West Island
The West Island () is the unofficial name given to the city, towns and boroughs at the western end of the Island of Montreal, in Quebec, Canada. It is generally considered to consist of the Lakeshore municipalities of Dorval, Pointe-Claire, and Beaconsfield, the municipalities of Kirkland, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Baie-D'Urfé, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, the village of Senneville, and two North Shore boroughs of the city of Montreal: Pierrefonds-Roxboro and L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève. Historically, there was a linguistic division of the island of Montreal into French and English 'halves', with Francophones typically inhabiting the eastern portion of the island and Anglophones typically inhabiting the western half. The West Island's population is approximately 238,000 and although the overwhelming majority of its residents are today bilingual if not multi-lingual (given the cosmopolitan nature of this vast suburban area), anglophones still make up a plurality of the West Island's population. As late as the 1960s, much of the West Island was farmland populated by French Canadians, which in turn accounts for a significant Francophone cultural influence in the region. The region is home to the Montréal–Trudeau International Airport, John Abbott College, Cégep Gérald-Godin, the Macdonald Campus of McGill University, the Fairview Pointe-Claire and Galeries des Sources malls, as well as Montreal's largest park, the Cap-Saint-Jacques Nature Park. Hospitals include the Veteran's Hospital in Sainte-Anne's and the Lakeshore General Hospital in Pointe-Claire. Municipalities range in character from the modern bedroom communities of Kirkland or Dollard-des-Ormeaux to the former cottage-country homes of Dorval, Pointe Claire and Beaconsfield. Development and the concentration of industrial activity along highways 20, 40 and 13 over the last twenty years has made securing the region's remaining tracts of open land a priority for many West Island residents. The West Island is home to one of the last large remaining tracts of Montreal-region wilderness on island. History Pre-contact, colonial and agricultural eras The history of human settlement in the West Island of Montréal likely predated European colonization which began in the early to mid 17th century, but little is known of the history of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians who inhabited the island in the pre-colonial era. Indeed, between Cartier's first contact in 1535–1536 and the arrival of Champlain in 1608, the local Iroquoians had completely disappeared, most probably from near-constant warfare with other neighbouring Iroquois tribes, particularly the Mohawk. The West Island may have had areas of regular human habitation as the history of human settlement in Montreal goes back at least as far as 8,000 years. European colonization led to the establishment of parishes and small trading outposts along a Chemin du Roy laid out in the 17th century that corresponds more or less directly with the Gouin & Lakeshore boulevards of today. Lachine, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Sainte-Genevieve and Pointe-Claire developed in a more or less interconnected fashion as colonial outposts spread out along the edge of the island. During the Ancien Régime of the early colonial era, these communities had their own parish churches, many of which still exist. In addition to the churches and rectories, religious orders