Mont Saint-Hilaire (; English: Mount Saint-Hilaire; ;, ; see for other names) is a mountain, high, The university has opened the western half of the mountain to visitors (at a fee) for hiking and cross-country skiing, as the Milieu Naturel (natural area). The eastern half, or Milieu de Conservation (preservation area), is not accessible to the general public.
Until the late nineteenth century, the lack of information on more remote summits of Quebec, as well as the relatively high prominence (about )
Mont Saint-Hilaire is home to a wide variety of fauna and flora, as well as a number of rare minerals, including some which were discovered on the mountain and some which are unique to the region. Some of the soils are ideal for the growth of apple trees, and the mountain's apple orchards draws tens of thousands of visitors each year.
Geography
thumb|The western part of the mountain, seen from the North
The mountain stands above the sea level, or 400 metres above the surrounding plains. It has several summits, surrounding a central lake, Lac Hertel (Lake Hertel).
Most of the well-known summits of the mountain are in the western (open to the public) part. They are the Pain de Sucre (Sugar Loaf), high; the Sunrise, high; the Rocky, high; and the Sommet Dieppe (Dieppe Summit), high as well as Burnt Hill, high.
The summits of the eastern half of the mountain, which is closed to the public, are generally little known, to the point that most official maps fail to identify the distinct summits at all. Only a few names are known, such as East Hill and Lake Hill. These summits range from in elevation.
The central position of the lake on the mountain has led to claims that Mont Saint-Hilaire is a volcanic caldera. However, the lake is actually the result of glacial erosion, and in no way an ancient volcanic crater. Like the other Monteregian Hills, Mont Saint-Hilaire forms part of the Great Meteor hotspot track, which was created when the North American Plate slid over the New England hotspot. During this time, melting occurred, creating subsurface magma intrusions. Erosion of the surrounding softer sedimentary rocks revealed the more resistant rocks of Mont Saint-Hilaire.
Mineral wealth
Mont Saint-Hilaire is a famous mineral locality because of its great number of rare and exotic mineral species. Annite (iron rich biotite) from Mont Saint-Hilaire is among the most iron-rich found in nature. In the gabbro, biotite is less iron-rich, has lower manganese content, but is titanium-rich. Phlogopite is found as small metamorphic crystals in marble xenoliths within the syenite. Siderophyllite, a relatively rare mineral, occurs as large crystals in a metasomatised albite-rich albitite dike.
In addition to gabbro, the second intrusive suite included nepheline syenite, diorite and monzonite. The third intrusive occupies the eastern side and is mainly peralkaline nepheline syenites and porphyrites. The most mineralogically interesting are the associated agpaitic (alkali rich, low aluminium and silicon) pegmatites, the intrusive breccias, and the hornfels derived from the metasomatised sedimentary wall rocks. There have been over 366 distinct species of minerals collected at Mont Saint-Hilaire, 50 of which have this site as type locality.
Ecology
As the last remnant in Quebec of the ancient Gulf of St. Lawrence lowland forests, the area has been a provincial biosphere reserve since 1978 and a federal Migratory Bird Sanctuary since 1960. The area hosts 21 at risk and two endangered species of plant under current statutes.
History
The mountain, particularly the Pain-de-Sucre summit, was well known by the Algonquin First Nations, who used it as a vantage point to survey the valley of the Richelieu River below. The mountain is located in Abenaki traditional territory and its name, Wigwômadenizibo, which means little house-shaped mountain. The first European to visit the region was Samuel de Champlain, who explored the Richelieu River in two expeditions in 1603 and 1609. It was during the later expedition that he discovered the mountain.
Development of the region
Settlement around the mountain began in 1694 when a seigneury was granted to Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville. A village slowly grew on the slopes of the mountain, near the streams emptying out of Lake Hertel. The combination of sugar bushes, the orchards alongside the mountain slopes, and the stream flowing from Lake Hertel which facilitated the construction of watermills provided for growth of the village in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
In the nineteenth century, the mountain became a tourist destination, particularly after Tomas Edmond Campbell bought the seigneury from the Hertel de Rouville family in 1844. A café, the Campbell Café, was established in 1851, and in 1874, a 150-room hotel, the Iroquois Hotel. which made it into the "Gault Reserve".
Names
In the modern Abenaki language, Mont Saint-Hilaire is known as Wigwômadenizibo, meaning the small house-shaped mountain.
The establishment of the town and parish of Chambly to the south led to the mountain temporarily becoming Mont Chambly in the later seventeenth century (although the name persisted in English until at least 1830). After 1697, the mountain became known as Mont Rouville, after the newly established seigneury of the Hertel de Rouville family.
When the Campbell family replaced the Hertel de Rouville family, the mountain took up the name Mont Beloeil, after the nearby municipality of Beloeil, on the other side of the Richelieu River. McMasterville, Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Otterburn Park.
In art
Several artists have painted Mont Saint-Hilaire over the years. The first was the English painter John Bainbrigge, who made three separate watercolour paintings of the mountains around 1838, while garrisoned in the region. A few decades later, the mountain also appeared in a painting by Cornelius Krieghoff.
Despite a slow establishment in the region (the first two parishes at the foot of the mountain, Saint-Jean-Baptiste and Saint-Hilaire, were only established in 1796 and 1798), before abandoning the mountain and their immortality to marry their mortal lovers,