Montreal’s iconic St. Joseph’s Oratory has been undergoing a major $150-million renovation since 2018. The goal is to increase accessibility and create a new welcome center, museum and observatory in the gigantic dome. With a reputation of being haunted, there were concerns that the refurbishment could stir up even more paranormal activity within the Oratory and on its vast grounds.
McGill is a research-intensive university credited with many scientific discoveries and other inventions. However, there are certain research projects that went horribly wrong and the university tends to downplay them. One of the most devastating discoveries ever made occurred in McGill University’s MacDonald Physics Building, which is now said to be cursed.
Montreal’s most infamous haunted nightclub at 1234 de La Montagne has been reopened as a high-end Japanese steakhouse. Conceived by the Jegantic Hospitality Group, founded by John E. Gumbley, the old funeral home was rebranded as Yoko Luna. With a dark history as a creepy and ghost-ridden funeral home, followed by a series of haunted nightclubs, one must wonder if and how the old hauntings are affecting the new supper club.
There is a little-known old ghost story set in Beaurepaire Village, Beaconsfield, called “The Ghostly Soldiers of Pointe à Quenet”. Recorded by famous folklorist E.-Z. Massicotte, the tale involves the oldest house on the peninsula. Connected to the remnants of a colonial fort, people in the home have spotted ghostly soldiers in the cellar and marching about the property in formation. This strange ghost story has been passed from generation to generation in the ancient home known today as Maison Beaurepaire.
The Red Roof Church, or St. John the Evangelist, enjoys a prime location in the heart of the Quartier des Spectacles - and a reputation of being haunted by its founder, Reverend Edmund Wood. Not only did he go from offering masses within a crumbling cemetery to establishing a historic church, but he was also known to have banished an offensive gargoyle that was terrorizing the city in the 1890s.
There are few places in Montreal as haunted as the Saint-Jean-de-Dieu Insane Asylum. Established in 1873 by the Sisters of Providence, the mental hospital was designed to house “idiots,” “imbeciles,” and epileptics. With a history of social exclusion, deadly fires and debilitating treatments, the Saint-Jean-de-Dieu Insane Asylum has been described as “one of the most evil places on the island”. Today, the institution is still in operation, rebranded as the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal (Montreal University Institute of Mental Health). Not surprisingly, the hospital has many documented ghost stories and hauntings.
This month we provide an update on controversial transformations happening at the Old Royal Victoria Hospital. As one of Montreal’s most haunted locations, it is being repurposed into a new McGill University campus despite Indigenous legal challenges, concerns about unmarked graves and worries about the old hospital's plethora of ghosts. Built in 1893 in the Scottish baronial style, the haunted hospital operated for well over a century before finally being shuttered and relocated in 2015.
A series of disturbing recent events, such as an attempted animal sacrifice in a cemetery and body dumping in a local nature park has triggered Haunted Montreal to investigate Sault-au-Récollet. Located on the eastern edge of the borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Sault-au-Récollet is one of Montreal’s many haunted neighborhoods. Situated on the Back River (La Rivière des Prairies in French), it is one of the city’s oldest colonial settlements.
In 2019, the Haunted Montreal Blog identified 40 haunted pubs, watering holes and other drinking establishments dotting the city. In the bar industry, places often fold and new businesses are born, including in haunted buildings. One common question is this: do the ghosts remain when a new owner takes over the drinking venue? In 2024, the haunted drinking landscape has changed somewhat in Montreal. Some places have gone bankrupt and been reopened under new brands. Others were demolished and replaced with condos - and new haunted drinking establishments have also been discovered!
McGill University’s Arts Building is an iconic symbol of the institution. Constructed in 1843, as the oldest structure standing on campus, it is also reputed to be haunted. This may be due to its deranged history as the first edifice where medical students performed experimental autopsies on unfortunate corpses, many of them stolen from local cemeteries. Today, phantom footsteps echo throughout the old building and some students have reported spotting what could be the ghost of an old Anatomy professor.