Residents grieve for fallen trees
A steady stream of people moved trance-like along Sherbrooke St. in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Wednesday, like mourners paying their last respects at a funeral.
Some stopped and shook their heads sadly.
Parents hugged children close. Many snapped photos as tokens of remembrance.
In fact, N.D.G. residents were there at the corner of Sherbrooke and Girouard Ave. to grieve for fallen friends.
Although it’s miraculous that no one was killed or injured when a violent microburst bore down on the west-end neighbourhood Tuesday afternoon, it’s not quite accurate to say there was no loss of life.
The beautiful, mature, oldgrowth trees that have towered over N.D.G. for more than a century and give its leafy streets their character, took the brunt of the vicious storm.
While it’s too soon to tell how many trees have perished and how many might yet be salvaged, there is nevertheless a sense that the local landscape has been altered forever.
Trees were uprooted and toppled. Thick trunks snapped. Limbs were splintered like matchsticks, leaving jagged teeth to pierce the sky where only a day earlier loomed a lush canopy of shade. Branches were severed. Twigs and leaves lay strewn where the churning winds deposited them.
Nowhere was the terrible carnage more evident than in NotreDame-de-Grâce Park, referred to locally as Girouard Park. The south end, where the oldest and largest trees provided shade to area residents and shelter to small critters, was ground zero for the destruction — and for the collective mourning.
“I passed by here last night and I cried,” said Ana Madden. “It’s so sad. These beautiful trees.”
Madden says she comes to the park every day with her daughter or her dog, and she still can’t quite believe how it all changed in a few short minutes.
“This park, you know, with the Ice Storm, it’s withstood all these things for decades and now …” her voice trailed off.
Families no doubt lost beloved trees that have stood sentinel over their yards, and neighbours will no doubt miss the timber that once stood tall on their streets. But trees in a park are part of our collective wealth. When they are gone, everyone is poorer.
“It’s devastating, it’s heartbreaking,” said borough Mayor Russell Copeman, choking up as he described the slaughter. “This park means a lot to me.”
As it does to many area residents. In a dense part of Montreal, where many people live in apartments, the park is like a backyard. It has a playground and a memorial to the dead from Vimy Ridge. It is precious green space in a sea of asphalt. Its forest filters out the smog of the nearby Décarie Expressway.
“It’s a special park,” said Jake Leishman, cradling his threeand-a-half-year-old son as the two peeked through a tangle of branches at smashed wooden benches. “We see a lot of sad people. People seem shocked.”
The loss of even one tree is a blow in a city where the harshness of urban life and the threat of pests like the emerald ash borer are constant. Only a day before the microburst, N.D.G. residents were roiling with outrage over healthy mature trees that were mistakenly chopped down in Loyola Park. Now they are left to deal with casualties on a massive scale.
All Montrealers must realize we may have to face this kind of calamity more regularly as we confront the realities of climate change. This summer’s bizarre weather is only one symptom of havoc global warming is creating. Le Journal de Montréal reported Wednesday that Montreal endured double the number of heavy thunderstorms this July compared to last. And though August isn’t over yet, things don’t look much better.
In an instant of wrath, Mother Nature can take away what she giveth. And no matter how hard we try to make the city more resilient, some things are difficult to protect.
The people of N.D.G. well know that their homes can be repaired and their cars can be fixed. Girouard Park, which is closed for the moment, will soon reopen and saplings will be planted. But the truly precious things in this city, the maples, oaks, poplars and pines that have swayed overhead our entire lives, cannot be so easily replaced.