Dowker Island

Dowker Island is a small, flat island off the Beaconsfield / Baie d'Urfe shore in the West Island of Montreal, on Lac St-Louis between the island of Montreal and Ile-Perrot. It's a bird sanctuary. In the winter one can hike out to it over the ice; it's a beautiful and peaceful walk that provides lots of sky, a big expanse of snow and ice, and a few brief hours under the natural elements that is as close to unstructured nature as one will find in the area.

It has a basic, globular island shape with two arms extending north and east-north-east, forming between them a small cove where boats occasionally moor in the summer. On the north arm is an old, burned out house everyone calls Dowker House.

In the winter the whole area is full of foot and x-country ski tracks, plus in recent years with the cleanup of the St-Lawrence, there've been lots of ice fishing.  This activity is enjoyed with a lot of machinery however; trucks, vans, jeeps, snow-machines, motorized augurs to bore holes in the ice, beer chests, lawn chairs, a ghetto blaster or two.