The second-largest city in Canada

I was almost on top of the mountain, sitting in an Adirondack chair, looking out at the river valley below, with late afternoon sun glinting off the water and the sound of a piano banging away off to my left.

Sounds like a private club, doesn’t it? Nope. It’s a public park, the largest one in Montreal, and the mountain is in fact the Mountain, for which the city was named, at once its most prominent landmark and its chief recreational opportunity.

The Adirondack chair, all spruced and clean, is one of many that had been set up there by the city of Montreal, just because they can. The chairs are not anchored to anything and are not guarded in any way. More than one old guy staggered up to the chair next to mine and sat down emitting grateful sighs. I knew that feeling; I’m an old guy myself, and I made my own low heartfelt cries upon descending.

The piano was courtesy of the city of Montreal too. It had apparently been there all summer, somewhat weathered and funky but in no sense vandalized. Free pianos in the park that anyone is invited to play — that’s kind of the way Montreal rolls, with what seems to be a traditional Canadian blend of no drama and good manners.

I sat there thinking my old guy thoughts, no doubt wise but occasionally just peevish, basking in the day. The weather was perfect by San Francisco standards — and Montreal weather is rarely perfect by any standards. (Well, maybe by the standards of Fairbanks.) The winters are very long and often difficult; the summers have their share of sweaty impossible days, just like their neighbors farther south.

On the large paved overlook between me and the chair, there was an Oaklandish feeling of multiculturalism, a peaceful kingdom where all might dwell in harmony. Of course, there’s that feeling in Oakland a lot too, and that seems to be demonstrably untrue.

And in fact, there is an ancient tension in Montreal, a centuries-long history of bigotry and resentment and fear. It flames into the open from time to time; just now, it appears that it may do so again.

Canada is supposed to be bilingual, and mostly it is — both Anglophone and Francophone students are taught both languages at school. But that’s very different from what’s spoken at home. Most of Canada speaks English with a sprinkling of French, sometimes fluent, sometimes not. Quebec speaks French with a sprinkling of English, and sometimes the French speakers disdain English even if they speak it.

Montreal is a cosmopolitan city, so the language barrier seems far more permeable there than elsewhere in the province. Still, the enmities persist; Montreal is the home of the separatist movement, which only a few years ago managed to get the issue of Quebec sovereignty on the ballot. (It’s generally conceded to be a terrible idea except for symbolic reasons.)

So maybe we need a little potted history. I’m good at that. Nothing below is false false, but it may be a little simplified and perhaps overdramatized, as is my way.

The French got to Canada first, mainly because of those fur trappers. Farther south, colonists were experimenting with agriculture, city-building and revolutionary politics. When trapping infrastructure built up, the French government made it a requirement that only members of the Catholic Church could immigrate to Canada. Montreal became the center of trade of inland Canada.

Later on in the 18th century, there was lots of fighting and bang bang, and all of a sudden Canada was English. But whereas the French envisioned Canada as a feudal state, an opportunity for land ownership and a continuation of the Catholic hegemony, the British were all about stripping the mineral resources, building useful institutions and living in England.

British people came. The undereducated French stayed on the farms or tried dead-end retail. The Brits became the professional and mercantile classes. They made the money. Economically, it was the same old same old capitalism shuffle, and the people on the outside piled up numerous real grievances. And so it has gone, a battle seen as a distant theoretical struggle in British Columbia (or even Toronto) but part of daily life in all the cities of Quebec.

Ah, but the French dedication to good food has made its mark in Montreal, in every place that poutine is not served. Everybody seems to know about the bagels of Montreal (which are disdained by many of the actual residents of Montreal), and maybe the pastrami, but Montreal today has almost every cuisine your little heart could desire — including traditional Quebecois.

And then there’s art, particularly performing art, which thrives in Montreal. (That’s why my daughter has lived there 20-plus years.) In other words, it’s a culture built on dinner and a show. Sure, it doesn’t decide the basic issues of income equality or nationalistic triumphalism; on the other hand, it’s not a bad way to spend time until Utopia happens.