Ah ! comme la neige a neigé !
February 25, 2023 6:56 AM Subscribe
A fan of winter makes a 5 minute video about Montreal's snow and snow clearing operations. The post title is from Émile Nelligan's famous poem Soir d'hiver (here is an English translation). Montreal snow clearing previously.
I live for the snow chompers (the machines that grind up the snowbanks so they can be shot in the waiting trucks) in Ottawa. It is FASCINATING watching them take away the snowbanks. Never gets old.
For anyone wondering about the tow truck for the snow removal, usually what is done in Ottawa is that they put up those signs and if you don't move your car to somewhere without those signs (usually city lots are free overnight, for example) they'll tow your car before they get to that street and typically move it to another nearby street (so not an impound lot). You get a ticket, because leaving your car parked in a snow removal zone (they put up signs well ahead of time, usually) is anti-social.
posted by urbanlenny at 8:00 AM on February 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
For anyone wondering about the tow truck for the snow removal, usually what is done in Ottawa is that they put up those signs and if you don't move your car to somewhere without those signs (usually city lots are free overnight, for example) they'll tow your car before they get to that street and typically move it to another nearby street (so not an impound lot). You get a ticket, because leaving your car parked in a snow removal zone (they put up signs well ahead of time, usually) is anti-social.
posted by urbanlenny at 8:00 AM on February 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
This was really satisfying to watch.
Especially when it's competently done. We got a minor dump of snow in Toronto this week, proper winter but nothing crazy, and three days later walking around downtown is still difficult. It's more of a Chant sacré situation, you might say.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:20 AM on February 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
Especially when it's competently done. We got a minor dump of snow in Toronto this week, proper winter but nothing crazy, and three days later walking around downtown is still difficult. It's more of a Chant sacré situation, you might say.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:20 AM on February 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
Very familiar to this Ottawa resident too. Change the licence plates and these could be our streets.
My BIL has run a commercial removal company in the past and his relatives still do. Interesting, to me, anyway, is that increasingly the snow companies are switching to purpose-bought equipment for only snowplowing. Companies used to try to use, for example, road and farm equipment for snow removal, but it's increasingly cheaper to have separate fleets of equipment.
Farm work needs to have the equipment right up to snow fall, perhaps even a bit beyond, and running at its hardest all year at that point, so maintenance and readiness for the snowfall is at it's worst in late fall. Apparently the roadworks are often the same, rushing to complete work before the end of season. And, on the other side, set-up for snow removal is different, needing shop time to switch on the blades and salt/sandcasters, Even further, the demands of snow removal are really tough on equipment, so coming off the winter they may be in pretty rough shape too. Apparently salted snow is murder on the dumper boxes.
So most companies have summer and winter fleets now, often of the same models of equipment, one for farm or roadworks in the summer, with the same stuff configured for snow removal in the winter. It means the operators can switch easily, and the equipment is ready and in good shape when it's needed. May seem wasteful in terms of equipment sitting waiting for its season, but it turns out to make good economic sense.
Long digression, but I find things like this interesting.
posted by bonehead at 8:47 AM on February 25, 2023 [11 favorites]
My BIL has run a commercial removal company in the past and his relatives still do. Interesting, to me, anyway, is that increasingly the snow companies are switching to purpose-bought equipment for only snowplowing. Companies used to try to use, for example, road and farm equipment for snow removal, but it's increasingly cheaper to have separate fleets of equipment.
Farm work needs to have the equipment right up to snow fall, perhaps even a bit beyond, and running at its hardest all year at that point, so maintenance and readiness for the snowfall is at it's worst in late fall. Apparently the roadworks are often the same, rushing to complete work before the end of season. And, on the other side, set-up for snow removal is different, needing shop time to switch on the blades and salt/sandcasters, Even further, the demands of snow removal are really tough on equipment, so coming off the winter they may be in pretty rough shape too. Apparently salted snow is murder on the dumper boxes.
So most companies have summer and winter fleets now, often of the same models of equipment, one for farm or roadworks in the summer, with the same stuff configured for snow removal in the winter. It means the operators can switch easily, and the equipment is ready and in good shape when it's needed. May seem wasteful in terms of equipment sitting waiting for its season, but it turns out to make good economic sense.
Long digression, but I find things like this interesting.
posted by bonehead at 8:47 AM on February 25, 2023 [11 favorites]
Fascinating - and thank you for Soir d'hiver.
posted by speug at 8:53 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by speug at 8:53 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
My only visit to Montreal was in the middle of such a snow event - and I remember taking note that I really really did not want to be parking my hire car in one of those tow zones. The only other place I’ve been to that was so efficient in snow handling was Helsinki - another city that builds a snow mountain on the edge of town that can last well into the spring. My taxi driver delighted in explaining how it was necessary to turn off all the stupid traction control that those no-nothing Germans had put on his Mercedes- so as to be able to drive properly in the conditions. Cities that are well prepared for snow, and which seem to embrace it when it arrives- are a great cultural lesson to those of us who live anywhere else.
posted by rongorongo at 9:23 AM on February 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by rongorongo at 9:23 AM on February 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
The 1965 movie La vie heureuse de Léopold Z was originally commissioned by the National Film Board of Canada as a documentary on snow clearing; it was made into a comedy-drama, but it still contains a fair number of snow clearing scenes. One big difference is that the snow used to be dumped in the river instead of snow dumps located on land.
A youtuber mechanic I watch has sometimes worked on snow plow trucks, and they are in such deplorable conditions that he has sworn to never take this kind of work again.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:23 AM on February 25, 2023
A youtuber mechanic I watch has sometimes worked on snow plow trucks, and they are in such deplorable conditions that he has sworn to never take this kind of work again.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:23 AM on February 25, 2023
(the funny trailer for La vie heureuse..)
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:25 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:25 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Also, sometimes the plows just want a nap (YT).
posted by bonehead at 9:49 AM on February 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 9:49 AM on February 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
Ten years since I moved to Montreal and I do still get a kick out of watching this all play out.
Thanks for posting.
posted by fruitslinger at 9:50 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Thanks for posting.
posted by fruitslinger at 9:50 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm just jealous they clear the sidewalks! I hate how here (Chicago) clearing streets for cars is the highest of priorities, but sidewalks, bus stops, and bike lanes - which many people depend on in a city where 30% ish of households don't have a car - are left to either private responsibility or ignored.
posted by misskaz at 10:03 AM on February 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by misskaz at 10:03 AM on February 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
Gah! I wish that we had that kind of snow removal system here in Kingston. The city shits the bed regularly during the winter with snow removal, especially for pedestrians.
posted by Kitteh at 1:05 PM on February 25, 2023
posted by Kitteh at 1:05 PM on February 25, 2023
I live for the snow chompers (the machines that grind up the snowbanks so they can be shot in the waiting trucks) in Ottawa. It is FASCINATING watching them take away the snowbanks. Never gets old.
I call it The Snow-Eater. We have them in Kingston too but they don't make nearly enough appearances when they should. I delight in seeing it when it's coming around, though!
posted by Kitteh at 1:07 PM on February 25, 2023
I call it The Snow-Eater. We have them in Kingston too but they don't make nearly enough appearances when they should. I delight in seeing it when it's coming around, though!
posted by Kitteh at 1:07 PM on February 25, 2023
I wanted to see a snow chomper/eater, so found a video. They are fascinating! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8Nuir-Vf0o
posted by OrangeDisk at 2:02 PM on February 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by OrangeDisk at 2:02 PM on February 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
Native of Chicago and environs, live in Texas now, since 1977. Gibran has that piece in The Prophet "The mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain." fits real well for me, years that I have visited Chicago/et all, I can now see it so much better, I have a clarity which I did not have when living there, and also in the first visits back in winter.
(I dd not know that I hated winter until living for two years in Florida; up until then it was just a part of life, how it is, etc and etc.)
I truly love yankee Autumn, all the way through, from the first freeze maybe, when the tomatoes are a bright neon orange-red against the browning leaves of the plant, and you need to harvest them ASAP or you lose them. That first chill in the Autumn night, flannel, light gloves, the knowing what's coming, and Where is my flannel lined denim shirt anyways?* which can serve perfectly fine as a jacket, until it no longer serves perfectly fine as a jacket. Long sleeve thermal shirts, heavier socks, heavier gloves. A scarf? Nah, not yet. The leaves as they change, how it really is spectacular, a spectacle, an outlandish beauty.
*It is right at this time of year that I find that two of my best, perfectly fitting lined winter shirts have somehow disappeared -- I *still* grieve one, green and red, perfect for December 20th through December 28th maybe. What in the hell happened to that shirt? I do not believe in A Force of Darkness, I know that Satan is just a foolishness for frightened people it is only when discovering what shirts have gone missing do I ever lean in the direction of A Personal Force Of Hatred And Despair aimed directly at my scrotum, for no reason.
The first snow, flurries against an October afternoon, gray skies, the days fast growing shorter. And then The First Real Snow -- reports on the radio, and maybe ice under the snow, and here it comes, straight up, straight at you -- Winter. And the days are really shorter now, you can actually feel them getting shorter, and shorter, and grayer, and darker, and boots are called for, down coats, good gloves, quality scarves, ear protection even with the hooded coat, and then the first true blast of winter, any leak close to a window or door known about immediately, and warm teas, hot coffee mornings, hot chocolate nights. Shoveling out your car, or your truck, or both, and one of them needs a jump start off of the other, and shovel your sidewalks, and Quick!, so as not to be caught in the act, shovel your neighbors driveway also, and especially there sidewalks, and deny that you did it, look them straight in the eye and say "No, it wasn't me, heck, I barely had time to shovel my own, and was almost late to work, too." and then they get a sneaking suspicion that you're a nice person but if you've done it right they don't know for sure, and then you begin to get credit for other kind acts, like that basket of tomatoes that showed up on their doorstep in August, and god only knows whatever else. (I know about this because my oldest brother is so damn good at it, probably any good deed done in his town is attributed to him; his bluff lies, utterly straight faced, they are An Art Form.)
Winter. It is now winter. Thanksgiving, while on the calendar in Autumn, it is in Winter. As is my birthday, and three siblings birthdays also, and then it is Christmas, and New Year, and the whole show is utter perfection, and beauty, and happiness, the warmth and love, and if it's a heavy snow with huge, soft flakes going outside has that unreal quiet, a snow shovel half a block down is just barely heard, and what is heard is not at all a bother. Until utterly trashing my back I was a runner, and running in the black of a Winter night, black except for the huge flakes falling, and my feet getting a bit wet but utterly worth that discomfort because there is so much beauty in it all.
~~~~~
In the years since living in the south, first in Florida and since in Texas, I know enough to be on the road, headed to Texas, before January. One year, early afternoon 12/30, final gassing up at a service station when on the edge of suburban and farm lands, I asked the attendant wasn't the highway right down there? He said "Yes, but only southbound." I laughed about it ever so happily, told him that south is the only direction I need, thanks ever so much."
Why? Because living there through January is vile, horrible, disgusting. February -- never, ever ending; regardless it's not but 28 days long it actually is over twelve years of never-ending terror and despair, March just more of the same, as is April, and even into May. It is absolutely soul-breaking, it is agonizing, it is never, ever ending, even in April the skies leak icy, gray rain, like some disgusting leaden pus, and this continues for over a thousand years, bleak, horrifying, never-ending years, and no one could ever pay me enough to even consider living there again, ever..
~~~~~
The video is great. To watch that five minutes of winter beauty is perfect, exactly how much I need; tomorrow afternoon I am meeting a friend at a coffee shop, forecast is sunny and 82F.
posted by dancestoblue at 8:39 PM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
(I dd not know that I hated winter until living for two years in Florida; up until then it was just a part of life, how it is, etc and etc.)
I truly love yankee Autumn, all the way through, from the first freeze maybe, when the tomatoes are a bright neon orange-red against the browning leaves of the plant, and you need to harvest them ASAP or you lose them. That first chill in the Autumn night, flannel, light gloves, the knowing what's coming, and Where is my flannel lined denim shirt anyways?* which can serve perfectly fine as a jacket, until it no longer serves perfectly fine as a jacket. Long sleeve thermal shirts, heavier socks, heavier gloves. A scarf? Nah, not yet. The leaves as they change, how it really is spectacular, a spectacle, an outlandish beauty.
*It is right at this time of year that I find that two of my best, perfectly fitting lined winter shirts have somehow disappeared -- I *still* grieve one, green and red, perfect for December 20th through December 28th maybe. What in the hell happened to that shirt? I do not believe in A Force of Darkness, I know that Satan is just a foolishness for frightened people it is only when discovering what shirts have gone missing do I ever lean in the direction of A Personal Force Of Hatred And Despair aimed directly at my scrotum, for no reason.
The first snow, flurries against an October afternoon, gray skies, the days fast growing shorter. And then The First Real Snow -- reports on the radio, and maybe ice under the snow, and here it comes, straight up, straight at you -- Winter. And the days are really shorter now, you can actually feel them getting shorter, and shorter, and grayer, and darker, and boots are called for, down coats, good gloves, quality scarves, ear protection even with the hooded coat, and then the first true blast of winter, any leak close to a window or door known about immediately, and warm teas, hot coffee mornings, hot chocolate nights. Shoveling out your car, or your truck, or both, and one of them needs a jump start off of the other, and shovel your sidewalks, and Quick!, so as not to be caught in the act, shovel your neighbors driveway also, and especially there sidewalks, and deny that you did it, look them straight in the eye and say "No, it wasn't me, heck, I barely had time to shovel my own, and was almost late to work, too." and then they get a sneaking suspicion that you're a nice person but if you've done it right they don't know for sure, and then you begin to get credit for other kind acts, like that basket of tomatoes that showed up on their doorstep in August, and god only knows whatever else. (I know about this because my oldest brother is so damn good at it, probably any good deed done in his town is attributed to him; his bluff lies, utterly straight faced, they are An Art Form.)
Winter. It is now winter. Thanksgiving, while on the calendar in Autumn, it is in Winter. As is my birthday, and three siblings birthdays also, and then it is Christmas, and New Year, and the whole show is utter perfection, and beauty, and happiness, the warmth and love, and if it's a heavy snow with huge, soft flakes going outside has that unreal quiet, a snow shovel half a block down is just barely heard, and what is heard is not at all a bother. Until utterly trashing my back I was a runner, and running in the black of a Winter night, black except for the huge flakes falling, and my feet getting a bit wet but utterly worth that discomfort because there is so much beauty in it all.
~~~~~
In the years since living in the south, first in Florida and since in Texas, I know enough to be on the road, headed to Texas, before January. One year, early afternoon 12/30, final gassing up at a service station when on the edge of suburban and farm lands, I asked the attendant wasn't the highway right down there? He said "Yes, but only southbound." I laughed about it ever so happily, told him that south is the only direction I need, thanks ever so much."
Why? Because living there through January is vile, horrible, disgusting. February -- never, ever ending; regardless it's not but 28 days long it actually is over twelve years of never-ending terror and despair, March just more of the same, as is April, and even into May. It is absolutely soul-breaking, it is agonizing, it is never, ever ending, even in April the skies leak icy, gray rain, like some disgusting leaden pus, and this continues for over a thousand years, bleak, horrifying, never-ending years, and no one could ever pay me enough to even consider living there again, ever..
~~~~~
The video is great. To watch that five minutes of winter beauty is perfect, exactly how much I need; tomorrow afternoon I am meeting a friend at a coffee shop, forecast is sunny and 82F.
posted by dancestoblue at 8:39 PM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
I live in San Diego where snow is theoretical. But I love Montreal.
posted by SPrintF at 5:30 AM on February 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by SPrintF at 5:30 AM on February 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Having recently moved to Montreal from a city where sidewalk clearing was the responsibility of homeowners but not really enforced (meaning every few meters the condition of a sidewalk could change from perfectly cleared & salted, to a giant heap of ice and snow), the best thing about sidewalk clearing here is consistency. Look out your window, and whatever the sidewalk is like there, it's likely to be anywhere you're walking. A little bit of snow is fine if it's packed down - I see parents here with skis on their strollers or dragging their kids around on sleds, which wouldn't be possible in my old town where you'd constantly be running over concrete.
Municipal clearing also means the windrows (lines between sidewalk and street) are also cleared. A fun fact about a city where homeowners clear the sidewalks and the city plows the streets, is that the area between is a grey zone that literally no one is responsible for. So after a big snowplow operation there would be huge mountains at every street corner, and if you were to ask the city about it, they'd just shrug.
It's not perfect - after a few days the footsteps churn the leftover snow into a gritty mess, which even on the busiest commercial streets no one bothers to sweep away. Then it melts a bit and you get huge slush puddles at every intersection. Every Montrealer becomes a long jumper.
YouTuber Capitaine Montreal has some great videos on winter:
- La petite histoire du déneigement à Montréal
- Réflexions hivernales
- Parcs en Hiver
posted by Gortuk at 6:59 AM on February 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
Municipal clearing also means the windrows (lines between sidewalk and street) are also cleared. A fun fact about a city where homeowners clear the sidewalks and the city plows the streets, is that the area between is a grey zone that literally no one is responsible for. So after a big snowplow operation there would be huge mountains at every street corner, and if you were to ask the city about it, they'd just shrug.
It's not perfect - after a few days the footsteps churn the leftover snow into a gritty mess, which even on the busiest commercial streets no one bothers to sweep away. Then it melts a bit and you get huge slush puddles at every intersection. Every Montrealer becomes a long jumper.
YouTuber Capitaine Montreal has some great videos on winter:
- La petite histoire du déneigement à Montréal
- Réflexions hivernales
- Parcs en Hiver
posted by Gortuk at 6:59 AM on February 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
« Older a promising trajectory | The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
(And the little snowcat doing donuts makes me very jealous.)
posted by wenestvedt at 7:46 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]