Souvenir means ‘memory’ in French. It refers to the recollection of a past event, good or bad, joyous or distressing; whatever it may be, it lives intangibly in the mind. Whenever Brits go on holiday, they bring back souvenirs – shot glasses or t-shirts or fridge magnets excessively branded with the place name – as if a mere memory, or a souvenir, wasn’t enough.
I’ll soon set sail for Montréal, except the boat is actually a massive hunk of aluminium that sends 0.8 tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere and the sail is a carbon offsetting app that exists predominantly to make you feel good. Greenpeace is critical of the effectiveness of carbon offsetting, claiming companies use it as a PR scheme to keep their climate conscious customers happy. Industrialisation has not only made the romance of travelling come less naturally, but it has also plagued our planet with floods and storms and droughts and heatwaves that threaten our very existence.
But it’s not all bad. The city I am destined for, Montréal, is green and clean and everything in between. I won’t need much to get started, just some warm winter clothes from Vinted [1] and some words of wisdom from my mother. I will brave the winter in a coat sourced from a Montréal friperie (secondhand clothes shop) [2] and eat Montréal bagels and hearty vegan food found on Happy Cow [3] to keep me warm. I’ll save my pennies by walking around one of Canada’s most walkable cities and rent ice skates on the weekends, seeing what kinds of shapes I can make in the ice, what kinds of messages I can send to the birds.
When I venture out for my morning coffee, I will avoid Starbucks – which uses more than 8,000 plastic lined cups per minute – and instead source it from zero waste cafés like Le Café des Habitudes and La Cale, cafés which embrace sustainable activism through local sourcing, reusable service systems and multi-use spaces [2]. I’ll swap out my English for a more regional tongue, and I’ll greet the baristas in French, keeping the peace and inclusivity that makes this multilingual city so special. Each time I order my coffee, I’ll have learned a new word, a new phrase, having checked the French dictionary for the word of the day. I’ll sacrifice cheap clothes for conversations, I’ll trade in expensive trips away for familiarity with the city, I’ll exchange things for people.
I’m sure I will have bought a McGill hoodie to commemorate my time in Montréal, but the only souvenir that will truly matter will be the countless memories – or souvenirs – that I will have made along the way.
References
1) https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/the-biggest-problem-with-carbon-offsetting-is-that-it-doesnt-really-work/
2) https://www.evergreen.ca/stories/do-you-live-in-one-of-canadas-most-walkable-cities/
3) https://cleanwater.org/starbucks-and-our-plastic-pollution-problem
Resources
[1] https://www.vinted.co.uk/
[2] https://www.mtl.org/en/experience/ultimate-guide-vintage-shopping-montreal
[3] https://www.happycow.net/
[4] https://www.montrealtimes.ca/posts/montreal-sustainable-cafe-trend-2026
[5] https://sdgs.un.org/goals
