Lafontaine Park
Lafontaine Park is Plateau Mont-Royal's biggest park. A 40-hectare gem of traditional park landscaping, it features two linked ponds with a fountain and waterfalls, the Théâtre de Verdure open-air venue, the Centre culturel Calixa-Lavallée, soccer and baseball fields, pétanque, a dog park, picnic areas and playgrounds, wading pools, several pieces of memorial statuary and many trees including numerous imposingly huge poplars.
A bike path runs along the park's northern edge and another bisects the park north to south. In wintertime a large section of the pond is cleared for skating with the park chalet functioning as changing room and snack bar; there's also a hockey rink.
Lafontaine Park has a lot of squirrels, including occasional pale-champagne ones, but it's so much a true city park that there's absolutely no semi-wild forested underbrush left to harbour more exotic species.
On old maps the terrain of the park is sometimes marked as Logan's Park. In 1845 James Logan rented some of the land to the federal government, which used it for a military shooting range, but by 1889 the city was working on landscaping and layout for a park. Gradually acquiring neighbouring pieces of land, by 1909 the city had created a sizable park which it named after Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine (1807-1864), author of many of the political reforms that led to the confederation of Canada after his death.
In the 1950s, modernization of the park included the removal of the park keeper's house and the greenhouses, and the installation of the open-air theatre.
For many years one of the park's most noted attractions was the Jardin des Merveilles children's zoo, but it was closed in 1989. The 1990s saw the addition of two new belvederes and a handsome colonnade running southwest from Rachel Street.
Lafontaine Park remains a tremendously popular spot, especially on weekends in the summer. Although the Plateau has become a prosperous neighbourhood, many of its houses and flats have no yards or gardens; the park affords a lot of people a chance to sit on the grass and stroll under the trees and enjoy the sun and air.
Parc Lafontaine3933, Parc Lafontaine
defined by Sherbrooke, Papineau, Rachel and avenue du Parc-La Fontaine (the northern extension of Amherst Street) and quasi-bisected by Calixa-Lavallée Avenue
Centre culturel Calixa-Lavallée
514-872-3947
Tennis courts
514-872-3626
