Good Question, Montreal

June is Pride Month, especially in the U.S. Montreal’s Pride festivities are in August, but this wasn’t always the case. We’ll hear from Montrealers who had a hand in organizing Pride at various times in its history and hear how, in each era, the 2SLGBTQ+ community channeled political and social struggle into the movement of protest and celebration that we know today.

From Verdun to Rosemont to NDG, it seems like wild turkeys have been popping up all over Montreal in recent years. They’ve spurred a lot of curiosity and even delight from Montrealers, but we have seen some human-turkey conflict arise. We’ll hear about what life is like for a big bird in the big city, and how we can get along without ruffling any feathers.

Ribbed like a pumpkin, but with a spiderweb exterior like a cantaloupe, the Montreal melon was a wildly popular fruit in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It graced the dining tables of the finest U.S. hotels and was literally fit for a king. It was cultivated by local producers, particularly in Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, but it all but vanished by the 1950s. We’ll hear about efforts to revive the Montreal melon, and why some say it’s overdue for a comeback.

As we heard last week, it’s not always easy to find spaces to plant trees in a city. That’s where tiny forests come in. What started in Japan has become a worldwide movement to plant densely-packed pockets of vegetation in cities, including Montreal. CBC reporter Ben Shingler shares his documentary.

Big ice storms, pests, drought: there are lots of threats facing urban trees. In a special two-part episode, one Montrealer asks how the city is making sure our trees can withstand climate change…and won’t take out power lines when they fall. And a Pincourt school bus driver asks what’s happening with all the trees being cut down for the new Île-aux-Tourtes bridge?

This question came from a 9-year-old boy who is curious about our sewer system, so you’d better believe we took him and his dad on a field trip to Montreal’s wastewater treatment plant! We find out what happens to the water we use and what we can do to make it cleaner before we send it back into the environment.

Teeth-rattling, rim-shattering, hub-cap-catapulting potholes seem to be everywhere you turn in Montreal. Sometimes they lurk underneath puddles, just waiting to throw you off your bike, or damage your car. So why are there so many, and why do they keep coming back? We’ll dig beneath the surface to find out.

If you’ve ever bought a lottery ticket or placed a bet at a Quebec casino, you may have wondered where that money ends up. How much of the money that Montrealers gamble ends up invested back into services that they use? Turns out there are limits to how far we can follow the dollars. We’ll talk about how our system stacks up with some other jurisdictions.

For more than a century, the name Christophe-Colomb Avenue has appeared on Montreal street signs. The Italian-born navigator is known for leading several voyages for the Spanish crown to what we now know as the Americas. While he never set foot in Quebec, many places in the province bear his name. But throughout history, many have argued that he should not be commemorated, because of his legacy of cruelty and slavery of Indigenous peoples. We’ll look at Columbus the man, Columbus the symbol and talk about how we should reckon with streets and monuments named after historical figures.

From 1923 to 1983, the sounds of a rumbling roller coaster, carnival games, and the laughter of a giant animatronic woman invited people to Belmont Park, an amusement park along the Des Prairies river in Cartierville. Its wild history ties together a former prime minister, a Quebec superstar singer, a Guinness World Record and a police raid. The reasons for its closure are tied up in municipal politics and commercial rivalry, and also reflect how life and leisure in Montreal changed throughout the middle of the 20th century.

*This episode includes research by Sandra Hercegova