The first surprise is the rush-hour traffic, which delays our entrance into Montreal for an hour. As the car inches slowly across the Pont Jacques-Cartier, I can see the city below. There is downtown with its cluster of grey high rises. There, in the distance, is Parc du Mont Royal, like a dense forest climbing up a hillside.
Just to the north-east, there is La Ronde, an amusement park built for the 1967 world fair. It is all so close I can almost touch it … but then somebody honks their horn.
As annoying as it seems in the moment, rumbling slowly over the Pont Jacques-Cartier reminds me about one of my favourite things in Canada, a sensation that seems particularly acute here. We often talk about “culture shock” in travel, that feeling of bewilderment that hits you when everything seems strange, hard to navigate. But for me, culture shock can be thrilling, and never more so than in places where I least expect to encounter it.
You might reasonably expect to feel culture shock in Rwanda – but Quebec? Canada is, in many ways, just like Australia. But it is also not. Coming to Montreal can feel like waking up in an alternate dimension where things are not quite right: Melbourne, say, if Melbourne happened to be occupied by the French.
The effect is to transform mundane locations or things into dazzling curiosities. I find myself appreciating the kinds of travel experiences in Montreal that I tend to take for granted elsewhere. At the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, for example, you can find yourself stumbling into a dark grove of trees: the Salon of the Belle Époque, where paintings are arranged around walls that are projected with moving trees and birds. Suddenly, a normal space, a traditional art gallery, turns uncanny and hypnotic. This happens again and again in Montreal.
At Beautys Luncheonette, eating in a diner becomes a culinary treat. Founded in 1942 by Hymie and Freda Sckolnick, the retro milk bar is still run by the same family (third generation), which treats staple food – blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs – with a level of care usually reserved for fine dining.
Meanwhile, fine-dining establishments such as the famous Au Pied de Cochon offer poutine on their menu, which is French fries and cheese curds – the kind of fast and dirty food usually reserved for take-out joints.
Immigrant song
Part of the reason for the disorientation has to do with the fact Montreal’s population is infused with the same immigrant groups who came to Australia following the First and Second World Wars. In other words, the city has the same recognisable ingredients as somewhere like Melbourne or Sydney, but the resultant stew tastes different.
There is a strong Greek community here. There is also, most notably, a vibrant Jewish quarter. At Schwartz’s, a “Hebrew Charcuterie”, crowds line up around the block for decadent roast beef sandwiches.
At St-Viateur Bagel, chewy bagels, poached in honey-infused water and baked in a wood-burning oven, are snapped up by crowds who will start arguments with Americans over who makes the better bread products.
Of course, looming above everything is the French influence, which manifests in ways both large and small. The rivalry between English- and French-speaking Quebecois is rancorous, and well documented, but for an outsider the peculiar fusion of both has created a cultural melange that is mostly just charming. Observe, for example, how many cafes turn their outdoor chairs in rows towards the street, like a Parisian bistro. Why don’t more cafes do that in other places, so you can just sit and watch the world go by?
Culture shock can do more than just make you uncomfortable. It can wake you out of complacency, show you the world anew. Take, in Montreal, the Jean-Talon Market: baskets of blueberries, tomatoes and onions, baklava and oysters. And yet, configured in this particular space, with snippets of different languages flying overhead, it all feels like nothing I have ever seen before. Suddenly, simple pleasures – paid close attention – become exquisite ones: eating a Portuguese tart and drinking espresso while the rain starts to fall outside.
AFR Contributor
