This Former Limestone Quarry Is Now Canada's Underrated Park With Unique Spheres And Scenic Views

In 1988, "The Man Who Planted Trees" won best animated short at the Oscars. Frédéric Back spent six years working on the film as the director and animator, telling the story of the importance of planting trees. Back lived in Montreal for much of his adult life. Along with his film work, he was an environmental advocate. It's only fitting that his name was given to a Montreal park that transformed a landfill into an attractive green space. Parc Frédéric-Back (or Frédéric-Back Park) is a 133-acre park in the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex within the Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension neighborhood near the heart of Montreal. It has trails, picnic tables, expansive city and nature views, and wide open spaces. It's also dotted with reminders of the area's past in the form of white spheres.

When you're familiar with the history of Frédéric-Back Park, it makes this area even more impressive. The city of Montreal calls it the "most ambitious environmental rehabilitation project ever undertaken." The park was a limestone quarry in the 1950s, but by the 1960s, it began being used as a landfill. It was eventually taken over by the City of Montreal, and by the 1990s, plans were put in place to turn it into a park where residents could come and enjoy the outdoors. The first public areas opened in 2021, although the transformation was a long and arduous one. In 2017, one neighborhood resident told CBC: "I'm really happy that, finally, this humongous area is made into something very beautiful. And I'm sure that all my neighbors, including the whole of Montreal, will enjoy this area."

There is still work being done to expand the public spaces at Frédéric-Back Park. By the summer of 2027, there should be an additional 24 acres of land open, with nearly 2 more miles of trail and thousands more trees and plants. One of the unmissable features of the park are the white spheres that dot the landscape. This isn't an active landfill anymore, but the underlying trash is still going through the process of decomposition. Part of that means the trash is producing biogas, which contains methane. Methane is known for damaging the environment and contributing to climate change. If you can harness that methane as it's being created, you can help reduce emissions and even use the biogas as an energy source. That's where these unique globes in Frédéric-Back Park come in.

The spheres are essentially caps for the 250 biogas capture wells installed at the park. The fanciful-looking spheres were installed to give workers access to the wells as well as to be an attractive feature of the park. They have a gentle glow as darkness falls, thanks to the phosphorescent fiberglass that they're made of. In 2018, the design firm Lemay and Morelli Designers won the Grand Prix du Design in the Urban Furniture category for these very biogas spheres, making them an award-winning feature of the park.

There are a number of 360-degree lookouts in Frédéric-Back Park where you can enjoy views of the city surrounding the park as well as into the park itself, which features a mix of large meadows and trees. As one Google reviewer noted, it's a great place to watch the sunset. You can walk all the way around the park on a nearly 3.5-mile-long path, as well as trails that criss-cross parts of the open spaces. The trails are open year-round, so you can cross-country ski in winter. Throughout the park are picnic tables where you can enjoy a meal with a view. It's also home to a soccer field and a popular skatepark. The nearby TOHU, a cultural center dedicated to the circus arts, hosts a number of activities in the park during the year, like guided snowshoe tours and story time for kids.

While it's one of the largest green spaces in Montreal, Frédéric-Back Park is less well-known compared to other parks in the city, like Mount Royal Park, centered around a little mountain in downtown Montreal. Just a 30-minute drive away, Mount Royal Park was created by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed Central Park, opening in 1876. If you want to continue enjoying the great outdoors in Montreal, pay a visit to the Montreal Biodome, one of the city's best attractions with five ecosystems under one roof. It's about a 20-minute drive from Frédéric-Back Park. When you're ready to dive back into Montreal's history and urban charm, head to the Old Montreal neighborhood with its cobblestoned streets.