Laval
— — the island Montreal grew into.
Not only on a wall.
“Laval occupies the whole of Île Jésus, the island wedged between Montreal and the Laurentian mainland, separated from the metropolis by the Rivière des Prairies. It is Quebec's third city — roughly 440,000 people — formed in 1965 from fourteen small towns that decided to become one. Cycle paths line both rivers; the Cosmodome on the south shore holds the only space-science museum in the province.
Laval, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Laval is the third-largest city in Quebec, with roughly 440,000 residents, set on Île Jésus — a flat, fertile island of 246 square kilometres bordered by the Rivière des Prairies to the south and the Rivière des Mille Îles to the north. The city was created on 6 August 1965 by the merger of fourteen municipalities and named for François de Laval, the first Catholic bishop of Quebec. Downtown Montreal lies about 15 kilometres south across the Rivière des Prairies, reached by Montreal Metro Line 2 or any of half a dozen bridges.
The Rivière des Mille Îles runs along the northern shore of Île Jésus, a slow channel of the Ottawa River system braided around dozens of small wooded islands. Most are protected as the Parc de la Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, which rents canoes and kayaks from May through October and operates a small interpretation centre at Sainte-Rose. The southern Rivière des Prairies is faster and constrained by hydroelectric works; the northern river is the one Lavallois grow up swimming and fishing in. Sturgeon and pike still hold in its deeper pools.
The Cosmodome on Chemin du Souvenir is the only space-science museum in Quebec, opened in 1994 around a full-scale replica of an Ariane 4 rocket; it is closed Mondays outside summer. The Centre de la Nature in the east end occupies a former limestone quarry, free to enter, open year-round, with a small farm and a greenhouse. Laval is reached from downtown Montreal in about twenty minutes on the orange metro line, which crosses the Rivière des Prairies and surfaces at Cartier, de la Concorde and Montmorency stations.