A Canadian Family

Vintage Postcards: The Kon Tiki, Montreal

When I was growing up in Quebec in the early 1960s there were two really special vacation destinations – Paris and Hawaii. Neither my parents, nor most of my friends’ parents, had even been on an airplane for a vacation and Paris and Hawaii were very far away and very expensive.

My mother longed to visit Hawaii - the  exotic Hawaii of hula dancers and beaches that she’d seen in the movies. This was before Expo 67 and Montrealers hadn’t been very exposed to foreign cultures so Hawaii seemed exceptionally strange and exciting.

She never did realize her dream of going to Hawaii but she did get the next best thing – the Montreal Kon Tiki. She used to go about once a year and it was always a very special occasion.

I remember her telling me  that once you stepped through the doors you were plunged into a Polynesian world of wood and jungle plants and rich fruity drinks decorated with miniature umbrellas. These drinks  became all the rage in surburbia where they were imitated for all our backyard and basement parties.

The drinks also came with swizzle sticks and my mother would bring these home as souvenirs. She used to stand them in a decorative container on our home bar as a conversation piece to represent all the different restaurants and clubs that she and my father had visited.

Before writing his piece I “googled” the Kon Tiki and found out that the fascination with all things Polynesian was a North-America wide phenomena! You can find out more about tikis at:  Critiki

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March 26, 2009 Posted by Evelyn Yvonne Theriault | . | Montreal, Quebec | 13 Comments