Montreal's aqueduct canal at the Crawford Street bridge in Verdun. So far, most of my entries here on Spacing and Undermontreal have dealt with Montreal's sewers as its the one aspect of the underground that I've spent the most time exploring. During my time looking into that particular system it's been hard to avoid the city's waterworks, both during my time traveling around (and under) and at the City Archives. While the two systems serve entirely different purposes, they still share a few thincgs in common and often intersect in a number of different ways. While one can’t exactly travel through the waterworks system to the same extent that you can the sewers, there are still a number of different components that can be peered into and occasionally entered. But before we do that, a little bit of history.

Inside the '7-UP' chamber. The West Island of Montreal offers what are essentially the low-lying fruit for underground exploring. The primarily residential areas of Pointe-Claire, Dorval and Beaconsfield all make use of a separated sewer system with one set of pipes for sewage and another for stormwater. Storm drains discharge directly into the river (or Lac St-Louis) and if one knows where the larger outfalls are, one can simply put on a pair of rubber boots (or even flip-flops) and walk on in. Most of the time this would be considered a good thing, but it seems as though the majority of storm drains in this part of the island were built during the 1970s or later using fairly simple prefab concrete components. Put another way: if you’ve been in more than a few, they’re kind of boring. Still, they offer a respite from the stress that comes with exploring the combined sewers found elsewhere on the island. You don’t have to worry about manhole covers, e-coli poisoning, industrial contaminants, hydrogen sulfide, rats (if you’re afraid of them) or things getting swept away through three feet of fast-flowing grey water. Every so often it’s nice to not have deal with such challenges.

  Inside the Molson Collector, somewhere beneath Rue Dickson in 2007. When it comes to Montreal's underground achievements, the Metro system tends to get a lot of the attention. Its sewer system, on the other hand— not so much. This isn't really all that suprising. The subway system is something people both use and see all the time, and it's also a fair bit more complicated than a network of tunnels designed to carry fluids. Still, in terms of tunneling achievements, the sewers built during the 1950s are worth taking a closer look at if only because they're so often ignored. Decarie Raimbault Collector during construction in 1958. By the time ground was broken for the first metro line in 1962, close to a decade had already passed since tunnels just as large and as long had been dug out below the surface of the island. As the populations of communities like Ville St. Laurent and Ahuntsic exploded during the post-war boom, problems began to surface beneath the ground. The existing sewer system, with pipes no larger than seven feet in diameter, could no longer handle the demands being put on it. Floods were increasing as were the number of complaints from people getting fed up with sewage spilling out into the streets and  basements.

Inside the Rockfield combined sewer overflow conduit Picking up from where we last left off, this stretch takes us through the inside of the Cote-St-Luc collector sewer at the northern edge of Lachine. From here it snakes its way southwards towards the Lachine canal, never straying too far from the original course of Riviere St. Pierre. Approximate round-travel distance: 4 kilometers. I never look forward to having to cover larger distances inside sewers here in Montreal. The depth will vary, but 2-3 feet tends to be the norm. That might not seem like a lot, but when you factor in the speed at which it’s flowing and the amount of gear these types of trips can entail, it doesn’t take long before it starts to feel like a solid cardiovascular workout. This is especially true when you’re walking against the flow.

Final sewer inspection, North Collector, Montreal, 1955. (Photo source: City of Montreal Archives) I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that manhole covers aren’t things that most people pay much attention to. I can't blame them. I probably wouldn't give them much thought either, but because they often play an essential role in allowing me to get inside the places I go, I find them a bit difficult to ignore. Even when visiting other cities and have no intention of  going underground, I’m still looking at the covers, hoping to catch a glimpse of something unique to the area or to get an idea of where things lead. I can’t help it. It's a curse. So on the off-chance that anyone else is interested in these sorts of things, I decided to put together a bit of a guide for the most common ones here in Montreal. And please, no "man hole" jokes. I've heard them all before and only eight of them are actually funny.