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saint lawrence river

Good beaches near Montreal are a hard find. You're often left to choose between the brown waters of the Saint Lawrence River or some pungent, stagnant lake with dead bugs floating at the surface. There are some hidden gems, however. The beach at parc Jules-Léger in Saint-Anicet might be one.

The park occupies a small point that juts out into the Saint Lawrence. The beach itself is no more than an approximately 10-metre long water access point alongside a small pier. But the one-hour-15-minute trek from Montreal to this humble public dock has a big payoff: sweeping westward views of the river and clear water that occasionally takes on a bright blue or emerald hue.

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On January 15 at 7:15 p.m., Urgences-Santé Québec rescued a 19-year-old woman after she accidentally fell into the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal's Old Port. She was able to call emergency services herself.

The Service de sécurité incendie de Montréal intervened for her rescue and Urgences-Santé Québec sent advanced care paramedics, primary care paramedics and the Groupe d'intervention médicale tactique (GIMT), an Urgences-Santé spokesperson told MTL Blog.

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Montreal police found the body of a 17-year-old girl by the water on the LaSalle side of the Mercier Bridge on Tuesday afternoon. A 911 call around 12:30 p.m. reported what appeared to be an unconscious youth. Officers located the teen around 2:45 p.m. and it took paramedics some time to reach the body. Her death was later confirmed.

"We believe she slipped and injured herself, which led to her death," said SPVM spokesperson Raphael Bergeron.

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It may be a sad end for one of the whales that visited Montreal earlier this month, but maybe not. The carcass of a minke whale was spotted by a fisherman in the waters of the Sainte Lawrence River near Contrecoeur, in the Monteregie, just under an hour north of Montreal.

Earlier this month, a couple of the aquatic mammals were seen swimming near Île-Sainte-Hélène, a rare sight for one, let alone two whales to be seen that far from the sea.

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Montreal's regional transit authority is expanding its summer river shuttle service after testing the waters with last year's single-stop pilot project. Starting in June, you'll be able to catch a water taxi in Montreal's Old Port and coast to more destinations, including Île Sainte-Hélène, Longueuil, Boucherville, and Pointe-aux-Trembles. Routes between Bellerive and Charron Island, and Boucherville and Bellerive will also be available.

Walking or biking to off-island destinations can be taxing, so the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) is hoping you'll take a water taxi instead. But the

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There's a new whale in town, Montreal. Experts confirmed the mammal's arrival on May 9. It's the first documented sighting of a minke whale so far upriver, according to the Groupe de recherche et d'éducation sur les mammifères marins (GREMM), but the second time in two years a whale has made its way to the city.

In 2020, a female humpback whale met a tragic end after spending days near Montreal's Old Port and Parc Jean-Drapeau.

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The Montreal map can be disorienting for even the best navigators. First, of course, the orientation of our streets so that they're parallel to the Saint Lawrence River means that Montreal's north is more like west and its west is more like south (so Montréal-Ouest is actually directly south of Montréal-Nord, which itself is farther south than Montréal-Est).

Then there's the geography itself: The urban area sits on an archipelago of oddly shaped islands stitched haphazardly together in a web of bridges and tunnels.

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City of Montreal. Island of Montreal. Agglomeration of Montreal. Montreal metropolitan community. All called Montreal. Not all the same thing.

A diagram and map of Montreal by local researcher Raymundo Cassani illustrate all the official definitions that divide the urban area.

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After nearly two years of work on the construction, these new Quebec cabins suspended 10 metres in the air at Repère Boréal are finally open for visitors, providing the most spectacular views!

This site in Quebec's Charlevoix region is a four-hour drive from Montreal, but undoubtedly worth the mini road trip.

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New renderings of the proposed Montreal REM de l'Est aim to quell residents' concerns that the light-rail network would become an eyesore and nuisance in the dense neighbourhoods of downtown and East End Montreal.

The renderings emphasize a narrower footprint for the aerial structures, various-shaped pillars and a rounded deck that's meant to resemble the hull of a ship on the Saint Lawrence River.

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Might be time to take some swimming lessons. A series of maps by a team at Western University shows what major flooding in Montreal and across Canada could look like in the future.

While there are limitations to the projections, the maps offer a troubling look into what future flooding could bring.

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Montreal is getting another beach. On Sunday, Mayor Valérie Plante announced a commitment to open the shore of the Promenade-Bellerive, a riverside park in Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, to swimming.

On its website, the city says the park "is the only physical and visual access point to the Saint Lawrence River" in the borough.

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