JOURNAL DE QUEBEC
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