Blogger highlights best, worst of region’s parks
Few people know Montreal’s parks like Christine Latreille. In the last three years, the Pointe-Claire mother of two has visited more than 600 parks in Montreal and surrounding areas, writing a detailed description of each one for her playground review website, strollerparking.ca.
Although she earns no money from the website, Latreille is constantly working on it. In winter, she researches new places to go, meticulously logging the details of each city and borough’s parks in a spreadsheet and using online maps to plot the most efficient routes to visit multiple parks when the weather warms. In summer, she tries to visit an average of three new parks per week and has brought her family to as many as eight parks in a single day.
“The website started out for me, but it’s become much more for other people,” she said.
Latreille had always enjoyed taking her oldest child, Toby, now 9, to parks, but her self-described “obsession” took off after her second son, Cam, was born prematurely. After almost six months spending as much time as possible by his side in the hospital, she was desperate to be outside in the fresh air.
She visited all the parks she knew, but when she began to look for new places to go, she found a frustrating lack of information. Most municipalities list parks online but often don’t describe what parents will find there. Latreille began documenting the features and drawbacks of the parks she visited, and with a little technical help from her husband, an IT specialist, strollerparking.ca was born.
Strollerparking ’s playground reviews include photos of all the key features of each park, along with an honest, and occasionally snarky, review of the pros and cons. The website is searchable by map, as well as key words, such as “splash pad,” “wheelchair accessible” or “fully fenced park.”
Of all the playgrounds she’s seen, she said the most memorable is a short drive across the border in Ontario. Sacha’s Park, which opened in June in L’Orignal, was named in memory of an 11-yearold boy whose physical limitations often made it impossible to get into playgrounds, let alone play. After Sacha’s death, his family spearheaded the creation of the park, so that every child could have a place to play.
In the Montreal area, Latreille has discovered only a handful of parks similarly designed for inclusive play, such as Gruyère Park in Pierrefonds. In most cases, even new parks aren’t designed to consider those with limited mobility.
Latreille’s nine-year-old is starting to outgrow parks designed for toddlers and younger children, but she said she intends to keep on cataloguing parks in and around Montreal so she can keep discovering new splash pads, zip lines, outdoor gyms, intergenerational playgrounds, and other wonderful places.