Saint-Jacques Escarpment
escarpment in Montreal, Quebec, Canada
The Saint-Jacques Escarpment (French: Falaise Saint-Jacques, pronounced [falɛz sɛ̃ ʒak]) is a green space along an escarpment in the city of Montreal, west of downtown Montreal and adjacent to the neighbourhood of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. The wooded area stretches 3 km (2 mi) long, covering over 20 ha (49 acres).
The escarpment's dense stands of poplar trees and its location between Mount Royal and the Lachine Rapids make it notable for a number of species of resident and migratory birds and a large population of brown snakes.
The land at the foot of the escarpment was previously known as a body of water named "Lac St-Pierre". The lake started losing its water with the opening of the Lachine Canal in the year 1825.
The escarpment had served as a dumping ground before it was purchased by the City of Montreal for use as parkland, but until 2021 it was not open to the public. Plans to allow public access were frequently delayed because parts of the slope are unstable and dangerous, and the city's desire to preserve the escarpment as a natural space conflicted with the Province of Quebec's plans for redevelopment of the Turcot Interchange, which include moving the Ville-Marie Expressway and Canadian National Railway line next to the foot of the escarpment.
In 2020, the city of Montreal announced a proposal to turn much of the space into a park that would stretch nearly 2 kilometres (1.2 mi).
In 2021, the 2.7 kilometres (1.7 mi) long park was opened to the public. The west entrance is at Sainte-Anne de Bellevue Boulevard and Brock Avenue South.
The public source identifies “Saint-Jacques Escarpment” as escarpment in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Saint-Jacques, Escarpment and escarpment.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7400666. Authority coordinates are 45.460, -73.622. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1825, 2021 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “Saint-Jacques Escarpment” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.