Oka: a local broker's top 10

01

The beach at Parc national d'Oka on the Lac des Deux Montagnes

The big draw

Parc national d'Oka and its beach

Twenty-three and a half square kilometres managed by the Sépaq, right at the edge of the village and spilling over into Saint-Joseph-du-Lac and Pointe-Calumet. The sand beach faces the Lac des Deux Montagnes, the campground dates back to when it housed Expo 67 visitors, and the trails serve hiking, mountain biking and snowshoeing. The park gets around 690,000 visits a year, making it one of the busiest in the network.

Ask me about it: ask me what it changes to live next to a national park. There's a downside on summer weekends, and I'd rather name it before the purchase.

02

The wooden boardwalk over the Grande Baie marsh, in autumn

Nature

The Grande Baie marsh and its herons

A wooden boardwalk crosses the marsh, and you can walk over the water lilies without getting your feet wet. The area shelters one of Quebec's largest heronries, and about fifteen declining species of migratory birds stop here. It's a wetland with high ecological value, which also means precise rules on what can be built around it.

Ask me about it: ask me how wetland protection frames the lots in this area. It's a check I run even before the first showing.

03

Two of the whitewashed stone chapels of the calvary of Oka, at the top of the hill

Heritage

The calvary of Oka, a way of the cross on the hill

Built between 1740 and 1742 by the Sulpicians with help from Indigenous people, this way of the cross has seven stations sheltered in stone shrines climbing the hill. The original paintings were replaced in 1775 with wooden bas-reliefs carved by François Guernon dit Belleville. In 1889, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross drew as many as 30,000 pilgrims. The bas-reliefs, saved from a sale in 2011, were restored and returned to the parish in 2014.

Ask me about it: ask me to take you up to the chapels during an area tour. The view from the top is worth the climb, and it explains a lot about the village.

04

The Oka abbey at sunset, seen from the vineyards, with the hills behind

The icon

The Oka abbey, heritage-classified since 2020

French Trappists driven out of Bellefontaine arrived here on April 11, 1881, and were granted a thousand arpents three weeks later. Four monasteries followed one another on the site, two of which burned down; the current building dates from 1915. The community had as many as 178 monks in the 1950s. The abbey was sold in May 2007 to a non-profit corporation, the last monks left in February 2009 for Saint-Jean-de-Matha, and the Ministère de la Culture classified it as a heritage building in July 2020. Since 2017, the site has also served as a filming location.

Ask me about it: ask me what a heritage-classified building changes for neighbouring properties. It affects views, access and sometimes work permits.

05

Rows of vines on chemin d'Oka in winter, with the Lac des Deux Montagnes in the distance

The terroir

The cheese, the orchards and the vineyards

The monks launched Oka cheese in 1893, a variation on Port-Salut, and Agropur still runs the cheese factory at 1500 chemin d'Oka. The same monks created the Chantecler chicken in the 1920s and trained agronomists for close to 70 years, until the Institut agricole closed in 1962. That legacy still shows in the landscape: apple orchards, market gardens and vineyards line chemin d'Oka.

Ask me about it: ask me where the agricultural zone line runs. It explains why some big lots aren't buildable, even when they look perfect.

06

The bike path running through the tall pines of the Oka pine grove

Natural history

The pine grove, the continent's oldest planted forest

Starting in 1887, about 100,000 pines and spruces were planted to keep the sand from burying the village. The work stretched on until 1915, and this plantation is now recognized as the oldest planted forest in North America. Some 20,000 trees remain, the bike path runs between the trunks, and one of the six municipal districts still carries the name Pinède. The regional trail linking Oka to Mont-Saint-Hilaire, 143 kilometres connecting three national parks, starts right here.

Ask me about it: ask me which streets give you walking access to the pine grove and the bike path. For a cyclist, that's often what settles the choice of area.

07

The Oka-Hudson ferry on the lake, with the Oka church and hills behind

Access

The Oka-Hudson crossing, a ten-minute shortcut

The ferry has been shuttling back and forth since 1909, over two kilometres of water, in about ten minutes, from spring until early December. It carries 96 passengers and 18 vehicles per trip and links rang de l'Annonciation to the Como sector, in eastern Hudson. For anyone working in Vaudreuil-Soulanges, it cuts 35 to 90 kilometres off the detour via the Île-aux-Tourtes bridge. In winter, an ice bridge takes over when conditions allow.

Ask me about it: ask me how the ferry changes the math on a daily commute. It's very handy eight months of the year, and it's only fair to put it that way.

08

Transit

Route 344, Highway 640 and the REM next door

Route 344 crosses the whole municipality and changes names along the way: chemin d'Oka, rue Notre-Dame, rue Saint-Michel, rang Sainte-Philomène. Heading east, it connects to Highway 640, then Highways 13 and 15 toward Montreal and Laval. Since November 17, 2025, the REM's north branch has been running to the Deux-Montagnes and Grand-Moulin stations, about 35 minutes from Gare Centrale, every five minutes at peak. There's no station in Oka itself: the exo 604 bus line, between Saint-Placide, Oka and Deux-Montagnes, connects to the light rail.

Ask me about it: ask me to time your real morning commute, door to door, with the REM. It's the exercise that most often decides between Oka and an address closer to the station.

09

The Oka village core and the L'Annonciation church, seen from the Lac des Deux Montagnes

The neighbourhoods

The village core and the six districts

The heart of the village clusters around the L'Annonciation church, built between 1878 and 1883 after the previous one burned down, the municipal wharf and rue de L'Annonciation. The six municipal districts are named Récoltes, Abbaye, Rive, Chapelles, Pinède and Pointe-aux-Anglais, and each has its own personality. Two areas concentrate the new construction: the Domaine des Collines d'Oka, launched in 2006 with about a hundred and fifty lots, and Pointe-aux-Anglais, with its wooded lots a minute from two marinas. One detail few people know before they arrive: Oka's boundaries wrap around the lands of the Mohawk community of Kanesatake, spread across several parcels within the territory.

Ask me about it: ask me to walk you through the territory's mosaic before you make an offer. Knowing exactly who you're buying from and under what regime is something you check at the start, not the end.

10

École secondaire d'Oka, housed in the former Institut agricole on chemin d'Oka

Family life

The schools, the library and the parks

Two schools in the territory: the École primaire des Pins and the École secondaire d'Oka, housed within the walls of the former Institut agricole on chemin d'Oka, with its international education program and just over a thousand students. The English-language network points to Deux-Montagnes. The library is named after Myra Cree, a Mohawk broadcaster born in Oka-Kanesatake, the first woman to anchor Radio-Canada's Téléjournal in 1975 and a Knight of the Ordre national du Québec. On the parks side, parc Optimiste has a skate park, a bump track, water play features, pickleball and a sliding hill with tube rentals, parc David-Saint-Jacques has its public piano, and parc des Ostryers has its wooded trails. The arena, meanwhile, is in Deux-Montagnes under an intermunicipal agreement.

Ask me about it: ask me how the school catchment areas are laid out across the territory. They don't follow the districts, and that surprises families when they arrive.

Oka

What makes the heart of Oka beat.