Today was a beautiful day (minimum temperature -12C, maximum -3C so it was time for a wander around Montreal. I had breakfast at the hotel and then headed off to the Old Port to visit the Pointe a Calliere Museum of History. The museum is built on archaeological sites, which are able to be walked through in the basement.

The museum was named after Louis-Hector de Calliere, the Governor of Montreal from 1684-1699, and then the Governor of New France from 1698-1703 until he died at the age of 53. New France was an area that partly covered by what is now Canada and United States of America. He built a chateau on the Point. The museum also had artifacts from the building and the tools used by the family.

The first item I come across is the Fort Marie-Ville Bell (the Fort is one of the archaeological sites presented in the museum which was placed in this area of Montreal). The bell is a replica of that which was situated at the Fort’s chapel.

The next item I came across was an exhibit on the treaty of 1701. The main indigenous peoples of the area were the Iroquois, and they had ongoing battles for decades with the French. Governor Calliere issued an invitation to the indigenous groups (around 1300 representatives of approx. 40 of the First Nations groups attended) in the hope of achieving peace. With behind the scenes negotitations, bartering of goods and some famous speeches, agreement was reached and a treaty was signed on 4 August 1701.

A big part of the underground displays were showing a series of the lives of the Iroquois and artifacts of tools etc. that they used. Herewith below a photo of the kinds of cooking, heating and other day to day activities, especially by the women who were the heads of the family.

There were also some displays of the role of male Iroquois in their society.

Another interesting point in the underground display was an actual part of the original sewerage system created in the 1700s. It smelt sooooooo good.

They also created some under glass presentations of what the Point looked like based on their archaeological findings across 6 different time periods. It wasn’t possible to get photos directly over these displays, but I did get one from the front, which I can hopefull’t possible to get photos directly over these displays, but I did get one from the front, which I can hopefully manipulate on the computer some time in the future. For example, here is one from 1734.

Here is a display of a pirates ship, made mainly for kids to play on and demonstrate the different skills of pirates etc. This is part of an exhibit called “Pirates or Privateers”, which is meant to allow people to see whether they have what it takes to become a privateer. The privateers were armed private vessels authorised by the King of France to engage with enemy merchant ships during the period around the British-French war. The kids seemed to be having fun. I had to wait around for a while to get a couple of photos without them and their parents in it. I hadn’t brought my Photo Release forms.

I then headed off to the Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal on the other side of the city. On the way there, I stopped off in an upmarket mall to take some photos. It seemed others had the same idea. There was a bunch of people in different character outfits who were having photos taken. I also saw Medieval Santa, North Pole (20th Century) Santa, and 21^st Century Santa.

Medieval Santa was from 12th Century Europe where he travelled on foot from his hamlet to deliver gifts, at a time where castle doors were left open to welcome weary travellers.

North Pole Santa is the one that generally we have been brought up with, the jolly grandfather figure who keeps his list of naughty and nice children, manufactures toys and gifts with his elves, and distributes them across the world on Christmas Eve.

21st Century Santa has advanced because his job is international, using technology such as a smart phone and iPad (see his left hand) to keep track of children, toys, and events. The silver thermal flight suit apparently helps fly quickly through the night air.He now travels in a sleek ultra-hovercraft.

I then continued on to the Musee des beaux-art (Museum of Fine Art). There were 4 different exhibitions, so I went into the Robert Mapplethrorpe – Focus: Perfection exhibit. Having seen some of his later work and recall reading somethine at the time (1990) of the Cinicinatti Art Gallery being charged for onscenity by displaying some of his photos at the time.

It was interesting to see his early  interest in photography and also in its use for design – since that’s what he studied before getting into photography. And his friendship with Patti Smith, a great singer in my opinion – I saw her last week in a tribute to the late Leonard Cohen. Who was from Montreal. There is a tribute concert here for him which I tried to get a ticket to, but it was sold out in about 10 minutes.

Anyway, back to the Mapplethorpe exhibition. Here are a few photos from the exhibition. I haven’t included any of his later work with the gay community or BDSM as they weren’t really my cup of tea. He had quite a good range of skills and by (a) having patrons relatively early in his career who could procure him the top quality equipment to undertake what he wished to do, and (b) by understanding that he would succeed better by controlling much of his photography in his own studio, including working with and placing the subjects, developing and printing his own outputs, he was able to oversee his own career. His ability to communicate with different society groups from the gallery owners and purchasers of art to the more bohemian subcultures, allowed him to expand his horizons and build quote a strong career, and also to experiment in areas outside the normal range of photography. Herewith a couple of more of his clean photos.

After the museum, it was getting dark so I headed back to my hotel.

I decided that I would like to grab an English language newspaper to read at breakfast the next morning so I went downstairs to the front desk and found that they were all in French. So I went on line to look for grocery stores and headed out to grab a newspaper. The first one didn’t sell papers, the second only had them in French, the third had them in French and Chinese, and the fourth only had French. That was two and a half kilometres of walking. Luckily I did in the end find one that sold English newspapers, and it wasn’t on my list. It is also open 24 hours per day so I can go and buy one before breakfast if I want.

I then found a nearby Taiwanese restaurant selling main meals for $10, which is fine with me, so I had dinner there and read one of the newspapers I had purchased. One of the articles was a story about a Buzzfeed article and whole social media story that has grown up around the “tall, skinny’ scraggly” Montreal Christmas Tree being voted the “world’s ugliest Christmas tree”. So I will be heading over to the Quartier des Spectacles to check that out.

After dinner I headed back to the hotel and off to bed.