Сен-Ламбер тарихы: қалыптасу және даму жолы

the parish municipality

In 1636, Louis XIII of France was dividing up seigneuries in the new colony of New France. One of these was known as La Prairie, comprising La Prairie de la Magdeleine and La Prairie de Saint Lambert. The lower part of the latter, was known as Mouillepied, due to the swampy conditions of the area. Saint Lambert's first two permanent residents were André Marsil and André Achim in the 18th century. Today André Marsil's house can be found on the corner of Riverside Drive and Notre Dame Avenue, was converted into a textile museum called the Marsil Museum , although the museum has since moved to the Bonsecours Market. In 1722, Mouillepied was transferred from La Prairie seigneurie to Saint Antoine de Longueuil parish. Following the establishment of the railway in 1852 and the completion of the Victoria Bridge in 1859, the village received a permanent link to the island of Montreal. The Victoria Bridge is the oldest bridge linking Montreal to the South Shore, and carried the first rail line linking Quebec's largest city to New York City. Because of this, Saint Lambert became an important passenger and freight stop for a long period of time. This is evident in the city's architecture, in which many old industrial buildings are found near the railway tracks. Many of these have since been converted into lofts such as the former Waterman pens factory, originally built in 1908. With the bridge and railway came a quick growth in Saint Lambert's population and the construction of new housing. Saint Lambert detached itself from Saint Antoine de Longueuil and achieved municipality status in 1857, under its first mayor, Louis Bétournay. At the time, Saint Lambert did not include Mouillepied, which instead had remained in Saint Antoine de Longueuil. In 1892, Saint Lambert reached village status, attained town status in 1898 and city status in 1921. This number was a significant portion of the young people at the time. In the 1950s, the development of Saint Lambert was enhanced with the building of the St. Lambert Locks in the St. Lawrence Seaway, to bypass the smaller Lachine Canal, and this became the most easterly lock in the Seaway. Suburban growth from Montreal in this period also affected Saint Lambert, as well as many of the older communities on the South Shore. Since its establishment, the city's limits have barely changed. In 1948, the old Mouillepied area of the town of Jacques Cartier was split off and erected into the town of Préville. It merged with Saint Lambert in 1969. Saint Lambert had an anglophone majority population starting in 1881, and throughout most of the 20th century. Saint Lambert had 12,460 anglophones and was 61% anglophone as recently as the 1981 census. This started to change, as it increasingly become the home to upper class francophone families, in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Drainage and excavation have been used to adapt the soil for housing construction. The most common trees in Saint Lambert are those species which tolerate poor drainage. These include poplars, willows, red maple, silver maple and green ash. The American elm was formerly abundant but its population has been severely reduced by Dutch elm disease. Non native species are commonly represented by Norway maple, silver birch, English oak, blue spruce, common horsechestnut and honey locust. Rare exotics which benefit from St Lambert's favorable microclimate include Japanese maple and tulip tree. Most trees in Saint Lambert show some evidence of damage from an ice storm in January 1998 and a severe thunderstorm in June 2008.

The climate of Saint Lambert is characterized by abundant precipitation and one of the longest, warmest growing seasons in Quebec. As in other parts of Greater Montreal, lengthy spells of hot humid weather are common in summer, and thunderstorms frequently occur. Heavy snow is usual in winter and several damaging ice storms have occurred over the town's history.

Most of Saint Lambert's commercial activity is based on Victoria Avenue, particularly on the part of the strip in the city's downtown (between Riverside Drive and the CN tracks), known as "the Village". This part of Victoria is most notably the location to the flagship of Taylor's department store. On this part of Victoria alone, there are around 44 businesses that sell durable and semi durable goods; 22 cafés, bistros and restaurants and 960 street parking spaces. Around 50% of customers in the area come by automobile and 40% come by foot. Saint Lambert is also home to Groupe Serdy, the owner of cable television specialty channels Évasion and Zeste. Roctest, a firm that specializes in making instrumentation for civil engineering projects also has its head office and factory in Saint Lambert. Other notable Saint Lambert businesses include Les Éditions Héritage book publisher and a Dare Foods (formerly Lido Biscuit) cookie factory.

There are a handful of notable cultural institutions based in Saint Lambert, such as Le Balcon d'Art and La Foire d'Art Contemporain de Saint Lambert. Saint Lambert is also home to the Saint Lambert Municipal Memorial Library. It has two branches, the main branch is located on Mercille Avenue, and the other branch located in Préville. Various large events take place annually in Saint Lambert. One of these is Saint Lambert Days, which takes place over a four day period in late August and features live concerts and performances, games, and sidewalk sales. More than 80,000 people attend St. Lambert Days each year. There are three Roman Catholic churches in Saint Lambert: Église catholique de St Lambert and Église catholique Saint Thomas d'Aquin serve Francophone Catholics, and St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church serves Anglophone Catholics. There are also five Protestant churches in Saint Lambert which also serve neighbouring municipalities: St. Barnabas Anglican Church, St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, St. Lambert United Church, the South Shore Seventh day Adventist Church and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.

Traditionally, the city of Saint Lambert is predominantly federalist, specifically Liberal both federally and provincially. Despite this, in federal politics the riding tends to usually go in favour of the Bloc Québécois, because it includes a considerable portion of the more sovereigntist borough of Le Vieux Longueuil in Longueuil. The city of Saint Lambert is located in the federal riding of Brossard Saint Lambert, and its Member of Parliament is Alexandra Mendes of the Liberal Party. In provincial politics, Saint Lambert forms part of the Laporte riding and its Member of the National Assembly is Nicole Ménard of the Quebec Liberal Party. The provincial riding is named after Pierre Laporte, a Quebec government cabinet minister who was kidnapped from outside his Saint Lambert home and murdered by the Front de libération du Québec in the October Crisis of 1970.

The highest level of the educational facilities in Saint Lambert is the public anglophone CEGEP with 2,500 students, Champlain College Saint Lambert which also houses an office for Université du Québec à Montréal. The Commission Scolaire Marie Victorin has jurisdiction over three French language primary schools in Saint Lambert, École Des Saints Anges, École Rabeau and Préville Elementary. Collège Durocher Saint Lambert is a large French language private school and is therefore not affiliated with any school board. It consists of two campuses, the Saint Lambert Campus on the corner of Riverside and Notre Dame Avenue as well as the Durocher Campus on the corner of Riverside and Tiffin Road, opposite Champlain Regional College. The English language Riverside School Board operates five schools on Saint Lambert's territory. The most notable of these is the IB accredited Saint Lambert International High School which is home to over five hundred students from Grade 7 Grade 11. The other secondary school that the board operates in the city is The Alternate School which is meant to reintegrate at risk youth into mainstream society. St. Lambert Elementary School serves Kindergarten to Grade 6, and also houses around five hundred students. Intellectually disabled students are served by REACH School as well as a program at Saint Lambert International High School geared toward their academic success. ACCESS Continuing Education and Career Training Centre is an adult education institution, helping adults and immigrants get high school diplomas. The South Shore Protestant Regional School Board previously served the municipality.

Saint Lambert is home to the St. Lambert Locks RFC men's and women's rugby union teams, which belong to Rugby Quebec. It is also represented by the Blue Machine swimming team. At the intercollegiate level, St. Lambert is represented by the Champlain College Saint Lambert Cavaliers, which field both men's and women's teams in badminton, basketball, cross country running, Canadian football, rugby union, soccer and volleyball. Both of Saint Lambert's secondary schools also field teams. Saint Lambert is also home to several sports venues including the Eric Sharp Arena, an indoor swimming pool and a recreation centre. It also has several outdoor athletics facilities situated in parks.

The city of Saint Lambert is home to one weekly newspaper, the bilingual St Lambert Journal. It is also served by a regional French language weekly newspaper, Le Courrier du Sud, which is based out of neighbouring Longueuil