Legend has it that Mayor Jean Drapeau, soon after taking office in 1954, had the trees razed in Mount Royal Park in a fit of outrageous and excessive moral posturing.
His irrational fit of moral rectitude targeted homosexuality but severely damaged nature, according to this popular version.
A number of sources have repeated variations of this claim in recent times.
Let's cut through the forest in a hike up truth mountain.
Aerial images from 1947 demonstrate that the park was already relatively deforested prior to Drapeau's arrival
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Pressure to eliminate a wooded section of Mount Royal known as The Jungle, or Chez Claude, rang out in Montreal in 1953, prior to Drapeau's arrival in office.
The mountain's most shocking violent sex murder occurred in January 1945 when John Benson, 9, was killed by a pervert while the boy was cross country skiing on the hill.
Montreal police promised a fast arrest, claiming that they had information on all of the dangerous sex offenders in town at the time.
But Roland Chasse, 43, was only caught after being overheard speaking Benson's name in his sleep at a homeless shelter near city hall. He was sentenced to death and hanged.
Benson's death was invoked eight years later when the initiative to make the mountain safer gained steam.
The homosexuals were part of the violence problem, according to police as they were not only considered potential predators but potential victims as well, as police noted that thugs and extortionists targeted gays cruising in the woods.
(Mathieu Caron's otherwise excellent MA thesis notes that Raymond Trudeau, 6, was killed by Lucien Picard in The Jungle in July 1954 but in fact it appears that the boy was killed near his home near La Gauchetiere and Anderson.)
In August 1947 Armand Chartrand, 31, killed Cecile Carriere, 42. The two had been camping out in The Jungle for a couple of months. She died several days after he struck her in the head while in the park.
Many other violent incidents took place in the area, according to newspaper articles, and Robert Walker's article in the Montreal Herald of August 17, 1954 painted a horrific image of the Jungle as "a viper's nest of perverts and near insane alcoholics, yet children play nearby"... "children playing on the grass bordering Park Ave in the last of the sunlight are watched from less than 100 yards away by maniacs. Occasionally a child wanders too close to the maw of the jungle" .... "an officer would hesitate to send even two armed men to the scene. If it were learned that a man was molesting a child in the jungle he would favour calling two patrol cars and sending three constables on foot to help them."
Walker noted that on the night he slept among the vagrants a body was found suspended from a tree among the "gross indecency, stunned drunkenness. . what I saw was indescribably disgusting."
It can be noted that similar, more recent encampments, such as the Viger Park affair and Occupy movement camp in Montreal were also eventually dispersed by authorities, so the move to discourage people from sleeping in the park remains the prevalent reflex in such situations.
***
Montreal eventually hired a New York company to figure out three-part solution. 1-add lighting, which was lit in 1955 2-build Camielien Houde Road through the mountain to make it easier to access for safety purposes and 3-cut down the trees and bushes where the vagrants lived.
A team of 30 park employees began chopping trees and bushes of The Jungle in October 1957 in a two year initiative.
The work also aimed to eliminate sick trees and bushes and to plant 500 trees in another section of the mountain. Three thousand trees were chopped, mostly birches, with the aim of replacing them with evergreens and more robust trees. The forest was compact so in many cases the crews had to choose between which tree to allow to thrive and which to sacrifice.
One who advanced the narrative that park officials acted recklessly was the architect who designed the Beaver Lake Pavilion. "Nearly every low growing tree bush or shrub that could shelter a pair of lovers or hide a gangster has been ruthlessly cut down," wrote architect Hazen Sise, who bemoaned that the fewer trees caused his structure to look less appealing.
During their work the parks department officials never expressed the aim of advancing morality or eliminating an encampment. They said the sought to make the park more accessible.
His irrational fit of moral rectitude targeted homosexuality but severely damaged nature, according to this popular version.
A number of sources have repeated variations of this claim in recent times.
Let's cut through the forest in a hike up truth mountain.
 |
| 1947 aerial view of Mount Royal park shows lack of trees |
 |
| The Jungle, in blue, was razed in 1954 |
Montreal police promised a fast arrest, claiming that they had information on all of the dangerous sex offenders in town at the time.
But Roland Chasse, 43, was only caught after being overheard speaking Benson's name in his sleep at a homeless shelter near city hall. He was sentenced to death and hanged.
Benson's death was invoked eight years later when the initiative to make the mountain safer gained steam.
The homosexuals were part of the violence problem, according to police as they were not only considered potential predators but potential victims as well, as police noted that thugs and extortionists targeted gays cruising in the woods.
(Mathieu Caron's otherwise excellent MA thesis notes that Raymond Trudeau, 6, was killed by Lucien Picard in The Jungle in July 1954 but in fact it appears that the boy was killed near his home near La Gauchetiere and Anderson.)
In August 1947 Armand Chartrand, 31, killed Cecile Carriere, 42. The two had been camping out in The Jungle for a couple of months. She died several days after he struck her in the head while in the park.
Many other violent incidents took place in the area, according to newspaper articles, and Robert Walker's article in the Montreal Herald of August 17, 1954 painted a horrific image of the Jungle as "a viper's nest of perverts and near insane alcoholics, yet children play nearby"... "children playing on the grass bordering Park Ave in the last of the sunlight are watched from less than 100 yards away by maniacs. Occasionally a child wanders too close to the maw of the jungle" .... "an officer would hesitate to send even two armed men to the scene. If it were learned that a man was molesting a child in the jungle he would favour calling two patrol cars and sending three constables on foot to help them."
Walker noted that on the night he slept among the vagrants a body was found suspended from a tree among the "gross indecency, stunned drunkenness. . what I saw was indescribably disgusting."
It can be noted that similar, more recent encampments, such as the Viger Park affair and Occupy movement camp in Montreal were also eventually dispersed by authorities, so the move to discourage people from sleeping in the park remains the prevalent reflex in such situations.
***
Montreal eventually hired a New York company to figure out three-part solution. 1-add lighting, which was lit in 1955 2-build Camielien Houde Road through the mountain to make it easier to access for safety purposes and 3-cut down the trees and bushes where the vagrants lived.
A team of 30 park employees began chopping trees and bushes of The Jungle in October 1957 in a two year initiative.
The work also aimed to eliminate sick trees and bushes and to plant 500 trees in another section of the mountain. Three thousand trees were chopped, mostly birches, with the aim of replacing them with evergreens and more robust trees. The forest was compact so in many cases the crews had to choose between which tree to allow to thrive and which to sacrifice.
One who advanced the narrative that park officials acted recklessly was the architect who designed the Beaver Lake Pavilion. "Nearly every low growing tree bush or shrub that could shelter a pair of lovers or hide a gangster has been ruthlessly cut down," wrote architect Hazen Sise, who bemoaned that the fewer trees caused his structure to look less appealing.
During their work the parks department officials never expressed the aim of advancing morality or eliminating an encampment. They said the sought to make the park more accessible.
Removing the trees appears to have led to unanticipated further losses, however, as isolated trees were uprooted due to wind and water runoff.
Love for forests and parks was widespread in the 1950s. The 4-H group was a particularly active force and were tireless in their initiatives to plant trees and promote awareness of trees.
Parks played a major role in people's lives during those years, even more than today, particularly young people, as officials encouraged kids to spend time in parks by creating park elections and other attractions.
So indeed Montreal officials chopped down the trees in a section of Mount Royal Park, but it was in response to lawlessness that appeared to have spun out of control and had they allowed potentially dangerous activity to continue they would have likely been blamed or considered liable for any subsequent death or damage that sprung from their inaction.