(nature in the city) With all the urban activity and entertainment that Montreal offers in the summer, a walk through Montreal’s Mount Royal Park on a sunny afternoon (or morning, if you’re so inclined) can be a refreshing break. In fact, it’s fairly easy in Montreal to find yourself surrounded by trees, chirping birds and other urban wildlife, whether at a park like Mont Royal or Lafontaine or at the Botanical Garden, where a new arboretum interpretation trail opens this weekend. Dedicated to ecology and education, the 40-hectare arboretum is to 7000 trees, so be sure to breathe in all the fresh air they’re making as you wander through. Return to explore the urban outdoors right downtown at Place Émilie-Gamelin (at the corner of Berri and Ste-Catherine), home all summer to food trucks, DJs, performances, art installations, a fruit market and giant chessboards, every day until 6 p.m.

(art in the street) See art in action along a 2-kilometre car-free stretch of Saint-Laurent Boulevard, from Sherbrooke to Mont Royal, any time from June 13 to 16: Mural Fest welcomes 35 local and international artists, such as Jason Botkin, Omen, Labrona and other, to create 20 murals in any and all colours along Saint-Laurent. Meanwhile, as artists work on their murals, other activities go on around the city: get dancing at a free outdoor concert on Saturday night on Saint-Laurent, make art with collective En Masse, known for their black-and-white live painting installations; attend an opening night of art at Station 16 gallery, see film projections on St-Laurent, turn cast-away furniture and other objects into art; paint with your feet; build a kite; go on an art-centric bike tour.

(free folk music) Montreal’s 6th annual Folk Fest on the Canal welcomes one and all this weekend to hear music in a beautiful outdoor setting next to the tree-lined Lachine Canal waterway. The music starts on Saturday, June 15 at 1pm with Maxime Lefebvre, Lakes of Canada, Black Twig Pickers, Claytones, Will Driving West, Old Man Luedecke, and, leaving the night on a high note, The Sadies. On Sunday, hear the Americana of Dylan Perron et Élixir de Gumbo followed by The Franklin Electric, The Once, Ladies of the Canyon, and Quebec’s Catherine Durand. And stop by the Lhasa de Sela stage too to hear music from young and up-and-coming talent.

(french and fabulous) Walk along Sainte-Catherine Street in the Quartier des Spectacles June 13-22 and hear French-language music of all kinds, from Quebec and around the world: Les FrancoFolies fills several outdoor stages with entertainment throughout the day and evening and takes over many downtown venues. The festival kicks off with a free evening show on June 13 by popular Quebecoise singer-songwriter Ariane Moffatt. On Friday, June 14, popular Quebec pop-rock star Marc Dupré is at Metropolis, Dumas, Les Trois Accords and Fanny Bloom play outdoors for free, or see rap group Loco Locass play Club Soda, followed on Saturday night by the charismatic genre-spanning, pop-inspired Karim Ouellet, while on June 20 see electronic-pop musician Peter Peter, whose North American audience keeps growing since he visited SXSW in Texas. Hip hop fans won’t want to miss one of the ‘90s best, regardless of language, French rapper IAM.

(indie theatre, music & more) Comedy, drama, dance and music all comes to the 23rd edition of Montreal’s St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival at venues in the Plateau neighbourhood, June 4-24. Not only do all shows cost under $12, but most of the entertainment at the Fringe Park (and beer tent) on the corner of Rachel and St-Laurent is free, including an afternoon of electronic music courtesy of Piknic Electronik, on June 15.

(community spirit) Join Montrealers in a good time for a good cause: user-review website Yelp gathers musical guests Mia Verko, Ronley Tepper, Ben Hermann and Saxsyndrum to play benefit concert and party, Yelp Helps on June 18 at 6 p.m. Head over to Parc des Ameriques, also home to the Fringe Park (corner of Rachel and St-Laurent), to connect with local non-profit organizations such as Pop Montreal, Bouge d’Ici, AfrikaWaly, the Canadian Liver Foundation and 14 others while enjoying free drinks from McAuslan brewery, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Barefoot Wines and Café Vito and free food from Café Boris, Tourtière Australienne, Mr Puffs, Le Pourvoyeur and Patisserie Almond Butterfly. RSVP on the Yelp Helps website.

(live music) Friday night starts a little differently with The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of The Goddesses, a four-movement symphonic work inspired directly by the video game of the same name, at Place des Arts. The Suoni per il Popolo music festival continues with the latest in experimental rock and jazz: see Saltland, Eric Chenaux and Radwan Ghazi Moumneh on Friday night at Sala Rossa and Nü Sensae and Panopticon Eyelids Saturday night at the same venue, while San Francisco-based post-punk-noise band The Soft Moon play the SAT, and on Monday night hear the strange, spectacular sounds of Rhys Chatham and Oneida at Sala Rossa. But back to the weekend, on Saturday night, Belgian pop singer Selah Sue is at Theatre Corona  and Scottish electropop-rock band Chvrches and Still Corners play Le National. And on a different note, catch a free outdoor chamber music concert by the Orchestre Métropolitain, who play in the Old Port at Place Jacques-Cartier, 11 a.m. on June 15–16. Later in the week, on June 20, make a name for yourself or just watch others perfect the art form at Hip Hop Karaoke – exactly what it sounds like – at Le Belmont.

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Walking through the Montreal Botanical Garden on a sunny summer day is often a glorious experience, but walking through this summer will be out of this world. This June, Mosaïcultures Internationales Montréal horticultural sculpture competition takes root in Montreal, and with it some of the biggest and best displays of art made entirely of plant life…

Considered the world’s most prestigious competition of horticultural art, Mosaïcultures Internationales Montréal, at last returns after 10 years (having stopped to wow crowds in Shanghai and Hamamatsu) to where it was born in 2000. From June 22 to September 29, the competition will see experts create two- and three-dimensional living artworks made of a variety of plants, blending sculpture, colour theory, horticulture and knowledge of the environment.

For this year’s edition, Mosaïcultures Internationales Montréal teamed up with the Montreal Botanical Garden, the third largest of its kind in the world, finding plenty of fertile ground for creativity at the Garden – two whole kilometres of it, filled with over three million plants. The Botanical Garden will act as outdoor art studio to two hundred experts in the art of mosaiculture, from Canada, Belgium, China, South Korea, Spain, the United States, France, Japan, Mexico, Turkey and across Africa.

Teams will create over 40 plant-life sculptures, some big enough to walk through. Each work will tie into this year’s biodiversity-focused theme – Land of Hope – while reflecting the maker’s nationality and culture. It’s a theme that suits both the art form and today’s social context, touching on “the interdependence of man and nature, positive actions for the environment, endangered or at-risk species or ecosystems, nature in the city, the beauty and fragility of life on earth and peace as the key to planetary survival.”

One of the spectacular horticultural arrangements already previewed in maquette form is a masterwork called The Tree of Birds, depicting 60 different bird species and endangered amphibians. Other planned sculptures can be imagined from their thematically inspired titles: Mother Earth (Patchamama for the indigenous peoples of the Andes), The Man Who Planted Trees, The Forest Spirits. Also in the spirit of this year’s theme and the general inclination of the Space for Life, which includes the Botanical Gardens along with the close-by Biodome, Insectarium and Planetarium, the Mosaïcultures Internationales Montréal program offers eco-friendly educational activities for all ages,  turning a stroll through the gardens into a learning experience for life.

THE DETAILS

Mosaïcultures Internationales Montréal 2013, June 22 to September 29, 2013

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With summer comes all variety of music festivals, from the action-packed and crowded to the calm and pastoral – this latter kind is exactly what the Montreal Folk Fest on the Canal embodies. The festival draws big names like this year’s headliner Roger McGuinn of The Byrds, and gathers some of Montreal and Canada’s best folk, bluegrass and country-inspired rock musicians to play under the June sun…

As with most genres of music, folk music can mean many things to many people. Montreal’s 6th annual Folk Fest on the Canal, June 12-16, happens to have a fair bit of rock grit and bluegrass twang in it. In that vein, the festival kicks off its indoor programming on June 12 with An Evening with Roger McGuinn, member of The Byrds and a veteran of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, playing songs old and new on guitar and banjo, at the Georges-Vanier Cultural Centre. The next night, Tim O’Brien, one of the inventors of contemporary bluegrass dishes up old-time music with a vengeance, backed up by his band Hot Rize. And Friday night gets the Virgin Mobile Corona Theatre hopping with bluegrass band The Travelin’ McCourys.

Bring a blanket or a lawn chair down to the festival’s Lachine Canal stage, set up near the Atwater Market for the weekend of June 15-16. Not only will the air fill with music all afternoon on both days, but the shows are free. On Saturday, arrive at 1 p.m. for Maxime Lefebvre, followed by sing-along-able Lakes of Canada, Black Twig Pickers, Claytones, Will Driving West, Old Man Luedecke, and end-of-the-night party makers, The Sadies. On Sunday, Dylan Perron et Élixir de Gumbo strums up classic Americana, followed by The Franklin Electric, The Once, the rollicking and lovely Ladies of the Canyon, and the powerful songs of Quebec’s Catherine Durand.

For those wanting to make a full weekend of it, with or without the family, the Folk Festival on the Canal teams up with Parks Canada for an Urban Camping experience on June 15. Set up your own or a borrowed (from Mountain Equipment Co-op) tent not far from the festival site along the water and among the trees. The campground becomes a quiet slice of nature in an urban setting, complete with amenities, evening snacks, a community camp fire, breakfast and more.

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 THE DETAILS

Folk Fest on the Canal, June 12-16, 2013

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The Zoolympics, happening at the Ecomuseum Zoo on February 2 and 3, will inspire the champion in participants of all ages to sharpen their eagle eye, race like a coyote, listen like a Barn Owl and sniff like a Gray Wolf. The various challenges will educate you all about the hundred-plus species of animals native to Quebec that reside in the Ecomuseum, including the Bald Eagle, the raccoon, the Snowy Owl and the lynx. (A lynx can jump a distance of 6.5 metres – will you beat that record?)

Since 2013 marks the Ecomuseum’s 25th anniversary, there are a whopping 25 prizes to be won at the Zoolympics – including an invitation to come back to share breakfast with the wolves. The anniversary is also the perfect excuse for the coolest of contests, happening between now and February 20, which could see you win a free weekend getaway to Montreal for you and yours! In addition to a hotel stay – with breakfast included – for two adults and two kids, the lucky winner will get a visit to the Ecomuseum zoo and an expedition on Mount Rigaud. Bring your skis for the full wintry experience.

The Ecomuseum Zoo is a non-profit charity located just at the western tip of the Island of Montreal, whose mission it is to protect Quebec’s natural heritage. They’ll be hosting a whole variety of special 25^th anniversary activities throughout 2013 – including a days when kids get in for free, on February 17. Plus, if you “like” them on Facebook, there are prizes to be won on the 25^th of every month this year! So stay tuned…

THE DETAILS

Zoolympics, February 2-3, 2013

Ecomuseum Zoo, 21125 Ste-Marie Road, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, (514) 457-9449

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I love my culture tellement that my favourite festival is le FrancoFolies de Montreal! Everything Francais, musique and parfait! (Not the dessert, that’s how we say “perfect” en Francais.) This year it takes the place June 9 to June 18, 2011. Tellement dozens of my favourite singers will be performing during FrancoFolies!

Like la belle Catherine Ringer, Mara Tremblay and l’amazing Alpha Blondy! But also very much ERIC LAPOINTE avec l’Orchestre symphonique de Montreal! What une excellente way to celebrate 23 years!

The entire new series of indoor events at Place des Arts called Spectacles Concepts Air Transat will be absolutely fou as well! I will get my dance on when Stromea takes the stage for his superhit Alors on danse and other hits from his album, Cheese, because obviously, J’adore le fromage! Then I will slow down jus a leetle when Mara Tremblay sings at L’Astral on June 10 and 11. Elle is just tros cute! J’adore!

Ok…, full disclosure, I’m not actually French, I’m sorry for the bad accent. But my girlfriend is French and I love French music and culture, which is why I’m so obsessed with this fest. I will for sure be taking her to the FrancoFolies dinner cruises, which are full of incredible music in one of Montreal’s most unique venues: le Bateau Mouche! Departing from le Quay Jacques-Cartier in the Old Port, it will feature food from the amazing chef Louis-Francois Marcotte! What a night that will be. What a festival of fun the FrancoFolies will be!

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“Le Monstre” is a true landmark of the city of Montreal. Build 25 years ago, the famous roller coaster of La Ronde amusement park is not only the largest wooden roller coaster in Canada but also the tallest two-track wooden roller coaster in the world. Just last year, “Le Monstre” beat out Magic Mountain’s “X2″ to win the Six Flags Tournament of Thrills.

Such achievements certainly deserve highlighting, so to celebrate 25 years of screams and sensations,  I headed to Parc Jean-Drapeau with my girlfriend Marie-Anne for a perfect girlfriend getaway! Take a look!

LA RONDE

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