This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2025.
I grew up in Montréal, and writing stories about Québec has been an added perk of reporting for Seven Days. I’m a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen. Ditto my two children, Iris, 13, and Sayge, 16. Just one problem: My passport expired years ago, and I never got proper Canadian documents for my kids. So when our Québec editor said she’d like me to write about Montréal’s art deco buildings — and it coincided with the February school break — I jumped at the chance to do some international multitasking.
I decided to bring both kids and juggle my reporting around getting our passport paperwork together and processed. I had to time it just right.
Luckily, the city’s 1928 Pharmacy Building, with its original brass doors and filigree grilles, was on my building tour list. Still a pharmacy, it offers passport photos while you wait.
After that, my American husband kept the kids occupied while I interviewed a soft-spoken architectural historian on the newly restored ninth floor of what used to be Eaton’s downtown department store. I took in the bright parquet floors, the black marble and the dozens of diners having enthusiastic conversations in French. It was hard to hear in the sonic din, and I worried about the quality of my recording. But transcribing would be a problem for another day.
We had to get the kids to my parents’ house on the West Island — a half hour’s drive from the city — in order to take full advantage of a night at the deco-themed Hôtel HONEYROSE. My reporting tour would resume in the morning.
We woke to a blizzard. I set out on foot, which turned out to be a lovely walk through the old city, though many of the deco buildings had seen better days. Moorish-inspired Dominion Square was an empty WeWork; Ogilvy’s, with its handcrafted brass reliefs, was long abandoned. I even trekked up the steep hill to Maison Cormier, scurrying past the Russian embassy and its 12-foot barbed wire-topped fence. By the end of my walk, my notebook was sodden and unreadable; every photo I took showed a gray edifice blurred by snow.
I had just enough time to tour the HONEYROSE, collect the kids and get to my cousin’s house — Canada requires someone to vouch for you by signing the passport application — before seeking out architectural gems in Old Montréal, accompanied by children already thoroughly cold, tired and bored. And we hadn’t even gotten to the passport office.
The following day, we lined up in a sad, otherwise empty suite in a building tucked behind the expressway, ready for a long wait: The internet predicted eight hours. And yet, something magical happened. Our passports were processed quickly, efficiently and with a smile. At last, we were deserving of the jealousy my friends expressed after the 2024 election, of the freedom to flee in the night.
Heartened, we drove all the way to the East End’s 1931 Montréal Botanical Garden building. We arrived to find its murals masked by construction fences, mountains of snow heaped over its fountains. Even I had had my fill of elaborate façades.
Across the street, in the decidedly un-art deco 1970s Olympic complex, the chattering monkeys and exotic birds of the Montréal Biodôme welcomed us into the warm air of its tropical jungle. None asked for our passports.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Most Frenzied Multitasking”
This article appears in Dec 24 2025 – Jan 6 2026.
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