In the fourth installment of our virtual travel series we are taking you to Montreal, Canada. Montreal is a bustling Quebecois city set on an island in the Saint Lawrence River. We hope that you enjoy exploring this lively city from your home. We are trying to make sure the content we suggest is accessible in different ways. Although it can be difficult to find websites that are fully accessible, we review many to offer you the ones that are the most accessible. As always, if you find barriers or have suggestions please reach out to us at info@bluetrunk.org and let us know so that we can improve!
Experience the Museums and Sites
Montreal is home to many museums. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is offering virtual art therapy sessions. These sessions are short videos with recommended art activities to do in your own home. During these stressful times this is a great way to help de-stress while being creative. The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, the Contemporary Art Museum, provides their magazines in PDF format on their site. For a more visual experience, they also have an online exhibit of approximately 300 works. However, this online exhibit is not particularly accessible for those with visually disabilities.
For a more historical experience the Montreal Holocaust Museum links to Refugee Boulevard’s site for an audio tour, the transcript is also available. If you are interested in museums focused on science, Space for Life encompasses the Biodome, Insectarium, Botanical Garden, and Planetarium. They have a collection of videos (French audio with English subtitles) and a series of blogs covering a wide variety of topics.
Tune in to Videos, Shows, and Documentaries About Montreal
Expedia has a general tourist overview of Montreal available on YouTube (closed captions available). To dive more into the food scene of Montreal, while simultaneously learning about the city’s history, we recommend watching Netflix’s Somebody Feed Phil (Season 3, Episode 5). This show has an audio description track and closed captions available.
If you want to learn more about Montreal’s history, turn to the docuseries Montreal: My Love, My Story, available on Amazon Prime. It spans from the founding of the French colony in 1642 to modern day and also touches on indigenous history. This series consists of five episodes and has closed captions available.
Dive Into Montreal’s Music Scene
There is a vibrant music scene in Montreal, spanning from classical to indie music. The music scene in Montreal has produced artists such as Leonard Cohen, Rufus Wainwright, and Arcade Fire. You can check out the Montreal Chill playlist and the Montreal Indie playlist on Spotify. For classical music lovers, the Montreal Symphonic Orchestra is bringing their performances to your home through their OSM in Your Living Room! video series.
Get Lost in Cape Town Books
MTL Blog published a list of 9 fiction titles that take place in Montreal. Of these 5 are available on Kindle and 5 are available on Audible. If you are more interested in non-fiction there are several titles available, including The History of Montréal: The Story of Great North American City (available on Kindle), The Montreal Shtetl: Making Home After the Holocaust, and for a broader Quebecois history A People's History of Quebec (available on both Kindle and Audible).
Bring Montreal to Your Kitchen
A visit to Montreal isn’t complete without at least one order of poutine. At its core this dish consists of fries, cheese curds, and gravy, but you can add on other toppings to your heart’s delight. For topping ideas check out La Banquise’s menu (a famous 24-hour diner). To recreate this dish at home you can use Seasons and Suppers’ recipe for a classic variation (and if you want to make your own cheese curds you can follow Culture’s recipe). For a classic recipe with a gluten-free gravy check out Chichilicious’ recipe. Lastly, for a vegan recipe (which is also gluten-free) check out the Minimalist Baker.
If you’d prefer a maple dessert over poutine, then you can try whipping up pouding chômeur. This dish, which translates to “unemployed pudding,” is a cake poached in a maple caramel syrup. Runamok Maple has a classic recipe and Carla’s Gluten Free Recipe Box has a gluten-free recipe with substitutions to make it vegan as well.
Where to Next?
We hope you enjoyed exploring Montreal virtually. Join us next time as we head to another vibrant French-speaking city: Paris!