Maritime Series 2023

2023 EDITION

École Mère-Marie-Rose (Contrecœur)

Located in Contrecœur, École Mère-Marie-Rose welcomes nearly 380 students in grade 4 through 6 for the 2022-23 school year. Students are under the supervision of a team of teachers and specialists, as well as various professionals trained to meet the particular needs of the school’s students. The complementary services team includes a psychologist, psycho-educator, speech therapist, social worker, nurse, and dental hygienist. The educators of “L’Amuse-heure” daycare, for their part, offer energetic programming that includes activities both stimulating and motivating. Together, the team members at the school pool their professional expertise to offer students and parents the full range of services offered by the various programs of the school board. From daycare services and early screening for language difficulties to individual lesson plan support and rehabilitation activities, the school provides a diverse assortment of services to meet the particular needs of its student body.

CAROLINE BARBER

Since 2012, Caroline Barber has published many titles for young audience, both in France and in Quebec, taking it upon herself to breathe a poetic sensibility into the everyday under the guise of l’empoétineuse (“the impoetor”). With that in mind, she brings digital artworks, boxes of poems, and phrase poems on the urban landscape into public spaces. Caroline divides her time between artmaking, creative writing workshop facilitation, and author residencies. Words are icebergs for her; 90% of their significance is invisible. It is the emotional mark words leave on each reader that Caroline Barber hopes to affect.

MARCO COLLIN

Marco Collin completed his intensive theatre training with Ondinnok, a theatre company with whom he has since frequently collaborated. He has also worked on various productions and storytelling and narration projects. He has appeared on many shows of various television stations, including APTN, Radio-Canada, TVA, among others. He has acted in numerous Quebec and Ontario television series, including, most notably, as Wabo on Les Pays d’en haut. He has also worked on various films, including Mesnak, Roche papier ciseau, Feed the devil, Le Dep and Miséricorde. He is also the author of Tu É Moi and Le sentier des rêves, among many other plays. He was a member of the Muliats collective and is currently at work on his next text, Mashinikan, le Livre.

CHRISTINE SIOUI WAWANOLOATH

Christine Sioui Wawanoloath published her first book, the adventure novel Taxi en cavale, some thirty years ago. She has since authored ten young audience novels, a couple of short story collections, and six albums. Her acclaimed first album, Le monde de Théo, was illustrated by Philippe Béha, a finalist for seven prize, and the winner of two. As Christine puts it, “I writes a wide range of stories because inspiration doesn’t always take the same… shape. Sometimes it brings forth stories where, for instance, three children learn to be more self-confident thanks to three special candies, and at other times it offers up a story like the one where an old abandoned car tells us the lovely story of its life.” This openness to different forms of storytelling led her to write a detective novel for teens and young adults. Three years later, in 2020, Les ennemis invisibles was published, telling the story of a young, not very courageous man who somehow feels compelled, after hearing screams one night, to head off with his little dog to save the charming woman next door. The way Christine sees it, “If I so love to write it’s because it enables me to live many lives. One life… is just not enough!”

Intervenants – Port de Montréal

JULIE BASTIEN
Director – Environment (Compensation Plans) – Contrecœur project

Julie Bastien studied biology and holds a master’s degree in water sciences. Her professional interests biophysics and multidisciplinary research. Over the last two decades, she has contributed to a variety of studies and projects concerning hydrology, renewable energy, greenhouse gases, water and sediment quality, biological inventories, physical and biological surveys, and environmental impacts. A member of the Port de Montréal team since 2021, Julie directs compensation plans and certain monitoring programs for the Contrecœur project.

NICOLAS BÉRUBÉ
Project Manager – Écogénie Inc.

Nicolas Bérubé studied natural and managed habitats, and holds a master’s degree in environmental biogeosciences. He joined the Écogénie team as Project Manager in 2018, and has nearly 10 years of cumulative project management experience covering a wide breadth of work related to environmental monitoring, environmental characterization, fauna and flora inventory, and the control of invasive exotic species. Nicolas leads the monitoring of bank swallow colonies in the vicinity of Montréal Port Authority installations in the Contrecœur area.
Nicolas facilitated environmental awareness workshops for the Maritime Series in the fall of 2023, working closely with the students of Mère-Marie-Rose primary school in Contrecœur.

PABLO DEWEZ
Director – Community Relations – Contrecœur project

Pablo Dewez studied communications and urbanism, specializing in prevention and dispute resolution. His professional interests center public participation in the planning of infrastructure projects. Over the last 16 years, he contributed to the planning and implementation of a wide variety of public works and major projects around the world. A member of the Port de Montréal team since 2021, Pablo leads community relations for the Contrecœur project.
Pablo facilitated environmental awareness workshops for the Maritime Series in the fall of 2023, working closely with the students of Mère-Marie-Rose primary school in Contrecœur.

The Montreal Port Authority (MPA) is currently planning the development of a new container terminal in the Contrecoeur industrial zone. The Contrecoeur land reserve, which was acquired by the MPA over 30 years ago, has been the subject of rigorous, concerted planning to support the development of logistical networks in Quebec and Eastern Canada. With the support of its partners, the Port of Montreal plans to build a new state-of-the-art container terminal to handle 1.15 million TEU containers in the future.

Several conditions of completion are required by the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change of Canada to allow the expansion project to proceed, including various environmental measures and monitoring programs to ensure that the new terminal is well integrated into its environment. Among these initiatives, the MPA is building swallow and bat boxes, which demonstrates a concern for biodiversity preservation.

The Montreal Port Authority (MPA) recently installed swallow boxes on its Contrecoeur expansion site.

The bank swallows in this area are identified as a species at risk. This initiative seeks to recreate developments to recreate their natural habitat, which consists of burrows dug into the sandy banks in which they nest. This approach has been borne out elsewhere, including near Port of Montreal facilities.

Contrecoeur has a potential habitat of 1,200 burrows. The nesting boxes are intended to replace natural habitat on the site of the future container terminal. Following the construction of three nesting boxes in 2019 and three more in 2020, the use of the burrows by swallows has increased every year. In 2021, a decrease in the use of the natural banks at the site of the future terminal was even noted in favour of the human-made boxes.

The nesting boxes are monitored each year to document bank swallow behaviour, assess nesting box use, and ensure burrow quality.

Credits : Patrick Lauzon

Recreating bank swallow habitat: Find out more with Julie Bastien and Nicolas Bérubé (IN FRENCH)

The Montreal Port Authority (MPA) has installed three bat condos and standard bat nesting boxes on the Contrecoeur expansion site, which allow bats to rest and also serve as breeding sites. There are various types of walls inside the boxes that bats cling to.

Bat condos can accommodate thousands of bats, while nesting boxes are designed to accommodate a few hundred. Bat condos allow for better temperature control, which increases their use by the animals.

Acoustic monitoring (listening to the sounds bats make) and field monitoring are carried out annually to check whether the condos and nesting boxes are being used, and the sites are also maintained each year. Six species of bats with precarious conservation status are found on the Contrecoeur site.

Photo credit: Patrick Lauzon (bat condos), François Fabianek (bats)

If you’d like to find out more about bank swallows and bats, the habitat construction experts for the new Contrecoeur container terminal project recommend the following sources.

SWALLOWS / BIRDS  

BATS

DIY PROJECTS / ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE

ON THE THEME OF BATS, SWALLOWS, AND THE WILDLIFE OF QUEBEC

FOR THE CHILDREN

FOR TEENS AND ADULTS

ON THE THEME OF WATER

DOCUMENTARIES

ALBUMS, TALES AND NOVELS

ON THE THEME OF NATURE

DOCUMENTARIES

ALBUMS, TALES AND NOVELS

CAROLINE BARBER

MARCO COLLIN

CHRISTINE SIOUI WAWANOLOATH