Kayaking in Montreal

I really miss Montreal.

DW and I would go to this cosmopolitan city at least once every couple of years; sometimes, once or more in a single year. We'd go to see family, or to take in a concert, or to just be tourists in the city in which I was born.

The last time we were in Montreal was in 2019, with friends who were visiting from Germany. We took in the Just For Laughs festival, saw the old port, and had some wonderful meals.

But then, in 2020, when the pandemic hit, we didn't travel much. If we left Ottawa, it was to see Kid 1, who was studying in the Greater Toronto Area. Kid 2 moved to Toronto in the fall of 2021, so that sealed our fate against travelling east of home.

The other day, Google Photos prompted me with memories of another visit to Montreal, in August of 2018. Mind you, it was to the west of the metropolitan area, off the island, in Vaudreuil-Dorion, but still part of the metropolis of Montreal.

DW was able to snag a deal at Château Vaudreuil, right where Highway 40 spans over to the Island of Montreal. We had seen this resort hotel countless times on our way into the city, but in all that time I had never imagined staying there. But the deal was hard to beat and it would be a nice family getaway, so there we were.

There really wasn't anything to do but to relax at the Château. Being right against the highway and along the shore of the Baie de Vaudreuil, you had to get in your car to get to anywhere else.

Or, you could get in a kayak.

The resort loaned out canoes and kayaks, and we were hoping to get the kids to join us on the water. The last time we paddled as a family was on the Dordogne River, in France, in 2014.

The kids were content to just lounge in the gardens or dip their toes in the water along the dock, so DW and I grabbed a couple of kayaks and headed out.

Mind you, this was in early August of 2018, nearly two years before DW and I would buy our own kayaks. Though we had puttered around in kayaks in the past and we had considered buying kayaks a few years earlier, we were pretty novice.

They were sit-on-top Pelican kayaks and pretty easy to manage. We stuck to the shoreline and headed toward Île-aux-Tourtes, or Pie Island, where we passed through a channel that went under the Highway 40 bridge and into the Lake of Two Mountains—though again, we stuck to the shoreline of the island.

Seeing these photos from 2018 and remembering that short getaway (we only stayed one night), it made me miss Montreal even more. Perhaps DW and I will make another day trip, later in August or in early September.

And just maybe, we'll bring our kayaks.

Happy Thursday!