The Habitat Montreal Skyline

A typical brisk late November day - below freezing with a strong wind rippling the harbour waters. The trees have dropped all their leaves. Did I mention - winter is coming?

Every now and then I'll post an older photograph.  This one was taken in July of this year, showing where the sun sets in the summer.  It is actually directly behind Notre Dame Cathedral. It will move slowly to the right until the summer solstice, then it slides over to the left until it is out of the field of view, like now.

 Cold and windy yesterday, with snow flurries.  Winter is definitely coming.

Turns out the strange looking work vessel is a cheap dredger - out it came at night, the excavator-on-a-barge scooping up dirt and loading it onto another barge beside it.  I hope there's no life down there being disturbed...

Ahhh....last night we had another one of those nice sunsets.  At 4:30 pm!  The sky to the left, out of the field of view, was actually brilliant, the sun now sets more to that side.  Most people think this view of the city is looking "north", but is in fact more west than north.  The island of Montreal lies diagonally in the St. Lawrence river.

Bright reflection off the new glass tower on the Alexandra Pier. And an unusual work vessel moored directly in front of Habitat. There is also a yacht with wooden masts to the right, behind the nice rust coloured tree.

 The warship is all lit up at night. I guess to keep the riff-raff away.

Cruise ship is gone.  Replaced by a warship!  Not sure which country it's from, but it stuck around for a few days protecting our harbour.  It's getting cold out there! Winter is coming.

On Monday likely the last cruise ship of the year left the harbour. Poor souls had to contend with grey skies and snow flurries!  Note the white strip of concrete lining the near side of the harbour - the port authority dug up all the greenery/bushes/trees that were growing there, and replaced them with the long slab.  Their intent is to "beautify" the harbourfront and create a pedestrian walkway.  

I was away for a couple of weeks, returned to this beautiful early morning view.  Montreal is quite a nice city to come back to, if you ignore politics. Mind you, politics these days in other places are considerably worse, if not deadly.   You can see the trees lining the city side of the harbour in full fall splendour; I wish I could say the same about the mountain, but it is all but obscured by those ugly buildings.  Note the sun, rising in the east, reflecting off one of those newer buildings, the brutalist CHUM superhospital.  And I say that with grudging respect, Habitat 67 also being considered brutalist architecture!