April 22 2012

Organizers estimate that at least 300,000 took part in the Earth Day march in Montreal today that commenced at 2pm at Place des Festivals and walked up avenue du Parc to Parc Jeanne-Mance. Organizers had actually only anticipated 30,000 turning up, and given the cold day, the size of crowd was pretty amazing

I was fortunate that the organizers had selected avenue du Parc as the route for the march as it enabled me to get a birds eye view of the march from our apartment building.

The shot of the day is a 4 exposure panorama that shows the march stretching from parc Jeanne-Mance on the left down to Sherbrooke street.

I was joined on the roof terrace by members of Greenpeace who abseiled down the building to hang a banner that drew cheers from almost every single person that marched past below. The banner was a depiction of the famous 1830 painting La Liberté guide le peuple (Freedom  guiding the people) by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the French Revolution.

The crowd took a good few hours to pass by and unlike the student demonstrations of last week the event passed without incident with persons of all ages and backgrounds showing their concern for numerous environmental issues – particularly the Quebec government’s Plan Nord northern exploration plans and shale gas exploration.

To view images in gallery format, simply click on one of the images below.

 

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time.

– Martin

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