It’s over. Tonight we graduate. I have two more weeks in Montreal to roam the streets and then I’m on the road, trucking home. This past week we’ve been debriefing our time here, asking ourselves what we’ve soaked in from this city. We were asked to write a prayer for Montreal and share it with the group. I’ve decided to share it with you as well.

A PRAYER FOR MONTREAL

Montreal is like the shy girl in school who is suspicious of why you are smiling at her. But how could you not? Every time you look deeper, you find something about her that makes you love her more. She won’t show herself too quickly though. She knows about the rumors. She knows what they say about her. “She’s a tease, with a strip club on every corner. She’s just following the trends.” She’ll only let you in if you gain her trust, and that takes time.

She never let me in fully. but I’m not going home empty-handed. I learned to love her despite rejection. And despite her cold shoulder, I haven’t given up just yet. I still have something to tell her; that I love her, and her father does, too. They were separated at birth, it seems. And she rebelled against the thought of him as a teenager. But he’s found her, and he wants her back. “Come back to me,” he says. We both know why she’s so hesitant. But we also know he’s the best thing for her. If only she’ll trust and see.

Help her to trust, Lord. Help her to see.

I went anyway. I figured people are more important than obligations, especially people who are good friends, like Jenna.

Most of this story was already written, but wordpress decided it wasn’t worth saving, even though I actually pressed the save button to make sure it was saved. I would be pulling my hair out right now, but I’m using my hands to type. I might skip some stuff, just because I’m running low on patience.

So yeah, I went. I’ll save you the trouble of reading about the bus ride there. Not much happened. I finished my book, “Sophie’s World.” It’s a novel about the history of philosophy. Needless to say, I liked it.

My friendship with Jenna pretty much consists of numerous text messaging and the occasional moment on skype. So we texted ourselves to each other when I got to Toronto, did the whole hug off, and I met her/our friend Jenn. The original plan was to book it back to Hamilton to hang out at the bar Jenna works at, but Jenn wanted us to stay in Toronto, so we did. We had a great time. Went back to Jenn’s amazingly cheap apartment in relation to location, talked music and life a little, and then hit the streets. Jenn’s DJ friend was supposed to be doing something at this place “Campus Club” or something like that, so we headed in that direction. But it didn’t look worth the $5 cover so we left. The event organizer was a sworn enemy of Jenna’s or something like that, plus the bouncers looked more like chaperones. We walked for awhile and then Jenn remembered this place called “the Boat” that sometimes played ’50s music, so we went to go take a look. When we got there they were playing African tribal music, people were flinging their limbs all over the place, and the guy who asked for our ID looked like a back-alley Robert Plant. Also not worth $5. So we just went home to Jenn’s. We had a good time anyway, hey girls? It was great.

In the morning, Jenn fed us bagels and fruit and we headed out the door (but not before I nearly forgot all my bags in her apartment). Jenna and I took the bus to Hamilton and walked to her place, which is in a neighborhood a lot like yours was here, Mom. Maybe it was… (duhn, duhn, DUNNNNNN!!!) Anyway, we hung out there for awhile, overcooked some french fries, watched “Almost Famous,” and generally had a good time. That evening we relaxed in the hot tub until her/our friends Scott and Jesse showed up to go ddddancing. I don’t remember the name of the place we went to, but it wasn’t too bad. As always, the first few moments were awkward. Apparently I missed this in Toronto, but if you go out on the town with Jennalane, chances are you will bump into someone she knows. This was definitely true at the place we went to. Everywhere we turned, she was talking to someone new. I couldn’t keep up, so I didn’t bother. It took a bit for me to warm up, but I ended up legitimately getting my dance on. It helped that Scott and Jesse dance a lot like I do; you know, shaking limbs and having fun. Later on, these two scantily clad women who had these chochy guys around them were dancing near us and joined the fun. It was a little weird, but we rolled with it.

We went to Jenna’s church in the morning. Her CanRef friends Justine and Catherine picked us up and we headed on out. Justine got pulled over on the highway for speeding, but the cop was really nice. Only gave her a small ticket. It helped that we told him where we were going I think. Jenna goes to a Pentacostal Church, so the worship time was pretty great. Her pastor, who she apparently loves, wasn’t there so we had a guest speaker. She was pretty nuts. To wrap it all up nicely, she pretty much said not to listen to all this fear-mongering about the economy and to trust in God. She also prophesied that it would be a good year for the church financially, which was pretty interesting. I’m not really used to that kind approach on a Sunday morning, so it was a little difficult to understand. But I came out unscathed. We had a good chat about speaking in tongues afterward. Overall, a challenging but nurturing way to spend a Sunday. Not too shabby.

We lazed about pretty heavily for the rest of the day. Jenna’s pretty-much-adoptive sister Breanne came by with her boyfriend from Georgia, who doesn’t sound at all like he’s from Georgia by the way. We chatted a bit, and then they drove us to the bus station. She came with me to Toronto, we talked about when we will ever see each other again, and then parted ways as I got on the bus. It wasn’t too bad on the way home. An army guy sat beside me till Kensington, and then I got to stretch out and get some sleep. I didn’t get to Montreal till 3:45 in the morning. The station’s in a pretty shady part of town, but I tried to walk up rue St. Denis anyway to try to catch a night bus. Saw some pretty creepy and/or drunk folk on the way, so after watching a bus drive by, I found a cab. It was warm inside and the driver was nice. My broken French and his broken English got us by. I went home and slept.

The End.

Has Thursday now been engulfed into the weekend? It sure seemed that way last weekend. Thursday night I went to choir practice (I joined the gospel choir at River’s Edge, my church here) and afterward went out with Michelle, Sarah and Cemba (is that how you spell it? Let me know). We went to “The Irish Embassy,” an Irish pub on rue Bishop, and met up with Michelle’s friend Ian and had a blast. Sarah and I found out that we’re both Dutch. Pretty awesome. She’s from Calgary. I haven’t asked her about whether she knows the Jagers yet. I’ll do that tomorrow. After the pub, we went for poutine at this awesome little hole in the ground. Michelle drove us around, so I don’t really know where this place was, but it was great. A real mom&pop kind of place. Added bonus: they were playing the Stephan Colbert Report on the TV. I didn’t pay much attention to it because we were too busy laughing about I don’t remember what, but it was good to see. It was a good time. We will repeat after practice tomorrow.

Friday night was equally as exciting and with completely different people. Dave, a new friend from church, was playing the drums for his friend’s band at this fundraiser, so Julia, her man Michael and I went to go see. They were raising money to raise awareness about (primarily native) women who had gone missing in the city. The whole thing was in this loft in the middle of an industrial area. Exactly what you picture when you think ‘artsy loft concert.’ Open room, used furniture, white walls with odd art displayed, paint peeling of the ceiling, make-shift bar in the back by the barred windows; you get the picture. The first girl who performed was actually really good. She played some sweet folk tunes of her own. I think she picked up a new instrument for every song. Pretty great. After her, it got a little weird. Dave had warned me that the band he was drumming for was really dark and strange. They weren’t the only ones. At one point, a women was birthed from a sheet/womb wrapped in red ribbon. Some native women drummed and sang some traditional songs, that was pretty cool. A girl played the keyboard and sang her songs. She kind of reminded me of Rachel Boldt, but not half as good. Then Dave’s band played.

They were all wearing “wigs.” If Mozart’s wig was thrown together in five minutes, it would look like some of these. Someone had written a story about animal creatures rebellion against man or something like that, and it was displayed on a slide or two. The instruments included electro-noise, improvised guitar, Dave banging away, and four girls sing/yelling at the top of their lungs. Dave and the girls sounded surprisingly good. The others could have used some melody. I suggested a bari-sax. Something to fill out the sound a little more. Oh, and then there were the dancers. We had one guy with a cardboard deer strapped to his back and two people with paper mache heads on top of their heads. Pretty creepy. At one point, the deer guy was under a net, and the extra head people were killing it or something. I’m not sure.

Saturday night was Michael’s last night here before heading back to Germany, so Julia, he and I went to the Casa del Popolo to see what was going on there. Nothing was going on there. Well, they had a dj who mixed Steve Miller Band in with his electronica. I sang along. Other than that, we just sat and talked a little. I like that place. I feel pretty comfortable there.

I showed up to church at 12:11 on Sunday. The service starts at 11:11. You get the picture. Pastor Lorenzo was away, so they had filmed him preaching and were showing it up on their screens. Couldn’t they have just gotten a visiting preacher or something? I couldn’t concentrate. Too busy deciding which screen to watch. Afterward I went with Dominique, another church friend, and some other people to a greek restaurant. The conversation never went past other restaurants, the terrible service at the one we were at, and where everyone was from. I spent the last 20 minutes planning my escape.

That pretty much covers everything. This week we have Marc from GBU (the French version of Intervarcity) teaching us about apologetics. It gets better as the week passes. Kind of a hard things to talk about when everyone in the room believes in God, but it’s not too bad.

Oh, I almost forgot. Crappy deal. You remember Jenna, the one that almost died in that bus accident. Well she’s going through the “now or never” part of recovery and wanted me to come visit in Ontario this weekend. She was even willing to fork over the cash for the bus ride and everything. I was really stoked to go, and then I realized the choir was singing this Sunday. Emailed the choir director and explained the situation (friend almost died and wants me to come visit, could I skip out on Sunday), and she said no. Lame. Super lame. I’m going next weekend instead. But this weekend worked out so well otherwise. It sucks. I’ll live. We’ll live Jennalane. See you next weekend. I’ll still talk to Carol, try to convince her. Not making any promises though.

It has been too long, people. Too much has happened. I might miss some significant things. And this may also be quite long.

Two weeks ago we had a speaker come in named Dave Skene. He’s one of the head YWAMCanada guys and just recently moved onto Commercial Drive in Vancouver with his wife. Cool dude. He talked about justice with us the whole week. Reminded me of a lot of the things I was concerned with in high school, like how the North American normal way of life destroys the rest of the world. The problems just kept piling up, and we all felt overwhelmed. But on Thursday he got us to think of what things bothered us the most. Out of all the problems and injustice in the world, what bugged us personally? What punched us in the gut? We were told to write them down and share if we felt so inclined. Here’s what I said made me angry:

things that cause me pain
•   when evil is done in God’s name
o   sexual abuse from religious leaders
o   colonization
o   crusades
o   rejection of homosexuals and other people with “alternative” lifestyles
o   things that throw Jesus’ name in the dirt
•   manipulation
•   organized, intentional corruption

He woke something up that was sleeping. Thanks Dave.

One night at Cremazie, he and I had a two or three hour strong conversation about cafes and the like. He had been thinking about opening one awhile back, and had piles of information to share. Made me want to learn how to roast my own beans. We will definitely see each other again. I’ll see to that.

Not much happened last week until Friday, when Nick showed up. That was awesome, hey Nick? Hadn’t seen you in a long time! I went to pick him up at the airport, but got awful directions from google maps, and ended up at the Boeing and Air Canada headquarters instead. Ended up in the middle of nowhere at some bus stop by a mall when Nick called me and said that he had taken the bus to Station Centrale and where does he need to go now. I kind of told him what was going on (there were a lot of loud teenagers around, so I couldn’t really properly speak to him) and to meet me at the metro station named “Sauvé.” Twenty minutes after he got there, I showed up and we hugged and grabbed his stuff. After getting him all nestled in, we went out and had our first public beer together as brothers. A good bonding experience.

What did we do on Saturday, Nick? I don’t remember. It was so long ago now. Right. We went walking around Le Plateau. I showed you where Matt Gee lives and then we went to some cool record shops. That punk one was especially cool, with it’s fair trade coffee. We talked shop with the owner there. He advised us to stay out of the music retail industry. I’ll think about it.

On Sunday, Bado and I were singing in the choir at church, so we had to be there early. Nick went with Julia and her boyfriend Michael and we saw them from the stage. In case I haven’t said this already, Bado and I joined the gospel choir at the church we’re going to, River’s Edge. We heard them at Christmas, and immediately both of us wanted to join. They were low on men and were asking for some to step up, so that’s what we did. During practices, I found it difficult to get into the spirit of it all, but once we got on stage and were actually praising the Lord with it, I couldn’t contain myself. I got really into it. More than I usually do. It was a great experience. And the sermon that week was awesome, too. Another butt kicker. Apparantly I need a lot of those.

Other things Nick and I did before Evelyn showed up on Thursday: we went walking around Old Montreal, found a cool gallery where people were painting black and white cartoons all over the walls, we walked up Mont Royal and took some pictures in the cloudy weather, watched a couple movies, drank some more beer, ate at Frites Alors!, bonded. All in all, a good week. A memorable week.

On Thursday I had volunteering to do. I’m helping teach a little girl how to read Braille, and for the first time she started reading words. I didn’t even understand how incredible this was until her teacher found out and went nuts and got all teary-eyed. It was pretty exciting, I must admit. Oh, and I brought my saxophone to play for all the kids. The little girl (I’m not supposed to give them names on the internet) got to come into the class I’m in when I’m not with her and listen. It was pretty fun.

Afterward, I went to Cremazie to pick up some laundry I had done earlier in the week, when I saw Nick busking in the metro station there. So naturally, I put my stuff down and joined him for a couple songs. Then some guy came by and showed us the hidden schedule, so we sang a few more while he waited for his violinist, and then ran off home to talk to Glenn Davies on ichat.

Glenn is Darrell’s best friend Drew’s dad. He’s planting a church and starting a cafe/bookstore in Squamish. He wants a few young people to join him and help get the new student community there to feel comfortable in his space. Nick and I want to go help him out for a couple years. We have this crazy dream of owning our own cafe/book etc. shop some day, and think this is an awesome opportunity to gain some experience. I’m excited about it. It will give me a perfect way of using what I’ve learned here. Glenn and his son seem pretty keen on it too. God is tying up loose ends, giving us direction.

That evening Evelyn showed up on our doorstep. A great moment: I get a call, asking for a reminder of what my address is. I say, “6979″ and get an, “Aw crap,” on the other end of the line. By this time I’m heading toward the door as I correct myself, “Sorry no, 9679,” I say, as I look at Evelyn through the window of the door, open it, and give her a big hug as she waves off her relatives and says, “Merci.” The three of us laughed about it for a little while, got her settled in, and went back to that micro-brewery that Dan and I went to when he came in December. It was super full in there, but we managed to get a table and had an awesome time there catching up. Apparently she and Fiona are going to Guatemala as soon as I come back? That kind of sucks. But you guys are going to have an awesome time serving. I really believe in this trip of yours. You will bless and be blessed more than you know.

Friday we DTS students inconveniently had to help out at the food bank. From 8:00 to 4:00. Evelyn and Nick spent the day shopping mostly, from what I was told, but I ended up having a great time filling big boxes with small boxes. No really, it was surprisingly fun. It was like building puzzles all day long. Plus they have thrift clothes there and I got a new cardigan for $5. It is pretty cool. The lady that was telling us what to do all day was awesome. She had this cackle that’s still ringing in my ears and the strongest Quebecois accent I’ve ever heard for an extended period of time. Pretty awesome.

Friday night was an adventure. Nick heard of this “A Gogo Lounge” from Elliot, so we went out to find it. We had looked it up on Google Maps, but obviously didn’t pay enough attention, because we made every wrong turn we could have. We had called Matt earlier so he could join us, so we had to text a couple times to make sure he wasn’t waiting for us. Once we got there someone (I won’t mention names) realized she forgot her ID at the apartment. So we went all the way back, Nick ran and got the ID while Ev and I stayed back at the metro station, and went back, only to be ushered without glance by a different bouncer. The place was just like how Elliot and the internet had described it, except with less old music than I was hoping for. It was pretty packed, but we noticed a few people getting up to leave, so we quickly snagged their table. There was a lot of people watching/outfit critiquing going on while we chose our drinks and waited for Matt. I get a text saying that he had been waiting in a nearby gas station and that he was on his way, and finally we see him out the window, waiting in line. Ten minutes later he calls me. I can’t hear a word, so I go to the closet-sized bathroom, only to hear him say that the place only lets people 21 and older in. He gives me a message for Nick, and as I sit down he waves goodbye through the window. It was a sad moment. I kind of felt bad for not just leaving and finding some other place, but he left kind of quickly. One thing we did realize, though. If we had been ID’d the second time, Nick and Evelyn wouldn’t have made it in either. We decided we would take advantage of their blunder and order another round.

Saturday morning, Nick woke me up at 6:30 to say goodbye. I got up, helped him carry his stuff to the door, we had a good hug, and he was off. I went back to sleep.

I had been noticing a cold coming on Friday night. By Saturday morning it was a pretty drastic sinus infection, but that didn’t stop Ev and me from going out for breakfast at the Chez Cora, did it Ev! Yum. That’s all I have to say. That morning was one of the best. Great food, great company, great conversation, just awesome all around. It’ll go down in the books, despite the stuffy nose. Afterward we head the the Musee des Beaux Arts to see some awesome, Dutch art from Vandogen. If you don’t know (I didn’t) he was a good friend of Picasso. It doesn’t really come out in his paintings, but they were buds. Most of his stuff revolves around women. Some of it was simply amazing. The guy could paint. There were a few moments where we both kind of questioned his view of women, but you couldn’t deny the gift. Pretty awesome.

Afterward we were both pretty pooped, and I was feeling a lot worse, so we just came back to the apartment, cooked/burned some turnip fries and watched “The Darjeeling Limited,” one of my favorites. I love that movie. Such a feel gooder. We enjoyed ourselves tremendously.

Sunday morning I woke up super early (we had gone to be at 9:45 or something) and read before making coffee. Ev woke up at 5:45, we drank our joe, and headed out the door with her stuff. Did the big hug-off at the bus station, and I went back to the apartment to sleep off a really bad cold. I woke up just in time for a sermon, so I went to church. Just around the corner from the church some lady tried to get a parking spot and ended up getting stuck on a piece of ice. I tried to help her, ended up in the driver’s seat (hadn’t done that in almost six months) and then two other guys came by and we got it out of there. I saw her later at church. After the service, I talked to one of the guy’s I’ve seen drumming there, along with his friend, and then of course Julia and Michael. We went to a cool cafe a block away from the church that we had been wanting to go to. Pretty cool place. And they had all Jack White’s music playing on shuffle, which was a bonus.

That was pretty much it. I went home and slept after that. The cold is gone now. It’s already been almost a week since then, but I’m tired, and if I went into this week too, I’d have to call this a book and get an editor and everything, and I’m just not in the mood.

Here are the rest of them so far. I forgot my camera in Montreal, so there’s nothing from Hamilton/Toronto. sorry.

This one works well as an ender. We pretty much look like this every day. Kind of sad, I know. What has technology done to us?

For the second week of holidays my good friend Jon denHaan came to visit in Hamilton. We had some pretty great times, eh Jon? We did. You all missed out. I’m not even kidding. Auntie Margaret kept on spoiling us through the whole week, making breakfast ready and letting us sleep in to unknown hours. I almost felt guilty accepting it all. Almost.

There was a little mix up on Saturday, picking up Jon. You see, when we first talked on facebook about him coming, he said he’d probably come on Monday, the 29th. Later on he changed that to Saturday, the 27th, but I only recorded the days in my head. So when I told Auntie Margaret when he would arrive, I said the 29th. So we were expecting him then. Then I get a phone call from Jon’s mom at 4:00 Saturday afternoon, saying that Jon is in Toronto and will be in Hamilton in an hour. Dang. It turned out alright, though. Auntie Marg and I went to pick him up and they both laughed at me.

Sunday we went to Auntie Marg’s church again, and the pastor brought up Wall-E in his sermon as an example of how even our culture knows that our world is being destroyed. I guess it was a nice reference. Did you see that yet? It’s pretty good. Best thing to come from Disney in a long time. The people kind of wreck it half way through, but it’s decent.

I’m going to pretty well skip Monday. I don’t quite recall what we did, but I know it wasn’t much. Tuesday was much more exciting. We made some Ole Bolen. For those unDutch folks out there, Ole Bolen is about the greatest Dutch tradition ever to hit New Year’s Eve. What we do is make a sweet batter with raisins and peeled apple chunks in it, spoon some of the sticky stuff up, and deep fry it. What you get is a kind of doughnut that you dip in icing sugar and eat to your heart’s content (or demise, depending on how you look at it). They were pretty great. That’s pretty much all we ate for the rest of the week. Well, that’s not true, Auntie Margaret cooked some pretty tasty meals. We did eat a lot of Ole Bolen though. Man.

We also went out into Hamilton Tuesday afternoon to check out the city, form an opinion about the place. I don’t think we really did it justice with only one afternoon, but I think Jon and I both gave it a resounding “meh.” I did enjoy the fact that it reminded me of the Potma side of the family a lot, though. It’s hard to pinpoint why exactly, but for some reason it reminded me of train sets and doll houses. There seemed to be an exponential amount of figurine stores. And there’s one street where the old train station and tracks are kind of still in tact. The one all-one-shade-of-green building that looked like had just been placed from above gave it that train set feel too, I guess.

Thank you Nathan, for introducing me to your friends. I first contacted Scott Aasman, to see what he was up to for New Year’s. But he was going to a cottage, so you know what he did? He got Sarah Van Popta to call us and invite us to the Lodder’s New Year’s Party, which was so fun. We played telephone pictionary, brought the New Year in with The Bible and song, walked around a tacky, public, Christmas light display and warmed ourselves by a restaurant’s fire. Pretty great. We were supposed to go sledding with them the following New Year’s Day, but the bailed because of the cold. Apparently, -20 isn’t sledding weather. Wimps. Sarah did invite us to come to Toronto with her and some other friends on Friday though, which we did.

Toronto, it’s alright. We saw this really strange absurdist film with Philip Seymour Hoffman in it called “Synecdoche New York.” It was strange and sad and I don’t like talking about it much, but I liked it. It had some gold moments. Afterward we went to this dive bar called “Imperical Pub” or something like this. You should have seen this place. The bathrooms were hallways and they had a pile of beer boxes lining the back wall. It was awesome though. They were playing this “Sinatra, on Sirius” station, which brought jarring class to the place. And they had a phonebooth built into the wall, which was pretty cool. We had seen this guy painted brown and dressed like a cowboy robot-dancing to Daft Punk for money earlier, and while we were there he came in, already drunk and ready for more. He was pretty harmless though. He didn’t talk to us.

There was this moment during the movie that seemed just perfect. We’re sitting in the second front row and no one knows what’s going on and suddenly I feel a hand grab my foot. Jenna, one of the new friends, was crawling out for popcorn. And when she came back and offered some, it had ketchup and white cheddar powder on it. She had explained her obsession with popcorn earlier, but I hadn’t quite understood till then. Probably one of the strangest experiences of my life.

Saturday was spent packing, hugging and on the bus. It was already dark when I finally got to the apartment. Bado had just started “Lady and the Tramp” so we watched it together and then ate pasta for dinner. Julia came over and Thomas kicked all our butts in Dutch Blitz. Sorry for not representing properly, people. I blame it on the day of travelling.

This is our first report. I thought I’d share it with you, seeing as it’s about the neighborhood I live in. Don’t feel forced to read it. It’s a lot of history and statistics. But it’s interesting.

AHUNTSIC

Ahuntsic, located in the northeast end, is your average Montreal neighborhood. With 76,000 people, this district comprises nearly 5% of the total island population. Statistically, it is a mirror image of the city as a whole. Small differences that might exist are usually favorable to Ahuntsic. In areas such as poverty and education, for example, the unemployment rate in Ahuntsic is 8.7%, compared to 9.2% for the rest of the island. The average household salary is $57,699, three thousand dollars higher than the island average. Similarly in education, the percentage of people living in Ahuntsic without a high school diploma is 25%, as apposed to the 26.5% of Montreal.
So it comes as a surprise that we found family problems and juvenile delinquency in Ahuntsic. There are more single-parent homes per capita than in the overall city, which already has a lot. And percentage-wise, Ahuntsic has a worse juvenile delinquency problem than it’s neighboring district, Montreal Nord, which is known for its poverty and criminal activity.
Daniel, the owner of a local dépaneur, doesn’t like what he’s seeing. “I’ve lived in the area [for] 15 years and it’s changed a lot,” he says. “There’s more trouble now, more gangs.”
We’ve given you a pretty clear picture of what Ahuntsic is like today, but how did it all begin? How did we get here? Well, it began much the same way Quebec began, with French explorer Jacques Cartier sailing down the St. Lawrence River. We walked through the parc-nature de L’Îlle-de-la-Visitation to see how the first settlers established themselves. Walking through that part of the neighborhood, it didn’t take long for us to find Cartier’s name. The tallest church in the area had a large engraving by its doors, which spoke of his journey through the area in 1615. A lot of Ahuntsic’s history has to do with economics and religion. The Huron people traded with the French while the Catholic Church set up a mission to bring the Good News to the natives. The neighborhood is actually named after a young Huron boy who drowned with a priest, Father Nicolas Viel, in the river (we found this out by walking through another park, parc Ahuntsic).

The expansion of water transportation on the Rivière-des-Prairies formed Ahuntsic as Quebec developed, and continued with the opening of the metro in 1967. It officially became a municipality in 1897, by a proclamation of the Quebec provincial government. The council of the new village operated until 1910, when the province passed laws creating the charter of the City of Montreal. It was then annexed and later combined with Nouveau-Bordeaux, forming the district of Ahuntsic-Bordeaux. The city of Cartierville and Sault-au-Récollet were added in 1918. In 1952, following a land exchange, Ahuntsic took over part of Saint-Laurent. On January 1, 2002, Ahuntsic-Cartierville became one of the 27 boroughs of Montreal during the amalgamation.

Today Ahuntsic has become a mixing bowl for all the different people moving to Montreal. The growing immigrant population is a blend of Haitians (23%), Italians (22%) and Algerians (4.5%), mostly. This creates diversity, but it, along with neighboring poverty in Montreal Nord, also breeds violence. Gangs have become a problem in the district. There is a need for youth programs and/or ministries. Another concerning issue, which affects all of Montreal, is the number of single-parent families. Support for single parents is important in this neighborhood.
In a way, both of these things, multiculturalism and single-parent homes, are the cause of the gang situation in Ahuntsic. Single parents don’t have the support of a spouse, so their kids find community with their peers from their culture. And because all the different cultures are clashing, they form groups and fight each other. Helping mend this situation is where I think the Church can step in. By giving support to single parents and building relationships with the young people, we can give them an alternate community that doesn’t result in violence.

It’s a welcoming place, Ahuntsic. That’s why so many immigrants have made it their home. And with a little initiative from the local churches, Catholic, Marmon (Lebanese), Orthodox and Protestant alike, it can become as peaceful as it was back when Maurice “The Rocket” Richard was growing up here. There’s a lot of hope for Ahuntsic.

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