Montréal Photo Gallery
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The island of Montreal was first occupied by the St Lawrence Iroquois, whose small village of Hochelaga ("Place of the Beaver") was situated at the base of Mont Royal. European presence began in October 1535 when Jacques-Cartier was led here while searching for a northwest route to Asia. However, even after the arrival of Samuel de Champlain, the French settlement was little more than a small garrison, and it wasn't until 1642 that the colony of Ville-Marie was founded by the soldiers of Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve. They were on orders from Paris to "bring about the Glory of God and the salvation of the Indians", a mission that predictably enough found little response from the aboriginal peoples. Bloody conflict with the Iroquois, fanned by the European fur-trade alliances with the Algonquins and Hurons, was constant until a treaty signed in 1701 prompted the growth of Ville-Marie into the main embarkation point for the fur and lumber trade.
Today, Montréal is the world's 2nd largest French-speaking city, after Paris, with 1.8 million people in the city and 3.4 million in the metropolitan area. It was Canada's financial capital until the 1980's, when fears of separatist activities in the predominately French-speaking province of Quebec drove many companies out of Montréal. |
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SPECIAL NOTES
Wallpaper of Canadian bank notes provided by : The Bank of Canada