20-Jul-2018 -- After attending a conference in Montreal, I had a few hours to spend before catching my flight, so of course I spent it visiting a Degree Confluence Point. Unfortunately Montreal lies at around 45.5 Degrees North, 73.5 Degrees West - i.e., in the middle of a quadrant of Degree Confluence Points, so there are no points particularly close to the city. Of the four points on the corner of this quadrant, three lie in private property (with one of those being south of the U.S. border, in Vermont). That left this one point, which had been visited only twice before - most recently by the Burtons, in May 2014. Mine would be the first visit during Summer.

After picking up a rental car at Montreal airport, I drove slowly northwards along the autoroutes - crowded with Montrealers apparently escaping to the Laurentides for the weekend. I then left the autoroute and drove along scenic paved country roads to the settlement of Lac Pilon, where the road turned to gravel.

Satellite imagery showed a narrow doubletrack road - labeled “Chemin de la Plage” - that leads towards the point, near another lake (Lac Long). I eventually found the start of this road - at 46.00314°N 74.01379°W, just over 1 km from the point. I drove along this road until it got a bit too narrow for my rental car, parked about 600 m from the point, and then walked the rest of the way.

The doubletrack road ends near the northern shore of Lac Long, about 350 m from the point. I bushwhacked through uneven terrain, filled with boulders, ruts, and a small section of marsh. Being summertime, I was attacked by insects, but these were all biting flies, not mosquitoes. The point was located in forest, next to an unusual pair of trees that were conjoined at their base. What was strange about these trees was that they were of different species - one was a pine; the other, something else (perhaps a birch or ash?).

After visiting the point, I spent time on the shore of nearby Lac Long, where I flew my drone 90 m over the point. (90 m (300 feet) is the altitude limit for recreational drones in Canada.)

Here is a remote-controlled aerial video of this confluence point.