Author: Matthew Lapierre

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Making an impact in St-John’s, Newfoundland

Former John Molson School of Business professor Isabelle Dostaler left Concordia to become the dean of the faculty of business administration at Memorial University in September 2017. Photo by Rodrigo Iniguez Becerril

Former Concordia Isabelle Dostaler on her transition to Memorial University

In September 2017, a former Concordia University management professor began her new job as the dean of the faculty of business administration at Memorial University in St-John’s, N.L.

Isabelle Dostaler, who taught management courses and conducted research at the John Molson School of Business (JMSB) for 16 years, said administrators at Concordia were gracious towards her when she informed them that she would be accepting a position at Memorial University.

“Once the offer from Memorial was on the table, there was nothing Concordia could do to keep me there,” she said. “But, they were very understanding. [Concordia president] Alan Shepard wished me the best.” Dostaler left her position at Concordia in April 2017. “It was a bold move, but I’m happy,” she added.

Dostaler, who holds a PhD in management studies from the University of Cambridge, has done extensive research on the air transportation system. While at Concordia, Dostaler was the academic director of the university’s Aviation Think Tank and director of the executive MBA and the aviation MBA programs.

“My major interest is in the air transportation system,” she said. “By that, I mean from the point that the aircraft is being designed to the point where the travellers arrive happy at their destination.”

During her time at Concordia, Dostaler was often featured in the media. She appeared on shows like RDI Économie and Tout le monde en parle to talk about developments and issues in Quebec’s aerospace industry.

Now, as dean of the faculty of business administration, Dostaler explained that her role is to inspire and assist in implementing changes that benefit students, faculty and the larger community.

This month, Memorial University announced a new master’s degree focussing on developing sustainable and social business practices in public, private and not-for-profit sectors.

“Here, there is an emphasis on giving back. It is written in the founding papers of Memorial that the university must exist for the benefit of the community,” Dostaler said.

She added that she enjoys living in St-John’s and, despite differences between Memorial and Concordia—Memorial’s business school only has about 2,000 students compared to the 9,000 at JMSB—she sees many similarities.

“There are a lot of commonalities. For one, here [at Memorial], there is a very supportive staff, just like at John Molson,” she said. “I think Newfoundland and Quebec have a lot in common. For one thing, they’re both societies with very distinct cultures.”

While Dostaler may have moved away from Concordia, she said she hasn’t completely cut ties with the school. For the next two years, she will hold the position of affiliate professor in Concordia’s management department.

“I’m still working on research with the Quebec government through Concordia,” she added.

Photo by Rodrigo Iniguez Becerril

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Ms. Dostaler’s role the creation of Memorial’s new master’s degree and her current position at Concordia. The article also falsely stated that Dostaler initially found the transition to Memorial difficult and that she was previously involved in making recommendations at Concordia. The Concordian regrets the errors.

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Author of Concordia bomb threat in court

Hisham Saadi, the man who sent a letter threatening to detonated bombs at Concordia, will be back in court on Nov. 9 for his trial. Photo by Ana Hernandez

Hashim Saadi trial to begin this week

The man who sent a letter threatening Muslim students at Concordia University in March 2017 was back in court on Thursday, Nov. 9.

Hashim Saadi wore blue jeans, an orange fleece sweater and a flannel scarf to court. He stood silently in front of the judge as his lawyer argued to have his bail conditions altered to allow him to attend a work training in March.

Saadi, a former doctoral candidate in economics at Concordia, is being charged with carrying out a terror-related hoax, uttering threats and mischief in connection with a bomb threat to Concordia’s Muslim student population. His trial will begin on Nov. 16.

On March 1, 2017, Saadi allegedly sent a letter to multiple Montreal media outlets threatening to set off bombs in the Hall building on de Maisonneuve Blvd. and the EV building on Ste-Catherine Street.

The targeted buildings were evacuated at 11:30 a.m., sending thousands of students onto the streets. Classes resumed at the university’s downtown campus at 6 p.m. that day. In the wake of the threats, the Concordia Student Union released a statement urging the university to cancel classes for the rest of the week.

The threatening letter, obtained by The Concordian, said that unless Concordia stopped religious activity of all kinds on campus, “small artisanal bombs” would be detonated in the university. “These are not meant to kill anybody,” the letter read. “The only aim is to injure some Moslem [sic] students.”

The letter was signed by the Council of Conservative Citizens of Canada, or C4. No such organization is listed on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s online list of hate groups in Canada. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the similarly named Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) is an American white nationalist group. The group’s leader was contacted by CBC News on the day of the Concordia bomb threat. He denied involvement in or knowledge of the bomb threat.

A group called C4 does exist in Canada; it is called the Canadian Coalition of Concerned Citizens. Their Facebook page listed their mandate as “to protect democracy and freedom of speech.” Several days after the bomb scare at Concordia, the group organized a demonstration in Trois-Rivières against M-103, the federal Liberal government’s motion condemning Islamophobia. Members of the group quoted by Le Nouvelliste newspaper said they thought the Concordia hoax was a plot to silence freedom of speech, citing the fact that Saadi is reportedly of Lebanese origin.

Multiple media outlets initially linked the bomb threats to a wave of anti-Muslim incidents which occurred in the wake of the Quebec City mosque shooting on Jan. 29, 2017, when six people were killed. The National Council of Canadian Muslims reported that two Montreal mosques had been vandalized in the weeks following the shooting.

After Saadi’s arrest on March 3, dozens of international media outlets, including The Arab Herald and Lebanese outlet The 961, reported the story and decried the bomb threat as a hoax. On March 7, conservative writer and radio talk-show host Dennis Prager used the Concordia bomb scare as an example of fake anti-Islamic incidents in an article titled “There is no wave of Trump-induced anti-Semitism or racism.”

Concordia confirmed that Saadi was a doctoral candidate in economics at the university before his arrest. Two of Saadi’s friends, who appeared at his bail hearing, described him as a non-practicing Muslim. Police searched his apartment after his arrest but reported they hadn’t found any explosive materials.

Saadi underwent a psychological evaluation upon his arrest. His trial is expected to last four days.

Photo by Ana Hernandez

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Bishop Street business owners want peace

Bishop Street business owners say construction on their street caused by renovations of the STM’s green line may put them out of business. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Construction on downtown street has caused some to consider closing up shop

Restaurant and bar owners on Bishop Street want financial compensation from the city of Montreal for lost revenue due to the construction of a new metro ventilation station that’s driving customers away.

According to the the Société de transport de Montréal, the station will replace an aging one on De la Montagne Street and provide fresh air to the green line between the Peel and Guy-Concordia stations. The STM said work on the station began in October 2016 and should be finished by mid-2020.

That’s too long for Carlo Zahabi, the owner of Le Gourmet Burger, a restaurant on Bishop Street that’s been hit hard by the construction. He said sales have dropped by as much as 60 per cent since the work began.

“I’m three to four months behind on my rent,” Zahabi said. “It’s a real possibility that I’ll have to close down.”

In April, Zahabi and a coalition of Bishop Street business owners filed a lawsuit against the city of Montreal and the STM requesting $2,500 compensation for every month of construction, and $25,000 to commision a private engineering firm to inspect the project and see if it could be done faster. The coalition also wants free advertising for their businesses in the nearby Peel and Guy-Concordia metro stations.

Last week, a judge denied the coalition’s request for temporary compensation—which would have given the businesses financial aid before the case went to trial. It’s a decision that seriously hurts the businesses’ ability to stay open even up until the trial date which will likely only take place in 2019, according to Legal Logik, the firm representing the merchants.

“We tried to show [the judge] that it was urgent,” said Gaby Nassar, the owner of Kafein, a café-bar on Bishop Street affected by the construction. “Now the delays will be substantial.”

The construction turned a usually busy street into a tangle of concrete barriers and metal fences. On their website, the STM urged pedestrians and cyclists to avoid the section of Bishop Street where the work is taking place.

“They’re blocking access to my restaurant with a fence,” Zahabi said. “It’s a dead end sidewalk, and they put up a sign that says ‘Trottoir Barré.’ Who’s going to come down there?”

Both Nassar and Zahabi said they’re unhappy with the way the STM notified them the work was going to start.

“[The STM] said they sent fliers,” Zahabi claimed. “That’s not any way to notify a business of construction in front of their place. They should have prepared a plan to save us before they started the work.”

Nassar agreed: “They could have approached us months in advance to talk instead of letting us cry for help.”

In February, the city of Montreal unveiled a plan to reconstruct a large part of St-Hubert Street. The work is slated to begin in the summer of 2018 and continue until 2021. The city announced it will be offering financial compensation to St-Hubert Street merchants who lose business as a result of the construction.

The city did not offer any compensation to the merchants on Bishop Street.

“[The city] told us [they have many] resources for financial programs to help businesses out when there’s construction, but for some reason we’re an exception,” Zahabi said. “I don’t see any exception. It’s all work.”

According to Zahabi, the construction has already forced two restaurants on Bishop Street to close and another to file for bankruptcy.

The coalition of Bishop Street merchants is determined to continue their legal battle against the STM and the city of Montreal. The STM refused to comment on the Bishop Street construction, noting that information about the project is available on their website.

“It’s a situation that needs a bit of attention,” Nassar said. “The city is being slow and not active. We’re not going to give up. My business has been here 15 years. We’re going to keep fighting.”

Photo by Alex Hutchins

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Better road planning through crowdsourcing

Concordia professor Zachary Patterson’s inventive app, MTL Trajet, allows the city of Montreal to better plan road networks, construction detours and bike paths. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Concordia professor inventive app helps city of Montreal organize construction

This month, the city of Montreal is using an innovative smartphone app, called MTL Trajet, to track Montrealers’ trips through the city in an effort to better plan road networks, construction detours and bike paths.  

It’s the second time the city is running the project. Last fall, more than 11,000 Montreal residents downloaded the app.

MTL Trajet is a version of the Itinerum app, both developed by Zachary Patterson, a geography professor and director of the Transportation Research for Integrated Planning (TRIP) Lab at Concordia University. He developed the app in 2014 as a way to collect travel behaviour data around the Concordia community.

Patterson said the MTL Trajet project has the potential to serve as a new way to collect data that can be used to plan transportation networks. According to the Société de transport métropolitain (STM), their main source of transportation data is Origin Montreal—a phone survey that is conducted every five years.

“Young people are being left out of these surveys,” Patterson said. “[MTL Trajet] is a method by which you can hopefully have more detailed information on people’s trips and be able to capture segments of the population that are being less and less captured in these traditional surveys.”

According to Patterson, the project is one of the first of its kind. The San Francisco County Transportation Authority pioneered crowdsourced data collection in 2013 through the use of an app called Cycletracks. Cycletracks used GPS data collected by cyclists in San Francisco to help plan bike paths, but according to user reviews, it didn’t always map routes accurately.

“These cycling apps, in order to record your trips, you had to open the app and say you’re taking a bike trip,” Patterson said. “What’s different with what we do is that MTL Trajet automatically detects when you’re taking a trip.”

In 2015, Patterson was asked by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) to use a version of the Itinerum app to map out bus routes in Accra, Ghana. Accra’s transportation network was a semi-formal network of buses called trotros, operated by independent contractors. Patterson said the inexpensive nature of the Itinerum app allowed them to accurately map out Accra’s public transit system.

What he and his team found was that many of the listed routes taken by the buses in Ghana weren’t actually in use at all.

Patterson cited battery life as one of biggest challenges in creating a data-mapping app.

“Our goal was to be able to collect data every block so we could identify people’s itineraries accurately but not change their [phone] charging schedule,” he said. “That was the hardest thing.”

Patterson sees a future for crowdsourcing apps like Itinerum and MTL Trajet as an easy-to-use and inexpensive tool for researchers. “My hope is that it will be available to be used not just by people who have a deep understanding of programming, but also by students,” he said.

The more people who use the MTL Trajet app, he said, the more useful and accurate the data will be.

MTL Trajet is available for download on the App Store or Google Play Store.

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MIGS’s Kyle Matthews on the situation in Myanmar

Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies executive director Kyle Matthews comments on the situation concerning Rohingya people in Myanmar. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Rohingya killings are textbook case of ethnic cleansing, says institute’s executive director

Last week, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, condemned the treatment of the Rohingya people by the Burmese government, labelling it a textbook case of ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar’s government has denied the media and international observers access to the Rakhine state located near the Bangladesh border where, according to fleeing villagers interviewed by Human Rights Watch, soldiers from the Burmese military are executing civilians, raping thousands of women and burning down hundreds of Rohingya settlements.

Myanmar has never granted citizenship to the mostly Muslim Rohingya and tensions have been high between them and Myanmar’s Buddhist majority population for years. On Aug. 25, the conflict reached a tipping point when a Rohingya militant group staged a coordinated attack on 24 police stations and outposts in the region, Al Jazeera reported. Since then, the Burmese government has cracked down on the Rohingya under the guise of a security operation, according to the same publication.

The U.N. Refugee Agency estimates that, as of Sept. 11, over 370,000 Rohingya refugees have fled from northwestern Myanmar into Bangladesh.

Kyle Matthews, the executive director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) at Concordia, agreed with the U.N. high commissioner’s accusation. He said the Burmese government is breaking international law by engaging in ethnic cleansing, and people need to speak out. Matthews works with parliamentarians, researchers and activists—including Quebec Senator Romeo Dallaire—to increase public awareness of genocide and violent extremism. MIGS’s goal is to prevent mass atrocities, like the Rwandan genocide, from ever happening again.

Researchers at the institute have been following the situation in Myanmar for years, but as it has become more dire, Matthews has started to speak out. Here’s what he had to say about the Myanmar crisis.

Q: Would you use the term “ethnic cleansing” to describe the situation in Myanmar?

A: I think it’s a textbook case. There are verified reports of villages being burnt. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have confirmed, through satellite technology, that it is taking place. There have been tales of refugees crossing into Bangladesh, giving accounts of Myanmar’s military attacking the villages and threatening that if the Rohingya don’t leave, they would kill everyone. It’s ethnic cleansing, that’s for sure.

Q: What’s the definition of ethnic cleansing?

A: Well, there’s a legal definition, and it’s encompassed as one of four mass atrocity crimes under the Responsibility to Protect principles, [a global political commitment endorsed by all U.N. member states]. The term “ethnic cleansing” came out of the Balkan conflict. It’s where you use physical violence to intimidate a population to get them to leave the area where they’re living and to ensure they never come back. So it’s not genocide, where you want to destroy the group in whole or in part, but it’s to basically kick them off the land and make sure they don’t come back. So it fits that. Others have said that there’s also a genocide going on.

Q: Is the distinction between genocide and ethnic cleansing important in this case?

A: No, I don’t think so. Whether it’s genocide or ethnic cleansing has to be analyzed by a court of law, but I think it’s safe to say there are mass atrocity crimes taking place.

Q: The Burmese government is denying access to observers and media in the Rakhine state. Why is that important?

A: I think they’re denying access because they’ve got something to hide. Before all this violence took place, there were crackdowns on international NGOs. We worked with some Canadian NGOs in Rakhine state. They’ve talked about very difficult challenges to get there. Media has had trouble accessing the area. That’s textbook when a government is conducting mass atrocities.

Q: Is it important for countries or leaders to denounce these types of situations?

A: I think it’s important. I think most leaders are afraid to do that, but we have a legal responsibility. Canada, for example, has an additional responsibility because [Myanmar’s leader] Aung San Suu Kyi is an honorary Canadian citizen. We have a responsibility to speak out. International law is quite clear; there’s nothing there that says we’re supposed to be quiet. I think we have to speak out. When you don’t name a certain human rights violation, then you’re avoiding what’s really taking place. So I think, politically, we need to stand out. However, the most positive thing about Myanmar has been all of these other Nobel Peace Prize winners denouncing what’s happening. That gives [the issue] a moral voice, and it also shows political leaders an incentive to be more forceful.

Q: What can individuals do?

A: There’s a lot you can do. First of all, we live in a democracy. We can use our individual voices to write to political leaders—be that the Liberal government or the opposition—to say that this is important to us and we want Canada to take more action, we want Canada to speak publicly and denounce this regime. We don’t have to fall into apathy. We can use our individual power to try to make change. In every humanitarian disaster, it comes down to individuals that show leadership and make a difference.

Photo by Alex Hutchins

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More than just a board game

Graphic by Thom Bell

Exploring the intellectually-challenging game of chess

It’s exam time, or close to it, but on a Wednesday evening on the 10th floor of the Hall building, Concordia students Vlad Boshki and Andrew Kyres make time to sit across from one another to play a game of chess.

They’re both executives of the Concordia Chess Club, an organization they’re hoping to grow into a group where members who share their passion for “the game of kings” can connect and develop their chess skills and logic.

Chess originated as a board game played by the rulers of India 1,500 years ago to practice tactical and strategic thinking. Back then, chess was the game of the elite—of generals, intellectuals and royalty.

By the Middle Ages, the game had spread from India to the Middle East and made its way to the Western world. It was being played in the Arabian Peninsula, Northern Africa and Europe. Today, chess is played by men and women of all races, nationalities and social classes around the world.

At Concordia, the chess club is a small group of students and occasionally professors who meet Friday evenings on the 10th floor of the Hall building to chat, joke and play chess. The atmosphere is friendly—this is no cutthroat chess tournament. It’s an environment where chess players of all levels can improve their game and have fun.

“The skill level varies greatly. We have some who are just learning and have never played at all and we show them stuff. We also have some who come regularly, who study at home and play online,” said Boshki. “There are even some who are advanced and have ratings and go to tournaments.”

Alika Utepova is a former Concordia Chess Club executive and a current member. She’s in her fourth year of computer science and she’s passionate about chess.

“I googled ‘Concordia Chess Club’ before actually coming to Concordia,” she said. “When I first got involved in the club about four years ago, there were only two of us. We would play there on the 10th floor and people would walk by and join in.”

Utepova’s former chess partner, Wafic Alameddine, has since graduated. He was involved in the chess club while doing his masters in electrical and computer engineering at Concordia.

“We were a small group of people at the time, but the group grew in popularity as we hosted tournaments and created a Facebook page,” Alameddine said.

The Concordia Chess Club’s Facebook group has 178 members, but only a fraction of them attend the weekly chess sessions.

“There’s actually quite a few people. They’re not all regulars. If we’re all together, I think we’re like 20,” said Kyres.

Kyres, Utepova and Boshki all started playing chess at a young age. Utepova is from Kazakhstan, Boshki from Russia.

“I started when I was six,” Boshki said. “I was playing in tournaments like the Russian Open Championships. Every kid plays chess in Russia. I would say it’s a national sport.”

Here in Canada, organizations like the Chess’n Math Association, an association which teaches people to play chess, promote the game as a way for kids to develop their “personality, intellectual skills and strength of character,” according to their website.

Kyres agreed. Chess thinking, he said, helps him with his studies, since it requires the same type of thinking as some of his math and statistics classes.

“It definitely relates,” Kyres said. “It’s all logic.”

It takes years of study and practice to be good at this simple game. It takes a lifetime to master it, according to the club.

The Concordia club caters to all types of chess players: those who want to experiment with the game, and those who see it as a sport. Kyres recently competed in a tournament in Trois Rivières and won $50. He and Boshki are both looking to improve their chess skills. They’re hoping to compete in more tournaments in the future, but for them, chess is just a hobby.

Chess is frequently used as a metaphor for conflict and problem-solving. Professional boxer Lennox Lewis once compared chess to boxing. Napoleon compared it to war. Rap group the Wu Tang Clan compared chess to swordfighting. Former chess world champion Garry Kasparov even wrote a book about how chess imitates life.

Utepova sees the connection. “Both in chess and in life, it’s so easy to follow the path of least resistance, but when you challenge that attitude and try and be more proactive, you can make a lot of good things happen,” she said. “Sometimes I wish life were as simple as chess because in chess you know there is a solution. Life is more complex.”

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Bouldering with Concordia University

Bouldering can be a dangerous and technical sport that requires both skill and precision. Photos by Gordon Pham-Nguyen.

Going on an adventure to Val-David with some brave students

On a cool November morning, 15 Concordia students met at the McDonald’s next to Côte-Vertu metro. It’s a good place to meet, eat a heavy breakfast and drink plenty of coffee before heading out for a day of bouldering.

What is bouldering?

It may sound silly, but bouldering is the sport of climbing boulders. Unlike rock or mountain climbing, the goal is not just to get to the top, but to get there by solving a “problem,” by working through a series of moves on small, often overhanging holds. In this sport, the emphasis is on difficulty. Boulderers fall often and when they do, they fall on to crash pads—small mattress-type cushions that soften the impact.

For these Concordia students, bouldering is a fun way to spend a day in the woods with your friends, working on “problems.”

Five cars left the metro station and headed north that morning towards Val-David, Que., a picturesque, alpine-style village in the Laurentians.

Best known as a pit stop along the Petit-Train-du-Nord bike path, Val-David is a quaint tourist spot. The town is divided by two rivers. It has a church, dozens of small restaurants, cafés and bakeries, and is situated in a valley, surrounded by rolling hills that turn bright orange and red this time of year.

What many people do not know about Val-David is that it is the heartland of climbing in Quebec. According to the Val-David guidebook, climbing legends like Paul Laperriere and Bernard Poisson cut their teeth on the cliffs near the town in the 50s and 60s. Before long, those pioneers had revolutionized the sport in Quebec, pushing physical limits while exploring what seemed like a never-ending collection of walls, caverns and pinnacles.

The Val-David regional park has more than 500 climbing routes.

Concordia students gear up to climb the big boulder.

By the late 70s, it is fair to say that Val-David climbing was well-established and well-known, at least within the Quebec climbing community, according to the Val-David climbing guidebook. What was only beginning to become known was a new sport: bouldering.

Today, bouldering is taking the world by storm. According to the International Federation of Sport Climbing, seven thousand people attended the Bouldering World Cup finals in Paris, France earlier this year. Thousands more watched the event online.

Why is it becoming so popular? The simplicity of the sport is to blame, according to Nick McCullagh, one of the executives of the Concordia Rock Climbing Association.

“It’s so simple and aesthetic: whether you succeed or not depends on if you can do the moves to get to the top. There’s no complicated rules,” he said.

Of course, it’s much more complex than that, as the students who went to Val-David discovered. The problems on the Val-David boulders are hard and physical, requiring impressive finger strength. Some students rose to the occasion, attempting difficult problems and sometimes “topping out”—finishing the problem by getting to the top of the boulder. Others stayed on the easier rocks and were introduced to the sport, learning the definitions of discipline-specific jargon like “gaston” and “figure-four,” both of which are just fancy names for moves that boulderers use to get up the walls.

The students also learned the definition of “sending-season.” It’s that time of year when it is so cold outside that skin-on-rock friction is improved. It happens when temperatures drop to around 0 C and it’s when most professional boulderers finally “send their projects,” meaning they get to the top of boulders they’ve been trying to climb for a long time.

It was so cold on that November day that it snowed, but according to some, there’s nothing better than bouldering in the snow. “If you fall and your friends don’t catch you on the crash pad, then you’ll land in the snow and that’s just as good,” said Matthew Packer, an experienced boulderer who was with Concordia at Val-David that day.

How do you finish off a day of wrestling with boulders, a day of defying gravity? The Concordia climbers ended up at Le Mouton Noir, one of Val-David’s popular local restaurants, sharing stories, laughing, drinking and nursing injured fingers. Time well spent in good company, each and every one of them ready to do it again.

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Climbing at Concordia University

Concordia rock climbers wait to climb the wall before the rain hits. Photos by Nicholas McCullagh.

Exploring the Laurentians with the Concordia Rock Climbers Association

Who would want to get up early on a Sunday, drive two hours through fog to the Laurentians and hike 15 minutes uphill all just to go rock climbing on an overcast October morning?

Concordia students would.

Matthew Packer is a business student at the John Molson Student of Business and one of the executives of the Concordia Rock Climbers Association (CRCA). Just last week, he was clinging to a cliff on Montagne d’Argent, a popular rock climbing area, leading a group of four Concordia students up the mountain in the rain. Moments earlier, the group had been staring up at him, but as the rain came down, they began rummaging through their daypacks, past peanut butter sandwiches, granola bars and harnesses, to get out their rain coats.

“Had anyone checked the weather forecast?” someone yelled.

Not a comforting thought when you’re 20 meters above the ground. Packer, along with the CRCA climbers, know that cliffs are slippery when wet. It’s usually not as enjoyable to rock climb in the rain. And yet, somehow, the group of eager young climbers are all smiles. Maybe it’s because, up until recently, this opportunity would not have been possible.

The CRCA was founded last year by two Concordia students looking to share their passion for climbing. Nicholas McCullagh, a computer science student and the CRCA’s vice president of events, got involved after he noticed the university’s outdoor club, Concordia Outdoors Club (COC), didn’t offer much for someone who was either already a passionate rock climber or looking to delve into the sport.

The four students who joined the executive team on their rainy trip to the Laurentians two weeks ago are pioneers in a sense. They are among the first people to attend a trip hosted by the CRCA, and while the group may have been small, the association’s executives are expecting a rise in membership and participation.

CRCA member Melanie Allard climbs up Montagne d’Argent.

“Rock climbing is becoming more popular,” said McCullagh. “It’s going to be in the Olympics. There are more gyms opening up. The community is expanding.”

An increase in the CRCA’s popularity may take some strain off COC, whose trips are often at full capacity. The club hosts frequent hiking trips to mountains such as St-Sauveur and Orford. They hire busses to transport as many as 45 students to and from the hikes.

Brynn Low, one of the COC’s co-presidents, said that the strain of running such a large group is being felt at the top.

“Our participation this year has gone up over 100 per cent. All of our events have sold out in literally minutes,” Low said. “It’s been insane. It’s awesome but it’s a lot.”

The COC’s hikes are meant to be entry-level, providing the opportunity for city-dwelling students to get outside and meet new people. They are open to Concordia students interested in getting some exercise away from the city.

“We try and do hiking trips almost every weekend in the fall, and then we do a chalet trip once a semester and we do things like ice-skating in the winter,” Low said.

The popularity of the COC makes it hard to believe that it has only been around for about 10 years. Furthermore, according to Low, the group had barely been active until three years ago and has since experienced a transformation.

Both the COC and CRCA can be considered modern when compared to Montreal’s oldest university outdoor association—the McGill Outdoors Club (MOC) which has been around since 1936.

While not yet on par with an established organization like the MOC, adventure opportunities at Concordia are skyrocketing. Leaders of Concordia’s outdoor clubs have plans to develop and get more people outside in the coming years.

“We want to build. We want to buy gear, ropes and [bouldering] pads,” McCullough said. “We want to expand the community. Becoming like the MOC is an eventual goal.”

Packer, fresh off the wet cliffs of Montagne d’Argent and smiling ear to ear agrees.

“We just want to let climbers connect with each other and introduce people to the sport we love,” said Packer.

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Climbing in the old Papineau Theatre

A climber makes their way up the wall. Photos by Melissa Martella.

Zero Gravité’s building is a large piece of the Plateau’s trendy history

On Papineau Avenue. in the Plateau, things are not as they once were. Factories are now cafés, working-class apartments have turned into trendy condos and an old theatre is now a rock-climbing gym.

Anxious rock-climbers look up and get ready to climb the wall. Photos by Melissa Martella.

The rock climbing gym features a wide, white, western style façade. It towers over a street which in eras past used to be filled with suited gentlemen and fashionable ladies looking for a cool night out. The long extinct crowds were attracted to the tall building by a bright backlit marquee which promised entertainment in the form of performance art. That same marquee which once projected movie titles and superstars’ names now reads: “Zero Gravité: Escalade et Yoga.”

Inside, Rose Riley works the cash. Riley is more than just a cashier: she is an experienced climber who has rock-climbed as far away as Thailand. She has only been working at Zero Gravité for nine months but loves it. Who wouldn’t? It has a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. The walls are being mounted by climbers who are locked into intense mental struggles as they desperately cling to small plastic climbing holds high above the ground, yet can’t be seen by those reclining below.

Cool reggae floats around the main room, emanating from speakers embedded in a high ceiling embossed with carvings of gods and mythical beasts—the only vestige of the golden-era theatre it once was.

Despite taking up rock climbing less than a decade ago, Riley already has more experience on the hot end of a rope than most life-long climbers. As an employee, she enjoys climbing for free on Zero Gravité’s 120 climbing routes, which vary in difficulty from beginner to advanced, all of which, is inside a building that is almost 100 years old.

The walls are covered in plastic “rocks” and lined with ropes. Photos by Melissa Martella.

Originally built in 1921 as the Papineau theatre, Zero Gravité was first an auditorium, then a porn theatre and then a bingo hall. In 2012 it became what it is today thanks to the dream of Riley’s bosses: Eric Aubut and Patrick Lévesque, two Quebec-based climbers with a vision of completely transforming the old theatre into a facility dedicated to climbing. The building itself hasn’t changed on the outside. Inside however, it is entirely different. Where there was once a ticket desk there is now a snack bar. Where there was a lounge there is now a yoga studio. Where there was a balcony there is now a bouldering wall. Where the stage once stood, there is now a 37-foot high wall covered in tattooed climbers, artfully ascending a colourful plastic façade.

A climber makes their way up the wall. Photos by Melissa Martella.

Community is important at Zero Gravité, as it is in many climbing gyms, according to Riley. They host frequent events ranging from competitions to parties. The community of climbers always turn out to make these events successful but still Riley doesn’t think Zero Gravité is unique: “It’s the same feeling of comradery and community you see around any climbing gym,” she said.

Zero Gravité’s building is a large part of Le Plateau’s history. Photos by Melissa Martella.

However, Zero Gravité is not just any climbing gym. On the walls, in the same spot where years ago a stage displayed the finest performing art of the era, a thin climber with a ghostly forest tattoo on her back maneuvers her way beautifully up a brightly coloured route. The inked images appear to shift and move with her muscles as if the trees are being shaken by a strong winter wind. Zero Gravité is special. Performance art is still being displayed here, but now in the form of climbing. Though the actors have changed, the purpose of the old theatre has not. In the historic Papineau Theatre, things have changed, but in a way they are just as they once were.

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Sports

Climbing up the icy walls of Downtown Montreal

Matthew Packer makes his way up the icy wall. Photo by Mel Allard.

Two Concordia students take a risky trip up the McTavish ice walls

It isn’t every day that you get to look up at your friend with blades attached to his feet, wielding two axes, kicking and stabbing his way up a sheer wall of ice surrounded by a panorama of skyscrapers. Because if you’re most people, it isn’t every day that you get to go ice climbing in the middle of Downtown Montreal.

Matthew Packer makes his way up the icy wall. Photo by Mel Allard.

Nick McCullagh and Matthew Packer are not like most. They’re both Concordia students and avid rock climbers and adventurers. They do not like to waste time. They’ve climbed mountains as far away as the Peruvian Andes and the French Alps. For them, a day spent on an ice wall or a rock wall is a day well spent. A desolate mountain peak? Even better. They’ve recently discovered a new spot to hone their adventure skills right in Downtown Montreal.

The two readily admit that they aren’t ice climbing experts. They idolize ice-gods like Will Gadd and Conrad Anker but they insist you don’t need to be an ice god to enjoy some of the easy vertical ice which is smack in the middle of Downtown Montreal. Even better if you’re a McGill student; there’s good ice climbing on your campus. Where? The McTavish ice walls.

Located just behind McGill, on the side of Mount Royal, is a beautiful ice wall about 300 metres long and five to 10 metres high. The McTavish walls are not world class ice, but they are lots of fun. They form when water flowing down Mount-Royal accumulates above the McTavish reservoir and freezes into a blue-hued facade. Perfect for Packer and McCullagh to use two downturned ice axes and sharp 12 point crampons to hit and kick their way up it.

Climbing there is technically illegal but after rappelling down into the basin the two climbers aren’t worried about being caught. The ice is perfect today and the view of Downtown Montreal adds to the adventure. They set up a rope and climb the same route several times, pausing only to reposition it over some fresh ice. The duo is dynamic but not fast: grace is preferable to speed. Ice is delicate; climbing it requires finesse.

A poorly placed axe-head or miss kick with a crampon could upset the frozen surface and send the climber tumbling; a result which would likely leave bruises at best and require a visit to the hospital or morgue at worst, but Packer and McCullagh do not fall. The most dangerous occurrence of the day happens when, as McCullagh climbs, he dislodges an arm-sized chunk of ice. He shouts a warning and Packer nimbly steps out of the way as the chunk shatters at his feet.

In the afternoon they become a tourist attraction. As curious Montrealers look on, they pose to make what they’re doing seem especially lethal as photos are snapped. Sweaty and hungry after what seems like an hour, they dismantle their gear, strap the intimidating axes to their packs and trudge down the hill into McGill campus. When asked about their next trip idea Packer responds: “Out west somewhere, to head into the alpine. The climbing in Quebec is good but it’s nothing compared to the real mountains. It’s great practice though.”

A look at their phones reveals that without realizing it, almost the entire day has passed. The time was spent violently stabbing a wall of frozen water with miniature pick-axes, surrounded by skyscrapers and tourists. But they wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Sports

Rock Climbing: embracing the vertical world

Graphic by Charlotte Bracho.

A spotlight on one of the most terrifying and dangerous sports in the athletic world

The sport of rock climbing is visceral, its only goal being go up and don’t fall.

Graphic by Charlotte Bracho.

Rock climbing is a cross-cultural pastime, and can be practiced just about everywhere on Earth,  from the local gym where climbers pull on plastic, safely belayed from above, to the highest cliffs and mountains on earth where very often the elite of the sport climb with little to nothing protecting them should they fall.

The ludicrous amount of risk which must be accepted to undertake some forms of rock climbing (like traditional climbing and alpinism) transport pros beyond the recreational realm. With climbing and alpinism, the ability to be cool under pressure is paramount. There are however sport branches where speed, strength and technique are highlighted.

When rock climbing becomes competitive, the goal is simple: climb higher than your competitors. The three main styles of competitive climbing are bouldering, speed climbing and sport climbing.

Bouldering is climbing on a small scale. A competitor must figure out the proper sequence to get to the top of a small, but extremely challenging “problem” with gymnastics mats to catch them should they fall. These “problems” are aptly named as they require problem solving skills and creative body contortions to get to the top. Bouldering is becoming increasingly popular on the world stage and one does not have to be an aficionado to appreciate the spectacle of watching the world’s most elite climbers perform flashy moves to get to the top of a hard problem.

Speed climbing is perhaps not as popular as bouldering but it is even more sensational. The set route is the same at every competition, so athletes memorize the sequence to the point where they seem to fly up rather than climb. Don’t believe me? Type “speed climbing” into YouTube and see what you find.

The final form of competitive climbing is “sport” climbing, in which athletes climb up long technical routes. Endurance and technique are highlighted and the winner is the one who climbs the highest. Simple. Sport climbing was on a short list to be included in the 2020 Olympics but after a long decision process the IOC decided not to adopt it.

Rock climbing outdoors will perhaps always remain fringe due to the risks involved, but maybe one day the athletic versions of the sport will help familiarize the broader public with the vertical world.

For those who want to try the sport, Allez Up on St-Patrick street is a great place to practice. Another place would be the Shakti Rock Gym on Saint Viateur East. Both places offer classes for beginners.

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