From industrial highway to developer's paradise, Montreal's Lachine Canal turns 200

It used to be that on New Year's Eve, people living along Montreal's Lachine Canal would throw open their doors to hear the nearby factories blow their horns when the clocks struck midnight.

That's one of the stories historian Steven High has heard over and over again from people who lived in the working-class neighbourhoods that bordered the canal. Most of those factories are gone now, and today's canal, lined by bike paths and loft condos, would be largely unrecognizable to a time traveller from the 1940s.

There are certain landmarks that remain, familiar to many Montrealers — the neon-red Farine Five Roses sign near the Old Port, for example, or the decaying Canada Malting silos further west.

But the Lachine Canal, which marks its 200th anniversary this year, is ever-changing. Over two centuries, it has been transformed from an industrial thoroughfare to a neglected backwater to a prime example of urban gentrification.

The canal is both an emblem and a microcosm of Montreal, a source of pride and debate. "It's a place where these forces are most visible in Montreal," said High, a professor at Concordia University.

"You go to the canal and you can see the city changing before your eyes."

The idea of a canal to bypass the Lachine Rapids upstream from Montreal is almost as old as the city itself. But early attempts to build one, beginning in the late 17th century, ended in failure.

It wasn't until 1821 that work began in earnest, driven by Montreal merchants who wanted to turn the city into a commercial hub by opening a passage up the St. Lawrence River. They felt the threat of the Erie Canal, then under construction, which would connect the Great Lakes to the Hudson River and turn New York City into a major port.

The 14-kilometre Lachine Canal, which opened in 1825, was built largely by Irish immigrants, who settled in the neighbourhood now called Griffintown, west of the old city.

The working conditions were hard, and a bloody labour conflict during an expansion of the canal in 1843 left several people dead.

The canal was the first link in a series of canals built along the St. Lawrence River that would allow ships to navigate between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, said Emilie Girard, a historian with L'usine à histoire(s), an organization offering heritage consulting.

It was expanded twice in its first 60 years to accommodate ever-larger ships.

The waterway also spurred a wave of industrial development in Montreal, with factories soon cropping up along its banks. They were drawn by the promise of hydraulic energy from the canal's locks, and by the convenience of dumping their waste straight into the channel.

By the early 20th century, High said, "it's wall-to-wall factories, right from one end to another."