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Culture, Sports and Recreation 
Visitors can explore the 4.4 kilometres of hiking trails, enhanced by 12 interpretive panels that enrich the experience, providing visitors with information on local wildlife. In any season, the park offers a wide range of outdoor activities, including hiking and birdwatching in summer, snowshoeing in winter, and even artificial sports fields for sports enthusiasts.
The Terra-Cotta Natural Park is also an example of active conservation. Initiatives such as the planting of native vegetation and the installation of nest boxes for birds and bats are aimed at preserving and enriching this precious ecosystem.
Whether you are a nature enthusiast or simply looking for a quiet place to recharge your batteries, Terra-Cotta Natural Park is a must-see destination in Pointe-Claire.
Help Us Preserve the Park
- Stay on the trails.
- Do not remove any natural elements (animals, plants, wood, stones, etc.).
- Do not feed the animals.
- Put your garbage in the bins at the park’s entrances.
- Keep your dog on a leash at all times.
- Put your dog’s excrement in an airtight bag and dispose of it in a bin at the park entrance.
History
Located in Montréal’s Hochelaga neighbourhood, the Montréal Terra Cotta and Lumber Co. was founded in 1888 by the honourable Alphonse Desjardins. A few years later, a major clay seam was discovered in Pointe-Claire on land used for agricultural production and firewood. The company bought the land and began extracting the clay in 1912.
Alphonse Desjardins (1841-1912), lawyer, journalist and industrialist, served 18 years as a member of the House of Commons, then as a senator. The title “honourable” distinguishes him from Alphonse Desjardins, founder of the Caisses populaires Desjardins, who lived during the same period.
The clay extracted from the slope was mixed with sawdust and fired on site in kilns. The final product, a hollow fireproof tile used for wall and floor construction, was shipped by rail or truck to Ontario and western Canada.
As the only manufacturing industry in Pointe-Claire until 1959, Montréal Terra Cotta employed up to 60 people. In 1962, having extracted some 700,000 cubic meters of clay over half a century, the company realized that the seam had been depleted. The factory closed and the company rehabilitated the site in the following year.
Left uncultivated, the land attracted the interest of speculators. In 1971, a committee of John Rennie High School students and local residents proposed transforming the former Montréal Terra Cotta grounds and the land just east of it into a natural park.
The committee became the Terra Cotta Conservation Area Project (Pointe-Claire) Inc., and several studies were conducted on the site’s ecological potential. As a result of citizen mobilization, the City of Pointe-Claire purchased part of the site in 1983 to create a natural park.
Today, human intervention in the park is minimal to encourage natural regeneration, while also allowing the community to enjoy its raw beauty. Under a conservation agreement, the site is preserved until 2041 and has been declared a public wooded area of great ecological value for low-impact recreational activities.
