Chris Adamopoulos
AIPS-B.P.Ed.-M.Ed.
These are the hoops, hurdles, and the rites of passage you’ve got to go through when becoming a true blue Montrealer.
There are no two ways about it: Certain experiences and attitudes are quintessentially Montreal, and if you’ve spent your time here completing bucket lists like ours for the best things to do in Montreal, you may have begun to inch ever closer to becoming a bonafide Montrealer.
From visiting some of the city’s most treasured attractions to devouring the city’s most iconic food and taking part in some of our festivals that make Montreal’s culture unique the world over, here are some of the rites of passage that mark you as a true Montrealer..
1. You’ve been too busy ‘celebrating’ Moving Day to bother with Canada Day
In the mid-1800s, the Quebec Government mandated a fixed date that all rental leases would begin and end to prevent landlords from forcing people to move during the province’s harsh winters.
The date began as May 1st, but during the 1970s, the government felt it would be much better if the date fell on a pre-existing holiday during the summer, so children wouldn’t have to potentially finish the tail end of a semester at a new school and workers wouldn’t miss a day of work.
As such, Moving Day was cheekily changed to July 1st, and so, while the rest of the country celebrates Canada Day, Quebecers and Montrealers sweatily eat pizza and drink warm beer, squatting on the floor of unfurnished apartments between towers of cardboard boxes.
It’s a delightful tradition, really.
2. You know why the metro sometimes smells like a campfire
Have you ever been riding the metro, and been struck with the sudden nostalgic pang of a good old-fashioned campfire so strong you swear you could smell it?
You (probably) weren’t having a stroke; you likely just experienced one of the Metro’s best-kept secrets. Unlikely but true, Montreal’s old MR-73 subway trains, and even the newer AZUR metro cars both use eco-friendly locally sourced yellow birch wood as brake shoes.
These wooden shoes are soaked in saltwater then fried in peanut oil for 10 minutes to render them fire-resistant.
You can sometimes catch a whiff of these wood steaks gently sizzling in their peanut oil, and it makes the whole metro smell lovely.
3. You have developed strong feelings on what ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise do and don’t belong on
Condiments and what they belong on are the source of some serious culinary contention.
But for some Montreal institutions, you’re taking your life into your own hands when you try to blur the lines and destabilize the perfect harmony of some of the city’s most beloved snacks. Speaking broadly, Montreal isn’t too keen on ketchup, and many Montrealers prefer mayonnaise on their French fries.
Furthermore, if you order a hot dog ‘all dressed’ (with everything on it), it’ll come standard with onions, coleslaw/chopped cabbage, and yellow mustard. If for some abhorrent reason you want ketchup on that, you’re going to have to order an embarrassing ‘all-dressed with ketchup’ and earn yourself a devastating eye-roll from everyone around you.
Lastly, if you ever find yourself at the venerable Mile End lunch counter Wilensky’s Light Lunch; don’t for one second believe you can order your sandwich without mustard. And if you were to jokingly ask them to cut it in half, we’re all just gonna pretend we don’t know you.
4. Something feels off when you travel a few blocks around town without seeing a traffic cone
What’s Montreal’s true mascot? You might think it’s Youppi, the washed-up, abominable former Montreal Expos mascot who has somehow outlived its team’s demise, but you’d be wrong.
Montreal’s true mascot is the traffic cone. Over 10,000 traffic cones circulate Montreal at any given time. You’ll find them in potholes, around broken water mains, lining the perimeter of our seemingly unending construction megaprojects, or sometimes just in trees (where we suspect they must grow.)
These orange cones have become so ubiquitous in recent years, that just manoeuvring through the city for any distance without seeing one is not only rare, it’s downright suspicious.
5. You can cross the downtown core without ever stepping outside
There’s much ado about Montreal’s ‘underground city,’ but tourists and even some locals never fully grasp just how extensive the network runs. Spend enough time getting to know the labyrinthian warrens below the city, though, and you can pull off some truly impressive (and time-saving) treks across town.
McCord Museum on Sherbrooke Street down to the InterContinental in the Old Port? Easy. Musée d’Art Contemporain to the Bell Center during rush hour? A cinch. Top of Place Ville Marie to the Palais des Congrès? Piece of cake.
There’s over 30 km of tunnels, ten metro stops, two train stations, one bus terminal, loads of hotels, multiple universities, a cinema, a wax museum, and even an indoor skating rink linked under the city streets.
All that and more can be yours when you fully devote yourself to life as a sunshine-averse mole person who calls the underground city home.
6. You’ve eaten your way through the gamut of Montreal’s late-night staples
We Montrealers are a spoilt bunch when it comes to all the food that’s on offer here in the city,and paired with our penchant for nightfe shenanigans, it’s no wonder we’ve got some of the best late-night grub on the planet.
Special shoutouts go to our famous pair of duelling 24-hour bagels titans: St-Viateur and Fairmounr Bagels, the cheap and dirty peanut butter sauce smothered $2 chow mein on Saint Laurent, and the shamelessly decadent all night poutine at La Banguise. Extra special mention also goes to one of the city’s finest French restaurants, L’Express, which stays open until 3:00 am every day of the week—for that truly special 2:00 am hankering that only a slab of foie gras can cure.
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