The challenge facing Montreal’s snow -skiing equipment this week is unprecedented: two large consecutive storms have left more than 70 centimeters of snow to clear.
It is the maximum in a period of four days registered, according to the environment and the climate change of Canada. A city official recently marveled that the size of snowbanks means that the fan will need to pass two or even three times to completely clear a street side.
Even so, city teams are equipped with much more powerful machines than in the past.
Until the early twentieth century, the city had to trust plows thrown away from horses, often only people and their blades, to clean the snow. In some cases, snow was not eliminated at all, such as Show file photos.
The smallest streets and roads in the rural areas often closed to traffic during the winter months at the end of the 1920s and beyond, said Yves Laberge, historian and sociologist who teaches at the University of Ottawa .
“It was a big problem at that time, and took days after a great snowstorm returning to a normal life,” said Laberge, who has documented he history of snow elimination in Quebec in the History Journal CAP-AUX-Diamants.
“In the rural areas of Quebec, there were places or peoples that were very isolated from others.”
From shovels and horses to the snow blower
From the mid -1800s to the change of the century, residents in Montreal were responsible for cleaning the sidewalk in front of their home, often also the road, according to the city.
That changed in 1905, when the city took over. At that time, the workers were hired to stick snow for 25 cents per hour. The snow was carried in horses thrown away.
The first snow blower to clean the streets was bought by the city of Montreal almost 100 years ago, in 1928.
The inventor, Arthur Sicard, was born in 1876 in Saint-Léonard-de-Port-Maurice, which is now the Montreal district of Saint-Léonard. At that time, it was mainly cultivation lands, and Sicard was inspired to see a grain trillator at work in a wheat field.
He wondered if a similar device could be used to clear the snow, according to the entrance to the snow blower in the Canadian encyclopedia.
This is Montreal23:05How has snow cleaning changed throughout Montreal’s history?
When Montreal hits snow as he did, days are needed for the streets and sidewalks to clear. A century ago, some streets were simply not clear at all. From horses thrown to snow blowers, plows and trucks that we use today, we will see how snow cleaning has evolved in Montreal. And we will listen to some Montreal researchers who are working to design the elimination of snow from the future using artificial intelligence.
In 1925, he completed his first machine and called it “Dénneigeuse et Souffleuse à Neige Sicard“That translates as” the Sicard Snowplow and Snowlower. “
Attached to the front of a truck, the original design presented a scooper with endless and a fan capable of blowing snow more than 25 meters.
The emergence of the machine
Sicard sold his first snow blowers to the cities of the indication and Montreal in 1927 for $ 13,000 each.
By then, Montreal had also started using more motorized plows to clean the snow of the streets.
The city of Montreal acquired two snow blowers from Sicard’s firm in 1938.
The machines included “a combined scraper, transporter, blower, load tube with an appropriate hydraulically driving mechanism,” according to the archives of the city.
A Quebec government brochure of the same year described the machine as an “insatiable monster” that could send snow 23 meters away.
The design proved to be effective. Sicard “was acclaimed as a genius that changed the relationship of the city with winter,” said the entrance of the Canadian encyclopedia.
After his death in 1946, Sicard Street bears his name, near the factory, where snow blowers were manufactured.
“His team that built the snow machine are in my opinion, great Canadian heroes and should be celebrated.” Laberjar That said, pointing out that the invention was by necessity as Montreal was modernized.
“It’s because you need something you have to invent something.”
Great expectations
However, the increase in the car also exerted greater pressure on the crews to clear the streets more quickly.
Decades later, in 1962, the director of the city of Montreal J.-V. Arpin commented that the challenge for city workers had become immense, with more than one million people in the city center, including 350,000 in cars.
“Motorists expect to lead to work in the morning in a naked pavement after a nocturnal storm,” he said during a presentation.
These days, that challenge has multiplied, with approximately 800,000 personal vehicles registered on the island and an even greater expectation that we should be able to move quickly after bad weather.
On Wednesday, Mayor Valérie, whose administration has faced criticism for her cleaning management, urged patience.
“We want you to know that everyone is working extremely hard,” he said. “We are making good progress, I would like to say, in the midst of a historical storm.”
Laberge, meanwhile, said it is important to remember how much we fight in front of the snowstorms of the past.
“The winters have always been a problem and we and the Canadians have always been able to deal with snowstorms, ice, cold, winners,” he said. “It’s part of us.”
