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First International Air Meetingsummer 1910.
The First International Air Meeting took place in Lakeside from June 24 to July 2, 1910. Farmland north of the Terra Cotta Works was rented for the occasion. The event was subsidized by a local group of ardent automobile lovers known as the "Automobile and Aero Club". This project was fairly lavish for the period, and over 10,000 people attended the event. A large grandstand was erected on the site (1,100 feet long by 40 feet high), as well as a platform at Lakeside station. The size of the crowd and the daredevil nature of the event required, for safety, the presence of 50 Montreal policemen and a squadron of the Royal Canadian Dragoons, including 15 officers, 60 men and 50 horses.
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Walter Brookins and the Count De Lesseps
ready for takeoff on board the Wright biplane. |
Among the highlights of the event were dirigible flights, parachute jumps, air-attack simulations and, the pièce de résistance, the participation of European and American flight pioneers. Early in the evening of July 2, Count de Lesseps, in his Blériot monoplane (called "Le Scarabée" – The Scarab), undertook the first flight from Lakeside, along the river, towards Montreal. To the amazed gazes of those below, he glided over the Montreal city center and around the mountain before returning to his point of departure. He covered a distance of 35 miles in 49 minutes, a speed of 40 miles per hour. Walter Brookins, of the Wright Brothers group, then went on to set a Canadian altitude record.
In 1967, a monument commemorating the event was erected beside the public library on Douglas Shand and inaugurated by the Pointe-Claire Chamber of Commerce. Subsequently dismantled, the municipality plans to re-install it.
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