Île Perrot () is an

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

west of the

island of Montreal The Island of Montreal (, ) is an island in southwestern Quebec, Canada, which is the site of a number of municipalities, including most of the city of Montreal, and is the most populous island in Canada. It is the main island of the Hochelag ...

in the

Canadian province Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of Canada, Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North Amer ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. Part of the

Hochelaga Archipelago The Hochelaga Archipelago (), also known as the Montreal Islands, is a group of 234 islands at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa rivers in the southwestern part of the province of Quebec, Canada. Population As of 1 July 2021, ...

, the island lies between

Lake Saint-Louis Lake Saint-Louis (, ) is a lake in southwestern Quebec, Canada, at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa rivers. The Saint Lawrence Seaway passes through the lake. Lake St. Louis is a widening of the St. Lawrence River in the Hochela ...

and

Lac des Deux-Montagnes Lac may refer to: Places Africa * Lac Region, a district in Chad * Lac Prefecture, a district in Chad America * Rivière du Lac, a tributary of the Montmorency River, in Capitale-Nationale, Quebec, Canada Europe * Laç, a city in Albania * Lac ...

. The island was granted by the Intendant Talon of New France to its founder

François-Marie Perrot François-Marie Perrot (; 1644–1691) was born in Paris and Seigneur de Sainte-Geneviève. Biography He was appointed governor of Montreal by a royal commission in 1670 and arrived in New France that year. Records do show his tenure as 1669 ...

then-Governor of Montreal on 28 October 1672. Nearly 40,000 people live in one of Île Perrot's four municipalities: * Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot *

Pincourt Pincourt () is a municipality on the island of Île Perrot, off the western tip of the island of Montreal, Quebec. The population as of the 2021 Canadian census was 14,751. The town shares the island with the three other municipalities of Notre ...

* Terrasse Vaudreuil *

L'Île-Perrot The Town of Île-Perrot (French/official name: ''Ville de l'Île-Perrot'', ) is a town and municipality on Île Perrot in southwestern Quebec, Canada. The population as of the Canada 2016 Census was 10,756. The town is at the western end of Lake ...

It is part of the

Vaudreuil-Soulanges Regional County Municipality Vaudreuil-Soulanges () is a regional county municipality in Quebec, Canada. It is located on a triangular peninsula in the western Montérégie region of Quebec, formed by the confluence of the Ottawa River to the north, and the St. Lawrence Rive ...

of the

Montérégie Montérégie () is an administrative region in the southwest part of Quebec. It includes the cities of Boucherville, Brossard, Châteauguay, Longueuil, Saint-Hyacinthe, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield and Vaudreuil-Dorion. ...

region. This is the only off-island suburban area of Montreal to use Montreal's own 514 area code, with all others being allocated to 450. The island is connected to

Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue () is an Greater Montreal, on-island suburb located at the western tip of the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It is the second oldest community in Montreal's West Island, having been founded as a parish ...

, on the

West Island The West Island (, ) is the unofficial name given to the city, towns and boroughs at the western end of the Island of Montreal, in Quebec, Canada. It is generally considered to consist of the Lakeshore municipalities of Lachine (specific ...

of Montreal, via the Galipeault Bridge. Île Perrot holds the only working

windmill A windmill is a machine operated by the force of wind acting on vanes or sails to mill grain (gristmills), pump water, generate electricity, or drive other machinery. Windmills were used throughout the high medieval and early modern period ...

in Quebec, dating from the time Île-Perrot was a

seigneury A seigneur () or lord is an originally feudal system, feudal title in Ancien Régime, France before the French Revolution, Revolution, in New France and British North America until 1854, and in the Channel Islands to this day. The seigneur owne ...

in the French colony of

New France New France (, ) was the territory colonized by Kingdom of France, France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Kingdom of Great Br ...

. The windmill and associated miller's house were designated a National Historic Site in 1969, and a

Historic Monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical ...

under provincial heritage legislation in 1977. In the windmill's honour, what now constitutes the commercial artery of the island was named boulevard Don-Quichotte.

Geology and soils

The island is underlain by

Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...

-age

quartzite Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock that was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tecton ...

. Angular blocks of this hard rock are visible on the surface over much of the island. The soil is a stony sandy loam

podzol Podzols, also known as podosols, spodosols, or espodossolos, are the typical soils of coniferous or boreal forests and also the typical soils of eucalypt forests and heathlands in southern Australia. In Western Europe, podzols develop on heathlan ...

which has developed on acidic, nutrient-poor

till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

. Over parts of the island, this till is covered with

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

which is nutrient-rich and much less stony, but poorly drained and classified as

gleysol A gleysol or gley soil is a hydric soil that unless drained is saturated with groundwater for long enough to develop a characteristic colour pattern. The pattern is essentially made up of reddish, brownish, or yellowish colours at surfaces of so ...

Vegetation

Part of the island remains in forest, although housing developments have made significant inroads over recent years.

Deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

trees such as

American beech American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

sugar maple ''Acer saccharum'', the sugar maple, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and the eastern United States. Sugar maple is best known for being the ...

red maple ''Acer rubrum'', the red maple, also known as swamp maple, water maple, or soft maple, is one of the most common and widespread deciduous trees of eastern and central North America. The U.S. Forest Service recognizes it as the most abundant nati ...

northern red oak ''Quercus rubra'', the northern red oak, is an oak tree in the red oak group (''Quercus'' section ''Lobatae''). It is a native of North America, in the eastern and central United States and southeast and south-central Canada. It has been intro ...

, white ash, bitternut hickory and

American basswood ''Tilia americana'' is a species of tree in the Family (biology), family Malvaceae, native to eastern North America, from southeast Manitoba east to New Brunswick, southwest to northeast Oklahoma, southeast to South Carolina, and west along the ...

are dominant. The vegetation is more luxuriant than one would expect from the nature of the soils, and includes a great diversity of wildflowers.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ile Perrot Perrot Landforms of Montérégie River islands of Quebec

Geology and soils

Vegetation

See also

References