THERE’S MUCH TO KEEP YOU WARM IN MONTRÉAL.

IT WAS AUTUMN IN MONTRÉAL, and the city’s world-famous all-night dance party, Black & Blue, was about to begin.  The air-conditioned Olympic Stadium was packed with 20,000 partygoers, producing the world’s largest indoor all-night dancing atmosphere.  In fact, the polling firm CROP estimates that Black & Blue generated over CAD35-Million in spin-offs last year, and the festival now ranks as the third-largest tourism draw in Québec, after the Canadian Formula 1 Grand Prix and the renowned Montréal International Jazz Festival.

While Montréal is famous the world over for being a city of festivals, Black & Blue marks its annual metamorphosis from steamy-hot summer playground and international tourist destination to one of the coldest and snowiest cities on the planet.

Who, some Montréalers ask themselves every year, would want to visit their city in the winter?

THE CITY MARKS THE ANNUAL METAMORPHOSIS FROM STEAMY-HOT SUMMER PLAYGROUND TO ONE OF THE COLDEST AND SNOWIEST CITIES ON THE PLANET.

And who can forget that, in January 1998, Montréal –home to over three million people –was paralyzed when the ice storm of the century dumped 30 cm of freezing rain on the city, causing a city-wide black-out and over CAD1 Billion worth of damage?

Ask others, though, and you will discover that it is the snow itself, as well as the city’s enduring joie de vivre, that gives Montréal, the second largest French-speaking city in the world, its winter charm.

Horse power or automotive, Montréal keeps moving.  Residents of the second largest French-speaking city in the world know all about building a good snowman.

Just last winter, I was telling New Orleans author Anne Rice, who redefined the vampire genre with her novel Interview with the Vampire, how much she’d enjoy Old Montréal with its scarred monuments and ghosts.

I told her about the city’s first executioner –back when Montréal was still called Ville Marie, a small Catholic mission on what is now Pointe-a-Callière –who was actually a gay drummer stationed with the French garrison in 1648.  The drummer had been sentenced to death for the “worst of crimes”, but his life was spared when he accepted the job of executioner.

“I’ve seen a bit of Montréal and it is beautiful,” said Rice, whose 1995 Memnoch the Devil book-signing in that city drew a Canadian record of 2,000.  It took her six hours to green every fan and sign every book.  “I especially loved Montréal’s balconies with their black-iron railings and stairways.”

Old Montréal, the original township, draws far fewer tourists in the winter.  The swirling wind gusting off the Old Port and the St-Lawrence River whistles through the snow-driven quarter although, at this time of year, its buildings look especially ancient and ethereal.

There is Notre Dame Basilica, designed by James O’Donnell and built in the 1820’s, which, at one time, was the largest religious edifice in the Americas.  Its stepped battlements and pinnacles resemble the first Gothic churches in Ireland, but the tall symmetrical bell towers owe more to the cathedrals of medieval France.

LAST WINTER, OLD MONTRÉAL opened its long anticipated, multi-million dollar Cité du Multimédia that will house hundreds of companies specialized in hi-tech and new media.

The city is already an international aerospace, biotechnology and pharmaceutical center.  And, given its location 60 kilometers north of the US border, it remains the world’s largest inland port and an increasingly important hub of North American trade, currently experiencing its largest economic boom in over 35 years.

Montréal’s 30 kilometers subterranean network, or “underground city”, links the extensive subway –which locals call the Métro  (it covers the entire Island of Montréal) –to all of downtown’s skyscrapers and major attractions, notably Olympic Stadium; the Bell Center (home to the Montréal Canadiens hockey club); and Place des Arts, home to a contemporary art museum, opera and symphony orchestra.

“IF YOU’RE IN TOWN IN JANUARY and must see theatre, check out the theatre schools or the alternative houses.  They don’t pay much attention to the rules,” explains Montréal’s top theatre critic, Gaetan Charlebois of Hour magazine.  “The last slot of the season –in the spring –is reserved for a guaranteed hit, as the houses are selling subscriptions for the following season.  It’s in February and March that you’ll see the Canadian works, the alternative-style shows and ‘the communities’ plays.”

The city also boasts 19 major museums, notably the world-class Canadian Center for Architecture; the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, the oldest museum in Canada; and Pointe-à-Callière, built atop the excavated ruins where the young French office Paul Chomedy de Maisonneuve founded the city in May 1642.

Archeological digs have unveiled more than 1,000 years of history at Pointe-à-Callière, from the ancient Iroquois reserve of Hochelaga to the remains of Montréal’s first Catholic cemetery.

Several graves date back to the early days of the original colony.  Visitors can explore the ruins, as well as the city’s first market square and the site of the old Customs House.  Today, a raised square commemorates the multi-lateral Peace Treaty of Montréal, signed on this very spot by the French and 38 native tribes at the inaugural Meeting of First Nations in 1701.

Montréal –like New York City –is a metropolis that never sleeps.  Clubs, notably the chichi strips on the downtown Crescent, St-Denis and the all-night bistros, bars, night-clubs and discos along St-Laurent –more famously known as The Main, Montréal’s storied East-West divide, are packed year-round.  They don’t usually fill up before midnight and last call is 3 a.m. when club kids move on to after-hours discos like Club Sona, which close at 10 a.m.

The Main also houses Schwartz’s delicatessen, the world-famous Montréal institution that’s home to Montréal-style smoked meat.  You’ll find another smoked meat emporium, actually called The Main, just across the street. It caters for club kids until 5 a.m. every night.

The city boasts 5,000-plus restaurants to match every budget, from cheap operations in Chinatown to the five-star Milos on Park Avenue and the star-studded Buena Notte on St-Laurent.

The latter’s walls are covered with plates painted or signed by visiting celebrities, including Madonna and John Travolta.

FASHION MAINSTAYS and club gear in what is one of the coldest winter cities in the world (temperature routinely drops to minus 15 degrees Celsius before the wind-chill factor) are leather and fur.  Everybody wears leather –boots, trousers, shirts, jackets, skirts, dresses, coats –you name it.

Furs can be bought in downtown Montréal’s fur district.  You can also visit the old Fur Trade in Lachine, a historic site on the banks of Lake St-Louis.  Built in 1803, the “Old Stone Shed” is the only remaining warehouse from the golden age of the fur trade in Montréal.

The 174-square-meter museum is overflowing with artifacts and furs, including a 12-meter-long, birch bark canoe (bound with spruce roots and made without nails.)  Each spring, after the ice cleared, “voyageurs” paddled and carried these canoes 1,700 kilometers from Montréal to Thunder Bay, laden with five tons of trading goods.   You’ll spot plenty of fur and leather on jet-settlers coming through Montréal to visit the 73 world-class ski resorts and snowmobile trails.  Their peaks are modest compared to the Alps or the Canadian Rockies, but the resorts and their ski villages still have a lot to offer.  For example, Mont Tremblant hosted the Ericsson World Freestyle Championships (Mogul, Aerial and Big Air competitions) between January 11 through 14.

TODAY, well over one million Québecois alpine ski, and another 500,000 tourists come through Montréal every winter to go skiing.  After a day on the slopes, and after the time-honored après-ski in ski-village clubs and bars, you’ll see why, snowstorm or not, Montréalers enjoy having a good time all year round.

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