Escales découvertes

The Discovery Halts project was conceived as part of the celebrations for the 375th anniversary of the founding of Montreal. Located on the Mount Royal Heritage Site, which includes 3 peaks, 4 cemeteries and 2 university campuses, the project was designed to draw visitors’ attention to intimate aspects of the mountain, its unique landscape and its history. Distinct from traditional interpretive path options, the approach relies on intuition and introspection. It’s a project that combines landscape, wayfinding and interpretation, enabling visitors to find their way around, but above all to better perceive the geography of the area.

Subtle and poetic, a collection of 50 landscape interventions mark the territory: hints, stops and three-dimensional maps. The clues, truncated granite cones arranged in groups of two or three, feature brief inscriptions evoking an element of the landscape or the history of the site. Stops offer passers-by the chance to pause and contemplate an inside view of the mountain. Phrases written by ten Montreal poets are engraved in stone. The twelve three-dimensional maps, cast in bronze, are positioned near access points to the heritage site. They reflect the distinctive topography of Mount Royal and its three peaks.