Any exploration of this question must first cross through the desert of my aquatic memories.
My family only lived in one home with a pool and it was surely a unique experience.
A solitary rat crouched menacingly from the muddy cement floor of our unfilled swimming pool at 227 Westminster for a few weeks in the fall of 1971.
We'd fearfully spy the rat from our kitchen window, taking heed to follow our mom's advice to keep the door closed lest it enter the Montreal West home we were slated to occupy for a year.
The fate of the forlorn rodent was settled by a rock toss from the 10-year-old hand of rat slayer Teddy Tilden, one of the many heirs to the now-defunct Tilden-Rent-A-Car company.
I rue missing the gory moment when the famous toss doomed Ratticus Swimmingpoolicus. We were thrilled that the lonely, big-tailed vermin was eliminated.
The next occupants of the home didn't clean and fill the pool with water, they just covered up, which seemed wise to us, as who wants an outdoor pool after all?
Living in Westmount after that, we knew nobody with a pool.
To this day they remain rare in the hilly, upscale, downtown-adjacent suburb.
Later, in my mid-teens I learned much more about the watery joy of backyard pools, after my Westmount High School pal Leon Bensason started inviting me to his home on hot summer days where the watery frolics were heightened by my furtive coming-of-age glances at his bikini-clad older sister.
When Google maps first offered satellite views of the city, many - myself included - were astounded to learn how many swimming pools dot the cityscape.
Montreal - in spite of its short summer season - rivals the top North American markets for swimming pools.
Some statistics: Quebec has 500,000 pools, which represents one pool per 16 residents, compared to 1 to 18 in Florida and 1 for 32 in California.
Quebec has one pool per 26 homes, as compared to Florida which has one per 19 and California, one-for-31, according to Peter Black in the Sherbrooke Record.
Seventy percent of the in-ground pools built in Canada in 2014 were built in Montreal, according to La Presse. Quebec tends to produce more competitive swimmers than other places as well, likely due to the backyard pools, the Globe and Mail mentioned in a similar article.
The pools are not distributed evenly across all neighbourhoods.
Off-island suburbs like Laval are jammed with backyard pools. The suburban lure isn't only great parking opps, but great splashing opportunities as well.
In contrast, areas like Cote des Neiges and Park Extension are dry as a desert.
That's likely because Montrealers rent apartments at a higher proportion than residents of other Canadian cities. Triplexes and other smaller apartment buildings don't lend themselves to backyard pools, so areas like the Plateau and St. Henri are almost bereft of residential swimming holes.
English Montrealers are less keen on pools than their French brethren, judging by the dearth in such places as Montreal West and Cote St. Luc, while place with larger French-speaking populations like Anjou and Point aux Trembles are full of pools.
Like so many love affairs, Montreal's love for swimming pools makes little sense.
Backyard pool owners often open their pools in May and close them in August or September, which makes their brief utility far less than useful than in warmer places.
Nor is Montreal a sunny place according to various government statistics, for example 44 percent of Montreal's daylight hours are sunny, trailing well behind Calgary, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Regina, which see at least half of their daylights hours sunny.
Some have attempted to explain that Montrealers tend to get pools because their houses are cheaper and they can therefore afford the extravagance.
That explanation is a little unsatisfying, however, as wage/house price ratios are much better in many other places with a lower percentage of pools, although some use electricity to heat a pool, which is cheaper in Quebec than in other provinces.
Satellite views demonstrate that swimming pools tend to fall into clusters. This suggests that Quebecers might be motivated to buy pools as a way of keeping-up-with-the-Savards.
So right now there are two types of Montrealers. There are those who are prepping their chlorine , their pumps and heaters in anticipation of lazy days at home by the pool and then those who are thinking dry thoughts, or no thoughts at all.