Electric cross

>> It's like a religious symbol dressed up in drag. What could better symbolize Montreal?

By PHILIP PREVILLE

Every now and again, if you're lucky, you'll spot one of the most trippy sights Montreal has to offer: a rainbow of colours flowing through the cross atop Mount Royal--waves of blue, green, red and yellow washing their way through what appear to be individual light bulbs. Though you might think for a moment that you're on acid, it's actually just someone testing the fibre optics on Montreal's most recognizable landmark.

History: Montreal's founder, Paul de Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve, apparently planted a wooden cross (or at least ordered one planted by his colonial lackeys) atop Mount Royal on January 6, 1643. People have been trying to find the exact site where he planted it ever since and, though it hasn't been found yet, historians are certain it was not in the place where the cross stands today.

The mountaintop remained bare from the 1650s until the turn of the 20th century, when the St-Jean-Baptiste Society (SSJB) spearheaded the drive to have the cross mounted once more. In the early 1920s, schoolchildren were enlisted to sell five-cent commemorative stamps; they raised over $9,000. The cornerstone of the current cross was laid on St-Jean-Baptiste Day in 1924, and on Christmas eve of that year the cross was lit for the first time.

Electricity: The cross was lit up by 240 individual 75-watt lightbulbs. Pretty much every week for the first 69 years, teams of city blue-collar workers would climb ladders and replace the burnt-out bulbs. "It required a tremendous amount of maintenance," says Daniel Chartier of the city's parks department. "Especially for special events. On St-Jean-Baptiste Day in 1975, they changed all the lightbulbs to blue. It took forever."

In 1993, the city--which had agreed to pick up the tab for all maintenance costs--decided to re-wire the entire contraption with fibre-optic cable at a cost of $300,000. Now the cross can change colour with the flick of a switch.

Publicity: With the cross standing head and shoulders over so much of the city, and being such a key tourist attraction, it's a wonder companies haven't mounted billboard ads on it. It's not as though they haven't tried. "There has been lots of pressure to use that space for promotional purposes," says Dinu Bumbaru of Heritage Montreal, "but the city and the SSJB have never let it happen."

Final factoid: Back in the politically correct 1980s, agitators began to complain that the cross, as a pious symbol of Quebec Catholicism, should be dismantled because it no longer reflected Montreal's diversity. Thankfully, those cries fell on deaf ears. "Regardless of political affiliation, the cross has become a secular symbol of Montreal known around the world," says Bumbaru. "What would you prefer to have atop the mountain, a giant block of tofu?"

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