The Montmorency Falls (french: Chute Montmorency) is a large

waterfall A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in several wa ...

on the

Montmorency River The Montmorency River is a tributary of North-East bank of St. Lawrence river, flowing in the administrative region of Capitale-Nationale, in the province of Quebec, Canada. The course of the river successively crosses the regional county municipa ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Location

The falls are located on the boundary between the borough of Beauport, and

Boischatel Boischatel is a municipality in the Capitale-Nationale region of Quebec, Canada. The town was originally called Saint-Jean-de-Boischatel. The town itself is located along the Montmorency River. Near the boundary with Beauport are the Montmorenc ...

, about from the heart of old

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...

. The area surrounding the falls is protected within the Montmorency Falls Park (french: Parc de la Chute-Montmorency). The falls are at the mouth of the Montmorency River where it drops over the

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on co ...

shore into the

Saint Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connectin ...

, opposite the western end of the Île d'Orleans. The waterfalls are 83 m (272') tall, a full 30 m (99') higher than Niagara Falls.

Access and tourism

Around 970,000 visitors a year visit Montmorency Falls. There are staircases that allow visitors to view the falls from several different perspectives. A

suspension bridge A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck (bridge), deck is hung below suspension wire rope, cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridg ...

over the crest of the falls provides access to both sides of the park. There is also a

funitel A funitel is a type of cableway, generally used to transport skiers, although at least one is used to transport finished cars between different areas of a factory. It differs from a standard gondola lift through the use of two arms attached to tw ...

that carries passengers between the base and the top of the falls. In the summer the park hosts an international fireworks competition with the falls as a backdrop. During summer months, the falls give off a yellow glow due to high iron content in the waterbed. The

Ice Hotel An ice hotel is a temporary hotel made up of snow and sculpted blocks of ice. Ice hotels, dependent on sub-freezing temperatures, are constructed from ice and snow and typically have to be rebuilt every year. Ice hotels exist in several countri ...

was located at Montmorency Falls for its first year. In July 2019, it was announced that the Montmorency Falls tourist site will be getting a $33-million makeover.

In popular culture

The Falls were the site of a key scene between the lead actors in the 1947 film ''

Whispering City ''Whispering City'' (also known as ''Crime City'') is a 1947 black-and-white film noir directed by Fedor Ozep and starring Paul Lukas, Mary Anderson, and Helmut Dantine.Gerald Pratley, ''A Century of Canadian Cinema''. Lynx Images, 2003. . p. 23 ...

'', which was filmed on location. In his poem "

Sleep and Poetry "Sleep and Poetry" (1816) is a poem by the English Romantic poet John Keats. It was started late one evening while staying the night at Leigh Hunt's cottage. It is often cited as a clear example of Keats's bower-centric poetry, yet it contains li ...

" (1816),

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...

says that human life is "a poor Indian's sleep / While his boat hastens to the monstrous steep / Of Montmorency." Recreational sleighing on the frozen falls is recorded in

Letitia Elizabeth Landon Letitia Elizabeth Landon (14 August 1802 – 15 October 1838) was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L. The writings of Landon are transitional between Romanticism and the Victorian Age. Her first major breakthrough ...

's poetical illustration, ''The Montmorency Waterfall and Cone'', to an engraving of a painting by W. Purser, published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836. The Falls appeared during the finale of '' The Amazing Race Canada 5'' in 2017 and were the site of the episode's first task in which competitors scaled a cargo net suspended over the Falls.

Gallery

File:A view of the fall of Montmorenci and the attack made by General Wolfe, on the French intrenchments near Beauport, with the Grenadiers of the army, July 31 1759.jpg, An early 1760s engraving of Montmorency Falls by William Elliott from a drawing made by Captain Hervey Smythe, Major General James Wolfe's aide-de-camp, on July 31st, 1759, from the British Army's encampment, two months before the Battle of Quebec. File:Montmorency Falls.jpg, A 1781 etching of Montmorency Falls in May by the British surveyor James Peachey

National Archives of Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is t ...

. File:Robert Clow Todd - The Ice Cone, Montmorency Falls, Québec - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Ice Cone, Montmorency Falls, Québec'', an 1845 painting by the English artist Robert Clow Todd. File:Montmorency Falls in Winter (1850) by the French-Canadian painter Joseph Légaré.jpg, ''Montmorency Falls in Winter'', an 1850 painting by the French-Canadian artist

Joseph Légaré Joseph Légaré (March 10, 1795 – June 21, 1855) was a painter and glazier, artist, seigneur and political figure in Lower Canada. Early life The eldest son in a family of six children, Joseph Légaré was born in Quebec City, the son of ...

. File:QC View montmorency.JPG, A look at the surrounding areas, opposite the falls.

can be viewed in the distance File:Chute Montmorency Pain de sucre.jpg, Photo of the

Sugarloaf A sugarloaf was the usual form in which refined sugar was produced and sold until the late 19th century, when granulated and cube sugars were introduced. A tall cone with a rounded top was the end product of a process in which dark molasses, a r ...

forming at the base of the falls in winter File:ChutesMtMorency.jpg, Falls File:Montmerency falls top.jpg, Suspension bridge File:Cascada Montmorency.JPG, Distant view File:Montmorency Falls July 1st.jpg, View of Montmorency Falls from the Trans Canada Trail File:Wooden trail - Parc de la Chute-Montmorency.jpg, Wooden trail

References

*Réseau Sépaq, Parc de la Chute-Montmorency Historic Site brochure, 2003.

External links