Île Perrot

:"This page refers to the island, for the municipality, see: L'Île-Perrot, Quebec"

Île Perrot is an island west of the island of Montreal in the Canadian province of Quebec. Part of the Hochelaga Archipelago, the island lies between Lake Saint-Louis and Lac des Deux-Montagnes.

More than 31,000 people live in one of Île Perrot’s four municipalities:

*Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot
*Pincourt
*Terrasse Vaudreuil
*L'Île-Perrot

Île Perrot holds the only working windmill in Quebec, dating from the time Île-Perrot was a seigneury in the French colony of New France. In its honour, what now constitutes the commercial artery of the island was named boulevard Don-Quichotte.

Geology and Soils

The island is underlain by Cambrian-age quartzite. Angular blocks of this hard rock are visible on the surface over much of the island. The soil is a stony sandy loam podzol which has developed on acidic, nutrient-poor quartzite till. Over parts of the island, this till is covered with clay which is nutrient-rich and much less stony, but poorly drained and classified as gleysol.

Vegetation

Much of the island remains in forest. Deciduous trees such as American beech, sugar maple, red maple, northern red oak, white ash, bitternut hickory and American basswood are dominant. The vegetation is more luxuriant than one would expect from the nature of the soils.