DEFEATING WINTER

HOW MONTREAL WAGES A $166-MILLION BATTLE AGAINST SNOW EVERY SINGLE YEAR TO KEEP ITS STREETS AND SIDEWALKS CLEAR

- TRACEY LINDEMAN

WELCOME TO THE GARBAGE hole. The sulphuric, rotten-egg stench coming off the heaps of brown sludge at Montreal’s Francon snow depot is putrid even on a cold, grey March day. Here, in this former quarry, the melt of early spring has revealed crumpled laundry detergent bottles, the petrified carcass of a badminton birdie, used tampon applicators, and other shards of hardened, forgotten plastic. It’s the stuff you think is destined for landfill or recycling when you toss it, but instead, it ends up on the street, then in the path of a snowplow, and then on a dump truck, then at the snow dump. The trash mingles with mountains of snow stained by a cocktail of pollutants, releasing a nauseating assault on the senses.

This is the final resting place for snow removal in Montreal. This city spends more than any other in the world on picking up snow and putting down salt on its 10,000 kilometers of roads: in 2019–2020, its snow removal budget hit $166.4 million.

I meet with city spokesperson Philippe Sabourin at the gate of Francon in mid-March 2020. Most of the season’s snow has already fallen in Montreal, and it’s still early enough in the COVID-19 pandemic that in-person meetings are permissible. Still, we get into our own vehicles and head into the pit, descending on muddy gravel roads. Suddenly, the hilly landscape parts and the floor of the human-made canyon sprawls out in front of us. Its vastness surprises me.