Even before we boarded the bus on Saturday morning, it was clear that we would not be able to see all that André had hoped to show us of Montreal. The scheduled tour through Montreal, Laval, Longueuil and Boucherville would have highlighted 19 sundials, but André found in doing a dry run that it probably would have taken us three days to see everything! So we decided we will just have to save much of the tour for a future date and proceeded to see however much we could realistically fit into the schedule.

Our first stop was the Planetarium of Montreal, where we were greeted by a monumental statue of Copernicus, sited only a few yards away from the first sundial. The dial was a large equatorial with a badly misaligned gnomon, rising above the horizontal at an angle of about 60° - far too high for the latitude of Montreal. An explanatory text with the dial acknowledged that the gnomon was placed at the wrong angle, but then proceeded to claim that it didn't make much difference in the reading.

Inside the Planetarium - before it was open to the public - we were treated to an exhibit of 24 sundials and several rare books from the Stewart Museum. This special exhibit was arranged by André, with the very welcome help and cooperation of the two institutions, to acknowledge the occasion of the NASS conference. The exhibit ran until January 5, 2002.

Our next stops were at the Parc régional de Longueuil and a Marina in Boucherville to see two dials - one modelled after the other.

We then found our way out to l'Ile-Ste-Hélène, a task that gave us an opportunity to see more of Montreal because of rerouting required by work being done on some of the bridges in the city.

We then had lunch at the Restaurant Hélène de Champlain with a view of Mount Royal. The meal and the view were both spectacular.

Our day of touring was completed with brief stops at two apartment buildings in Montreal with old vertical sundials that one wonders if the inhabitants ever even notice - and then a visit to André Bouchard's home to see the polyhedral dial made for his garden by André Beaulieu.