Hamilton Mountain. That 100-metre high wall of limestone and shale that is a huge part of the topography of our city.

There are those who laugh that we call it "the mountain"… and rightly so. Visit the Canadian Rockies, or the Coast Mountains of BC, or the Laurentians in Québec, and there you will see what a mountain is. Even by Ontario standards, ours isn't (see this, and this, and this; note that this is really just the same thing as ours, just much higher, with ski runs).

Hamilton Mountain, from Wentworth Street. Is this a mountain?

What about when viewed from the south end of Kenilworth Avenue?

The Dundas Peak. Surely this must be a mountain?

Seriously though, what else would people from elsewhere have called it had they lived here? The Bump? The Cliff? The Big Step? The Ledge? Or how about The Top Shelf?

No matter that the misnomer is a bit of Hamiltonia to which most locals don't even give second thoughts in conversation, our mountain has really defined the city in so many ways.

Geologically, it's a section of the Niagara Escarpment — one of southern Ontario's major natural features. You can read more about it on the websites of the Niagara Escarpment Commission or the Bruce Trail Conservancy, or on Wikipedia.

Geographically, it has shaped Hamilton's urban growth, its slopes making it easier for the city to stretch west-to-east before it grew north-to-south. And even after the city began to develop above the escarpment, it remained a line dividing old from new, and marking a boundary for demographics and politics. It gave us electrical power. It presented a major transportation challenge — while it was conquered by long-gone incline railways and a number of mountain access roads, occasionally Mother Nature has shown us who really is the boss (the Claremont and the Sherman Access being the most recent examples) and she will surely do so again. It also affects patterns of air flow, and sometimes the weather differs between above and below.

The mountain has been Giver of Waterfalls and Mother of Trails. It is scaled by stairways. It used to provide a couple of inner-city ski hills. Visually, it is a rocky and leafy backdrop for the skyline of the lower city, and from the top it's just a great view of the city and beyond.

It's hard to imagine Hamilton without The Mountain. It would certainly be a different looking city, with a different street pattern and a different layout. But there's probably so much we would miss. A few laughs from outsiders is a small trade to make.