Certainly no other Canadian cities compare; Toronto was famously mocked when mayor Mel Lastman called in the actual army to deal with snowfall in 1999.

That changed after the turn of the century, when the city took charge. In the early 1900s, labourers were hired to shovel snow for 25 cents an hour. It was taken away in horse-drawn carts. The first snowblower to clear the streets was purchased by the City of Montreal nearly 100 years ago, in 1928.

3. Progress of snow removal operations: Once the city starts clearing snow, this table charts the progress of snow-removal operations in each borough. Snow plowed to the sides of streets is transferred to trucks and taken to snow dumping sites. The table shows the number of kilometres of streets from which snow has been removed.

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante pleaded for patience and urged caution on Wednesday as the city's snow removal trucks and plows struggled to clear the record-shattering snowfall from back-to-back major storms.