With over 600 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal dedicates itself to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

This service is free and you can sign up to our mailing list (top, right-hand corner for desktops and at the bottom for mobile devices) if you wish to receive it every month on the 13th! The blog is published in both English and French!

We are pleased to announce that our season of public outdoor ghost tours is now in full swing and tickets are on sale! These include Haunted Old Montreal, Haunted Mountain, Haunted Downtown and Haunted Griffintown. Paranormal Investigations include Old Sainte-Antoine Cemetery and Colonial Old Montreal.

Haunted Montreal is also running our Haunted Pub Crawl every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 2 pm.

To learn more, see the schedule at the bottom of our home page and see more details in the Company News section below!

Private tours for all of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours start at $235 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

Lastly, we have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. More details are below in our Company News section!

This month we explore a legend about the most cursed structure in Montreal – McGill University’s MacDonald Physics Building!

Haunted Research

McGill is a research-intensive university credited with many scientific discoveries and other inventions. The university boasts that its professors have discovered everything from DNA as the building blocks of genetics to neuro-scientific breakthroughs and have invented all sorts of wonders. 

These include the world’s first artificial blood cells, gas masks, plexiglass, pre-cooked fish sticks, the Canadian national anthem and even the game of basketball itself.  McGill calls these discoveries “Eureka moments that changed the world”.

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.

On the morning of August 6, 1945, an American B-52 bomber dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

The bomb was called “Little Boy” and when it exploded in a fiery holocaust, an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 people were killed instantly.

The heat from the nuclear explosion was so intense that many people were vaporized and the blast destroyed 10 square kilometers of the city and contaminated the rest with nuclear radiation. The victims included the residents of Hiroshima, Korean prisoners-of-war, and even some American POWs who were imprisoned there. 

The discovery that led to the nuclear bomb happened in the MacDonald Physics Building.  

The building was constructed in 1893 as a “gift” provided by Sir William Christopher MacDonald, the founder, owner and head of the MacDonald Tobacco Company. 

Even though he abhorred smoking himself, he was happy to make millions of dollars by hawking the dangerous product to other people. 

Over half of his workforce was comprised of women and children, who were paid much less than men. They did much of the hard work such as stripping, sorting, and drying the tobacco plants.

The motto for MacDonald’s company was “the tobacco with a heart.” 

MacDonald also fancied himself a man of science so created chairs in Physics, Engineering and Chemistry at McGill University and funded the construction of various buildings.

Architect Sir Andrew Taylor, along with his partners Morley Hogle and Huntley Davis, designed the Macdonald Physics Building with particular care.

They constructed the edifice in the Richardsonian Romanesque style using only wood, masonry, copper, bronze and brass for the nails and fixtures.

No iron or steel was used anywhere in the building to minimize magnetic interferences that could compromise experiments. The interior was made with heavy bricks and laboratories were stocked with state-of-the-art equipment for the era. 

The portico has two columns, one symbolizing “Power” and the other “Knowledge”. Additionally, the entrance hall fireplace hosts a mantelpiece engraved with “Prove All Things”.

In 1898, McGill University recruited Ernest Rutherford, a young New Zealander with penetrating eyes and an awkward manner, as the new MacDonald Chair and Professor of Physics. 

In 1903, Professor Rutherford had his “Eureka moment”, when he theorized that radioactive energy could be emitted from within an atom under the right conditions.

His theories about radioactivity revolutionized scientific understanding of the atom and ushered in the Atomic Age – and the nuclear bomb.

During Rutherford’s nine-year tenure at McGill, he conducted many groundbreaking experiments and remarkably published 69 papers. Described as “the father of nuclear physics”, Rutherford was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908.

Furthermore, his colleague at McGill, Frederick Soddy, received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in radioactive decay.

However, despite these accolades that glorified McGill University for its quality research, things were about to take a very dark turn.

On the evening of the Hiroshima bombing, the Montreal Gazette sent a reporter to the MacDonald Physics Building, hoping to get an interview with Dr. John Stuart Foster, the successor of Professor Rutherford. 

Entering the dark and deserted building, the reporter wandered the shadowy corridors until he came upon Dr. Foster, hunched over a table in one of the lecture amphitheatres.

A light shone over his table with the rest of the place darkened. 

Professor Foster was rapping his knuckles on the table nervously and had a wild look in his eyes. He began talking to himself, like a madman. “It all began right here, in this building,” he muttered, “right here in this building!” 

The reporter, sensing it wasn’t a good time to interview the trembling professor, snuck out, leaving Dr. Foster alone to his thoughts in the big, silent amphitheatre. As such, he had difficulty filing his article.

Professor Foster was never the same again after that evening. Rumours spread about his mental health and soon he developed the reputation of a “mad scientist”.

Since that fateful day when McGill research bore its awful fruit, it is rumoured that many other students and teachers have gone crazy working in the McDonald Physics Building.

According to legend, Mother Nature was very upset with the unnatural violation of her sacred work.  As such, She cursed the McDonald Physics Building to fall into ruin. 

Soon thereafter, all sorts of problems began to happen within the edifice. 

Doors jammed and windows cracked. Water dripped through the ceiling when it rained. Rats, mice and insects of all sorts began infesting the building. As a result, important experiments sometimes went awry, despite the meticulous architecture designed to protect them. 

Outside, the masonry began to crumble, tiles fell from the roof and various birds nested in the architectural nooks and crannies. As vines began growing up its walls, the MacDonald Physics Building began to take on a forlorn appearance.

There were also complaints among students, professors and staff working inside the cursed building. These included frequent headaches, nausea, feelings of depression and even the development of dementophobia – or the fear of going crazy. 

Individuals with this phobia experience anxieties related to losing their grip on reality, such as concerns about hallucinations or the display of other psychotic symptoms.

These numerous problems did not lend themselves well to the precise scientific conditions required by the McGill Physics Department. Ironically, the hope for new “Eureka Moments” and Nobel Prizes were being thwarted by the very MacDonald Physics Building itself. 

As the complaints mounted and the building continued to fall into ruin, in 1948, the McGill Physics Department created a new Radiation Lab and Cyclotron under the direction of Dr. Foster. Following his death from a heart attack in 1964, the facility was named in honor. 

However, despite this new laboratory, the old MacDonald Physics Building continued to fall into ruin.

In response, McGill University erected the new Ernest Rutherford Physics Building in 1977. It was meant to provide more modern facilities and laboratories as a complement to the crumbling MacDonald Physics Building. 

Built in the Brutalist style, the five-story structure was made of prefabricated concrete slabs that were individually fastened to a massive steel frame. 

Precautions were made to keep the new building as stable as possible. The sensitive nature of the experiments being carried out inside its laboratories required precise conditions. 

Indeed, this new and remarkable concrete structure would foreshadow the demise of the original building.

In 1982, McGill University admitted that the MacDonald Physics Building was no longer deemed fit for purpose. Officials stated: “It no longer met the needs of the modern Physics department.” 

As such, the cursed, old building was shuttered, fully renovated and then repurposed into the “Macdonald-Stewart Library Building of Physical Sciences and Engineering”. 

McGill University claimed: “Its sturdy structure has been well adapted to house many thousands of volumes and remains regularly filled with physicists doing research.” 

However, despite its refurbishment and conversion into a library, the MacDonald Physics Building continued to slowly disintegrate.

By 2019, the edifice was in dire condition. To try and prevent the building from falling apart, McGill invested $31.8-million to do a “full renovation”, which was completed in 2023.

According to the McGill Reporter:

“The core of the project consisted of repairing and upgrading the building envelope, including the deteriorating façades. Sections of the façades had in fact been covered up for many years to prevent stones from falling.” 

Project Manager Johanne Guertin explained:

“We had to add structural reinforcements to the building to improve its seismic resistance, solidify the building, and secure the façade.” 

However, despite the comprehensive renovations, serious concerns remain. The root problem – Mother Nature’s Curse on the MacDonald Physics Building – was never properly addressed. 

Some claimed that the renovations were a “band-aid solution” to a building that was doomed to eventually collapse into ruin.

Haunted Montreal approached a McGill Philosophy Professor to elaborate on this remarkable and unique dilemma. The Professor agreed to be interviewed, based on the condition of total anonymity.

Firstly, the Professor explained that the idea that Mother Nature had cursed the building to fall into ruin was debatable. “Some people claim that it is a mere Urban Legend and nothing more,” explained the Professor.

However, for the sake of philosophical interrogation, the educator agreed to examine the “Curse” hypothesis as though it were true.

The Professor began with the following quotation:

“People need to be cautious because anything built by man can be destroyed by Mother Nature.” 

He attributed the quote to American Lieutenant-General Russel Honoré, who led rescue efforts during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.

The Professor explained that Mother Nature is known to strike back against destructive human activity, stating: “It could be in the form of planetary warming, natural disasters, global epidemics and other powerful forces.”

When questioned specifically about the MacDonald Physics Building, the Philosophy Professor said: “If the curse is indeed true, they should just probably just allow it to fall into ruin.” 

“Indeed”, added the Professor, “in doing so, McGill University could achieve another Eureka moment – and learn the valuable lesson to stop interfering with Mother Nature! Plus, crumbling ruins in the middle of the campus could provide compelling pedagogical opportunities for study and reflection. Maybe they could even partner with the Hiroshima Peace Memorial – or Genbaku Dome – in Japan!”

As such, all eyes are on the newly renovated MacDonald Physics Building to see if and when it will begin slowly falling into ruin again.

Company News

Haunted Montreal’s season of public outdoor ghost tours is now in full swing and tickets are on sale! These include Haunted Old Montreal, Haunted Mountain, Haunted Downtown and Haunted Griffintown. Paranormal Investigations include Old Sainte-Antoine Cemetery and Colonial Old Montreal.

We are also running our Haunted Pub Crawl every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 2 pm.

Private tours for any of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors.

Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours are based on the availability of our actors and start at $235 for small groups of up to 8 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

You can also bring the Haunted Montreal experience to your office party, house, school or event by booking one of our Travelling Ghost Storytellers today.

Hear some of the spookiest tales from our tours and our blog told by a professional actor and storyteller. You provide the venue, we provide the stories and storyteller. Find out more and then contact info@hauntedmontreal.com

Our team also releases videos every second Saturday, in both languages, of ghost stories from the Haunted Montreal Blog. Hosted by Holly Rhiannon (in English) and Dr. Mab (in French), this initiative is sure to please ghost story fans!

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

In other news, if you want to send someone a haunted experience as a gift, you certainly can!

We are offering Haunted Montreal Gift Certificates through our website and redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual events (no expiration date).

Finally, we have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. We are selling t-shirts, magnets, sweatshirts (for those haunted fall and winter nights) and mugs with both the Haunted Montreal logo and our tour imagery.

Purchases can be ordered through our online store:  shop.hauntedmontreal.com

Haunted Montreal has temporarily altered its blog experience due to a commitment on a big writing project!  

The book is titled Haunted McGill, and is authored by yours truly, Donovan King! Our publisher is The Stygian Society.

McGill University isn’t just known for its academic prestige – it’s also home to some of Montreal’s most fascinating ghost stories.

Our upcoming publication, Haunted McGill, digs into the campus’s eerie legends and real-life hauntings, taking you to key landmarks like the Arts Building, Faculty Club, Duggan House and the Allan Memorial Institute, all rumored to house lingering spirits.

We’re crowdfunding through The Stygian Society’s Scriptorium, with the first 25 backers receiving an exclusive 1st edition copy, beautiful art prints, and other spooky treasures. Help us reach our goal by July and secure your piece of Montreal’s haunted history. To support the project please click on this link!

Until publication, new stories at the Haunted Montreal Blog will be offered every two months, whereas every other month will feature an update to an old story. As always, these stories and updates will be released on the 13th of every month!

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl, paranormal investigation or virtual event!

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page and/or on Google Reviews – something that really helps Haunted Montreal to market its tours.

Lastly, if you would like to receive the Haunted Montreal Blog on the 13th of every month, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming Up on July 13: Update on St. Joseph’s Oratory

Montreal’s iconic St. Joseph’s Oratory has been undergoing a major $150-million renovation since 2018. The goal is increase accessibility and create a new welcome centre, museum and observatory in the gigantic dome. However, in August of 2019, workers unearthed four pre-colonial Indigenous skeletons under the Oratory’s parking lot. In the Spring of 2023, three more sets of remains were discovered, leading to many questions and concerns about the disturbance of seven deceased Mohawk ancestors deemed to be over 1000 years old.

Author:

Donovan King is a postcolonial historian, teacher, tour guide and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbott College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed (History and English Teaching, McGill), MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary) and ACS (Montreal Tourist Guide, Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec). He is also a certified Montreal Destination Specialist.

Translator (into French):

Claude Chevalot holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from McGill University. She is a writer, editor and translator. For more than 15 years, she has devoted herself almost exclusively to literary translation and to the translation of texts on current and contemporary art.

With over 600 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal dedicates itself to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

This service is free and you can sign up to our mailing list (top, right-hand corner for desktops and at the bottom for mobile devices) if you wish to receive it every month on the 13th! The blog is published in both English and French!

We are pleased to announce that our season of public outdoor ghost tours will be resuming in early April! Tickets are already on sale!

In the meantime, Haunted Montreal is running our Haunted Pub Crawl every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 2 pm.

To learn more, see the schedule at the bottom of our home page and see more details in the Company News section below!

Private tours for all of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours start at $235 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

Lastly, we have a updated our online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. More details are below in our Company News section!

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.

Haunted Research

In February 2018, Haunted Montreal reported on the Old Royal Victoria Hospital and its many 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. 

Today, McGill University is attempting to repurpose it.

Dubbed the “New Vic”, the project proposes refurbishing the former hospital buildings. The goal is to create a 21st Century campus dedicated to uniting “researchers, students and partners to tackle global sustainability challenges.“ 

However, the process has been rocked by a major legal conflict with the Mohawk Mothers. During the 1950s and 60s unethical brainwashing experiments were carried out at the nearby Allan Memorial Institute, which resulted in unspeakable tragedy.

The Mohawk Mothers believe Indigenous and other children could be buried in the vicinity. This belief is based on the signed affidavit of Lana Ponting, a survivor of the mind control experiments.

Ponting recalled living with other children at the mental hospital, including Indigenous youth, some as young as 5. She also remembered seeing people going outside at night with shovels and hearing rumors that bodies were buried on the site.

Rumours abound that human remains may be interred beneath the foundations of the Secret Pool, located between the two institutions. 

There is also the question of what to do about all of the ghosts that remain in the old hospital. With dozens of documented ghost sightings during the Old Royal Vic’s tenure as a medical institution, it is likely the spirits are here to stay.

On Halloween, 2024, the Canadian Structures & Stories blog published an article by Domenico Di Modica entitled: “Veil Between Worlds: Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital, Where Science Meets the Supernatural“.

Reflecting on the institution’s haunted history, Di Modica surmised:

“Today, most of the Royal Victoria Hospital’s buildings stand quiet while construction work is slowly underway, with sections repurposed by McGill University and others left in stillness. Yet, its reputation as both a center of medical innovation and a haunted site continues.”

With the project scheduled for completion in 2029, only one thing is certain: it is almost certain that the “New Vic” will be just as haunted and ghost-ridden as the Old Royal Victoria Hospital was.

Company News

We are pleased to announce that our season of public outdoor ghost tours will be resuming in early April! Tickets are already on sale!

In the meantime, Haunted Montreal is running our Haunted Pub Crawl every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 2 pm.

To learn more, see the schedule at the bottom of our home page!

Private tours for any of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours are based on the availability of our actors and start at $215 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

You can also bring the Haunted Montreal experience to your office party, house, school or event by booking one of our Travelling Ghost Storytellers today.

Hear some of the spookiest tales from our tours and our blog told by a professional actor and storyteller. You provide the venue, we provide the stories and storyteller. Find out more and then contact info@hauntedmontreal.com

Our team also releases videos every second Saturday, in both languages, of ghost stories from the Haunted Montreal Blog. Hosted by Holly Rhiannon (in English) and Dr. Mab (in French), this initiative is sure to please ghost story fans!

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

Haunted Montreal is also pleased to announce the publication of the book “Montréal hanté. La mémoire macabre d’une cité victorienne”, written by Pierre-Luc Baril. Directly inspired by the Haunted Montreal Blog, the book tells several ghost stories, including those of Simon McTavish, the mysterious Trafalgar Tower and the murder of Mary Gallagher.

You can purchase a copy by clicking on this link.

In other news, if you want to send someone a haunted experience as a gift, you certainly can! We are offering Haunted Montreal Gift Certificates through our website and redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual events (no expiration date).

Finally, we have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise.

We are selling t-shirts, magnets, sweatshirts (for those haunted fall and winter nights) and mugs with both the Haunted Montreal logo and our tour imagery.

Purchases can be ordered through our online store: shop.hauntedmontreal.com

Haunted Montreal has temporarily altered its blog experience due to a commitment on a big writing project! New stories at the Haunted Montreal Blog will now be offered every two months, whereas every other month will feature an update to an old story. As always, these stories and updates will be released on the 13th of every month!

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl, paranormal investigation or virtual event!

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page and/or on Google Reviews -something that really helps Haunted Montreal to market its tours.

Lastly, if you would like to receive the Haunted Montreal Blog on the 13th of every month, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming Up On February 13: Saint-Jean-de-Dieu Insane Asylum

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 hospital 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.

Author:

Donovan King is a postcolonial historian, teacher, tour guide and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbott College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed (History and English Teaching, McGill), MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary) and ACS (Montreal Tourist Guide, Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec). He is also a certified Montreal Destination Specialist.

Translator (into French):

Claude Chevalot holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from McGill University. She is a writer, editor and translator. For more than 15 years, she has devoted herself almost exclusively to literary translation and to the translation of texts on current and contemporary art.

With over 600 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal dedicates itself to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

This service is free and you can sign up to our mailing list (top, right-hand corner for desktops and at the bottom for mobile devices) if you wish to receive it every month on the 13th! The blog is published in both English and French!

With the Halloween Season in full swing, Haunted Montreal is running a full roster of ghost tours and haunted experiences!

Our ghost tours include Haunted Old Montreal, Griffintown, Downtown and the mountain!

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 4 pm.

We also offer paranormal investigations! In addition to our investigation of the old Sainte-Antoine Cholera Cemetery, Haunted Montreal is proud to announce our latest experience – Paranormal Investigation – Colonial Old Montreal.

To learn more, see the schedule at the bottom of our home page and see more details in the Company News section below!

Private tours for all of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours start at $215 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

Lastly, we have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. More details are below in our Company News section!

This month we examine McGill University’s storied Arts Building and its various paranormal phenomena. As the oldest structure on campus, it is also one of its most haunted.

Haunted Research

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.

McGill University officially opened in 1821, but its only initial building was the crumbling Burnside Hall. Originally the country home of James McGill, the structure was unsuitable for academic studies due to its farm-like layout and deteriorating condition.

Burnside Hall was named as such because it was located next to a babbling brook that ran across James McGill’s property. In Scotland, a “burn” is a commonly used word for a small stream, creek or brook.

James McGill enjoyed spending summers on his bucolic forty-six acre country estate. Named Burnside Place, it was situated well outside of the city during his lifetime. McGill enjoyed his leisure time here with his wife.

Indeed, his every whim was attended to by his various servants and slaves.

James McGill owned at least five slaves, including two Indigenous children and three people of African descent. One Indigenous girl was named Marie and the other’s name is unknown. The Black slaves included a man named Jacques and two women, Marie Louise and another lady referred to variously as Sarah Cavilhe, Charlotte or Marie Charles.

James McGill also traded in slaves. In 1784, he sold two enslaved Black people, named Caesar and Flora. Three years later, he sold four more slaves. He also made enormous profits from products created by enslaved people in other British colonies, such as sugar, molasses, rum and tobacco.

These nefarious transactions helped make James McGill one of the richest men in Montreal with a net worth of approximately £100,000.

In 1811, James McGill, bequeathed his beloved Burnside Place estate to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning, based in London, England.

Stretching from what is now Doctor Penfield Avenue to a few streets south of Sherbrooke Street, the size of the land was substantial.

He also donated £10,000 to the Royal Institution, on the condition that they establish a university in his name within ten years following his death. He stipulated that if the university was not founded within ten years after his passing, the property and funds would be given to his heirs.

Ironically, James McGill was a school dropout himself. He may have wanted to redeem his lowly scholastic reputation by creating a university in his name.

When James McGill died suddenly on December 19, 1813, the Royal Institution began plotting the creation of McGill University. The school opened in 1821, just two years shy of the deadline.

However, due to the lack of adequate space for studies, in 1837 the Royal Institution commissioned the McGill College Building (which was later renamed the Arts Building). In 1839, well-known British architect John Ostell was hired to design the building in the Classical Revival style.

By 1843, Ostell’s team had constructed the central and eastern sections of the building. The central block featured classrooms, the college hall, a library, a kitchen, the steward’s residence, and a room for the Governors’ council. The eastern section contained the chapel and vice-principal’s residence.

Unfortunately, funds ran out which prevented construction of the western section and a two-story portico with Doric columns for the central building.

Furthermore, due to unfinished work, the building was uncomfortable to say the least. The roof leaked in various places, the rooms were both cold and dark, there were several broken windows and before long rats had infested the structure.

In order to raise funds to finish the project, the Royal Institution sold valuable land south of Sherbrooke Street.

E.A. Collard’s book “Oldest McGill” devotes an entire chapter called “Early Years in the Arts Building” (pages 30 – 45) where he describes this very difficult situation.

The first faculty at McGill University was the Faculty of Medicine. It emerged from the Montreal Medical Institution and was grafted onto the university in 1829. In 1845, the Medical classes were moved to the Arts Building, joining the new Faculty of Arts, which had started teaching there in 1843. 

Since Montreal had not yet expanded as far west as McGill, the only access to the Arts Building was by way of bumpy, unkempt lanes which became almost impassable in the harsh winter snow drifts. 

Indeed, many of the students felt that the campus was too far from the city and were grateful when a professor could offer a ride on a sleigh, especially during blizzards.

With the long distance, unfinished structure and nasty weather, there was a lot of discontentment with the facilities. Thus, the Faculty of Medicine was not satisfied with their relocation to the Arts Building. They described it as “a lonely building, far removed from other dwellings, imperfectly heated, and lighted by candles – the light being barely sufficient to render the surrounding darkness visible.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Faculty of Medicine decided to move out of the Arts Building in 1851. Their timing was very good, as the City of Montreal began constructing the nearby McTavish Reservoir in 1852.

Explosions to hollow out the reservoir inadvertently showered the Arts Building with rock fragments and boulders, making studies very dangerous and further damaging the structure. When cracks began appearing in the walls, the remaining staff and students relocated until the Arts Building could be fully repaired.

It took a full decade until repairs had restored the structure. By 1862, the Arts Building was finally functional and also saw the addition of its western wing. The structure was now complete according to most of Ostell’s original designs and professors and students reoccupied the building.

The final touch occurred on June 23, 1875, when the “James McGill Monument” was installed in front of the Arts Building.

The four-sided stone pedestal is topped with a decorative urn in memory James McGill. His human remains are in a box within the pedestal.

When McGill died in 1813, he was buried in the St. Lawrence Protestant Burying Ground next to his old friend, John Porteous. McGill’s wife, a Catholic, had to be buried elsewhere due to religious regulations that forbade Protestants from being buried in the same cemeteries as Catholics.

Over the years, the cemetery filled up and reached capacity as its tombstones and monuments began to crumble and vandals began destroying the place.

In 1873, the city expropriated the creepy cemetery to make way for a public square. Descendants were asked to remove any corpses they wanted to have re-interred elsewhere.

Upon hearing this, in 1875 McGill University administrators arranged for the transfer of James McGill’s skeleton and monument from Plot #16 to the location where it is today, in front of the Arts Building. They put his skull and bones in a box and placed it within the pedestal they constructed before securing his funerary urn on top. Coincidentally, Burnside Hall was also demolished in 1875.

As the urn eroded and deteriorated over the years due to the seasonal weather, in 1944 the McGill Graduates Society and Canadian Grenadier Guards replaced it with a replica.

Some people believe that the ghost of James McGill haunts the area around his urn, whereas others believe he is burning in Hell for his role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

On October 23, 2011, The Tribune published an article called “Haunted McGill”. Journalist Kyla Mandel wrote:

“Once upon a midnight dreary, McGill’s campus was quite eerie. The orange leaves rustled and the autumn air was crisp; shadows danced in the blustery wind. It was Halloween and the ghosts that lurk McGill were out to play. Where are these phantoms of the night, you ask? They can be found in many places; all it takes is a little faith and courage. The place to start hunting for McGill’s ghosts is in front of the Arts Building, where the remains of James McGill were reinterred in 1875.”

Mandel continued:

“There have been other stories of ghosts haunting the Arts Building itself. After passing the ghost of James McGill, take the steps up into the Arts Building to wander its echoing corridors and the recesses of its basement alcoves. According to Peter McNally, Director of the History of Montreal project, in the 1840s the Arts Building housed the Faculty of Medicine and its cadavers. So beware, the ghosts that prowl these quarters may not be as welcoming as the shape of James McGill. Perhaps the only detection of a ghost you’ll find is that chill that has just passed through you, or the light that appears only on some nights in the cupola atop the Arts Building.”

Additionally, some students have claimed to hearing phantom footsteps in the hallways and the creaking staircases of the Arts Building. Other reports document a horrible and nauseous stench that sometimes overwhelm students. Some of them have described the foul odour as “the smell Death” or “rotting flesh, mixed with formaldehyde.”

The nasty stench typically materializes in classrooms, hallways and staircases before dissipating within a few minutes. It has actually caused both students and professors to run to the toilets to vomit.

One Anatomy student was familiar with the stench. He described it as “effluvium”, an unpleasant or harmful odour, secretion, or discharge associated with autopsy drippings.

There have also been sightings of what could be the ghost of an old Anatomy professor. He is often spotted out of the corner of one’s eye before disappearing.

Described as wearing Victorian attire, including a cap and sporting a bloody full-length apron, his ghost has spooked many a student and professor in the hallways, classrooms and especially on the staircases. The fact that he carries a scalpel does little to ease those who spotted him.

One prominent theory is that the ghost is a Victorian academic who started his career preparing and dissecting corpses for Anatomy Professors. His name was Dr. D. C. MacCallum and his title was the “Prosector to the Professor of Anatomy”. Having suitably arranged the cadavers in the original Arts Building for his superiors, in 1847 he wrote the following words:

“I had to prepare, during the greater part of the session, the dissections of the parts which were to be the subject of the Professor’s lectures the following day. This necessitated my passing several hours, usually from nine to twelve o’clock at night, in the dismal foul-smelling dissecting room, my only company being several partially dissected subjects, and numerous rats which kept up a lively racket, coursing over and below the floor and within the walls of the room…”

Describing the rodents, Dr. MacCallum wrote:

“Their piercing and vicious shrieks as they fought together, the thumping caused by their bodies coming into forcible contact with the floor and walls, and rattling produced by their rush over loose bones, furnished a variety of sounds that would have been highly creditable to any old-fashioned haunted house.”

Some students believe that the infamous ghost haunting the Arts Building is none other than Dr. MacCallum, who went on to become a full Professor of Anatomy.

Indeed, unfounded and scandalous rumors have spread around the campus for many years about this professor.

According to the rumour, Dr. MacCallum was lecturing to his students in the dissecting room of the Arts Building when he suddenly fell ill at his podium and collapsed on the floor. However, instead of trying to help their professor, some of his students began agitating for his immediate autopsy.

Apparently, Dr. MacCallum was a tough professor and had failed almost half of his Anatomy students. Some of them described his behavior as “eccentric”, “unbalanced” and “odd”. With their careers in potential danger, many students saw the strict Anatomy Professor as a risk to their future success.

The unfounded legend suggests that when Dr. MacCallum fell onto the lecture floor from his podium, some of his students at risk of failure began chanting “Autopsy! Autopsy! Autopsy!”

While some level-headed students protested the idea, a mob mentality took over. Within minutes, a horde of students had descended upon the professor and thrust him upon the autopsy slab, scalpels in hand! They set to work on him, despite one student yelling that he was still alive!

Within an hour, the poor professor had been thoroughly dissected. To make matters worse, some of the students kept organs, bones and other body parts as “trophies” and brought them back to their residences.

It is worth noting that this legend is very questionable. While it is true that students were so desperate to acquire fresh corpses for McGill’s Anatomy class that they often resorted to grave-robbing, there is no evidence that they ever performed an autopsy on their own professor.

Indeed, Dr. MacCallum retired as Professor Emeritus in 1883 and passed away in 1904, suggesting that the outlandish legend is simply untrue.

In April 2019, the McCall MacBain Foundation gave a private donation of $200 million to McGill University on condition it could attach its name to the Arts Building.

At the time, it was largest gift to a university in Canadian history and the edifice was renamed the McCall MacBain Arts Building.

It is also worth noting that in March, 2022, the Arts Building and funerary urn were both given clandestine paint jobs. While McGill officials described the incident as “vandalism”, activists described it as “editing”. Indeed, the activists had painted the words “DIVEST” on university buildings and “Fucking Slave Owner” and “Take Him Down” on the urn.

This episode followed the removal of a statue of James McGill the previous year in the Lower Quad of the campus. Created by David Roper-Curzon and installed in 1996, the statue had also been painted red on many occasions due to McGill’s ties to the blood-soaked slave trade.

After much pressure, the university finally removed the offending James McGill statue in July, 2021 and placed it into storage.

Today, the Arts Building still stands as a major symbol of McGill University. Despite its deranged past, the building is bustling with professors and the many students attending their lectures.

However, one never knows what may be lurking in the shadowy hallways, staircases and recesses of this storied edifice.

Only one thing is certain – as the oldest structure on campus, the Arts Building reeks of paranormal activity and ghostly hauntings. Enter at your own risk!

Company News

With the Halloween Season in full swing, Haunted Montreal is running a full roster of ghost tours and haunted experiences! Our ghost tours include Haunted Old Montreal, Griffintown, Downtown and the mountain!

Haunted Montreal is proud to announce our latest haunted experience – Paranormal Investigation – Colonial Old Montreal.

Hosted by professional Ghost-hunter Dominique Desormeaux of Investigations 13, Haunted Montreal’s “Paranormal Investigation – Colonial Old Montreal” takes guests on a dark adventure into the mysterious world of ghost hunting!

In the meantime, our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 4 pm.

To learn more, see the schedule at the bottom of our home page!

Private tours for any of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours are based on the availability of our actors and start at $215 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

You can also bring the Haunted Montreal experience to your office party, house, school or event by booking one of our Travelling Ghost Storytellers today. Hear some of the spookiest tales from our tours and our blog told by a professional actor and storyteller. You provide the venue, we provide the stories and storyteller.

Find out more and then contact info@hauntedmontreal.com

Our team also releases videos every second Saturday, in both languages, of ghost stories from the Haunted Montreal Blog. Hosted by Holly Rhiannon (in English) and Dr. Mab (in French), this initiative is sure to please ghost story fans!

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

Haunted Montreal is also pleased to announce the publication of the book “Montréal hanté. La mémoire macabre d’une cité victorienne”, written by Pierre-Luc Baril. Directly inspired by the Haunted Montreal Blog, the book tells several ghost stories, including those of Simon McTavish, the mysterious Trafalgar Tower and the murder of Mary Gallagher.

You can purchase a copy by clicking on this link.

You are cordially invited to the official launch of the book, on October 17, 2024, at 6 p.m., at the Le Port de Tête bookstore (222 avenue du Mont-Royal E). See the Facebook event.

In other news, if you want to send someone a haunted experience as a gift, you certainly can!

We are offering Haunted Montreal Gift Certificates through our website and redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual events (no expiration date).

Finally, we have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. We are selling t-shirts, magnets, sweatshirts (for those haunted fall and winter nights) and mugs with both the Haunted Montreal logo and our tour imagery.

Purchases can be ordered through our online store.

Haunted Montreal has temporarily altered its blog experience due to a commitment on a big writing project! New stories at the Haunted Montreal Blog will now be offered every two months, whereas every other month will feature an update to an old story. As always, these stories and updates will be released on the 13th of every month!

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl, paranormal investigation or virtual event!

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page and/or on Google Reviews – something that really helps Haunted Montreal to market its tours.

Lastly, if you would like to receive the Haunted Montreal Blog on the 13th of every month, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming up on November 13^th: Update on Montreal’s Haunted Pubs and Drinking Establishments

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!

Author:

Donovan King is a postcolonial historian, teacher, tour guide and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbott College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed (History and English Teaching, McGill), MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary) and ACS (Montreal Tourist Guide, Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec). He is also a certified Montreal Destination Specialist.

Translator (into French):

Claude Chevalot holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from McGill University. She is a writer, editor and translator. For more than 15 years, she has devoted herself almost exclusively to literary translation and to the translation of texts on current and contemporary art.

Here is what we are offering this Halloween Season:

Halloween Ghost Walks

Haunted Old Montreal: Step back in time into Montreal’s most historic and most haunted neighbourhood. Guided by a professional actor and storyteller, you will learn the dark history behind some of the city’s most popular tourist spots. Join a Haunted Old Montreal walk for Halloween 2024

Haunted Griffintown: A professional actor and storyteller takes you through mysterious ruins, a polluted canal, former burial grounds and creepy old buildings that are said to be haunted. Also, Griffintown’s most famous ghost, Headless Mary. Join a Haunted Griffintown walk for Halloween 2024

Haunted Mountain: A theatrical guide will regale guests with ghost stories, mysteries and legends about Mount Royal, including haunted hospitals, abandoned castles, cemeteries teeming with undead spirits, and all sorts of paranormal activities on the mountain. Join a Haunted Mountain walk for Halloween 2024

Haunted Downtown: Follow a professional actor and storyteller through Downtown Montreal’s haunted bars, a forgotten graveyard, hotels rife with paranormal activity, and other locations where ghosts have been spotted! Join a Haunted Downtown walk for Halloween 2024

Halloween Paranormal Investigations

Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery: Learn strategies and techniques to locate and communicate with spirits while walking on top of Downtown Montreal’s largest forgotten cemetery, with approximately 70,000 buried beneath! Hosted by paranormal expert Dominique Desormeaux. Investigate the Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery for Halloween 2024

Colonial Old Montreal: Hosted by professional Ghost-hunter Dominique Desormeaux, our newest haunted experience takes guests on a dark adventure into the mysterious world of ghost hunting in Canada’s most haunted neighbourhood. Investigate Colonial Old Montreal for Halloween 2024

Halloween Haunted Pub Crawls

Led by a professional ghost storyteller, the Haunted Montreal Pub Crawl visits three haunted pubs. Guests will not only learn about many of the haunted drinking establishments in the city, but will also hear Montreal’s most infamous ghost stories. Raise a glass at the Haunted Pub Crawl for Halloween 2024

Private Tours

Haunted Montreal offers private tours for all of our ghost walks and other experiences based on the availability of our actors. These are ideal for tour groups, corporate groups, school groups, bachelorette parties, and gatherings of all types. Book a Private Tour for Halloween 2024

Travelling Ghost Storyteller

A professional actor and storyteller brings some of the most popular Montreal ghost stories from our tours to your office Halloween party, school event, house party, or other event. Book a Travelling Ghost Storyteller for your Halloween 2024 event

Any questions? Please contact tours@hauntedmontreal.com

See you this Halloween!

With over 500 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal dedicates itself to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

This service is free and you can sign up to our mailing list (top, right-hand corner for desktops and at the bottom for mobile devices) if you wish to receive it every month on the 13th! The blog is published in both English and French!

Haunted Montreal is entering the holiday season! We have an online store for those interested in gift certificates and company merchandise. More details are below in our Company News section!

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English. Tours in French happen on the last Sunday of every month at 4 pm.

Private tours for all of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours start at $215 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

We are also supporting a fundraiser for a victim of one of Montreal’s most haunted and deranged buildings – the Allan Memorial Institute.

Details are in the Company News section below!

This month we examine, republish and translate into French “Nips Daimon”, a forgotten Victorian-era ghost story set in Montreal.

Haunted Research

In 1862, author C.E. Bockus penned a ghost story set in Montreal called “Nips Daimon”. Published in London in the May edition of Once a Week, the creepy tale features a Mount Royal tobogganer named Eugene Roy and his misadventures with an undead spirit. Based on the true ghost story of Simon McTavish and his haunted castle, “Nips Daimon” adds another dimension to the deranged legacy of the forgotten fur baron.

Known to toboggan down the mountain slopes in his coffin at night, McTavish’s ghost allegedly terrorized city residents in the 1800s. The McTavish tale is widely considered “Canada’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and C.E. Bockus’ fictionalized version adds to its mystery and intrigue.

C.E. Bockus was a businessman, financier and journalist. Born in 1833 in Pictou, Nova Scotia, he went on to study at McGill University in Montreal. Undoubtedly, he learned the ghost story of Simon McTavish during his time on campus. Bockus died in Boston in 1901 at the age of 67. It would appear that “Nips Daimon” is the only work in his literary record.

Haunted Montreal is proud to present this amazing Victorian ghost story, which is largely forgotten in the city. We are also thrilled to announce that the talented Claude Chevalot has translated “Nips Daimon” into French for the first time ever.

Nips Daimon

by C.E. Bockus

ꙮ  ꙮ  ꙮ

     Montreal is a wonderful place, unique in fact upon this continent, contrasting the ancient with the modern as no other American city can pretend to do, and showing buildings, dresses and habits, two centuries old, in picturesque juxtaposition with the extreme fashions and improvements of the present day. The grey and black robes of the nuns rub against hoops that are greatly beyond the gauge of the city sidewalks. Portly priests, or humbler frères chrétiens dispute the pavement with red-coated soldiers, and merchants whose credit is as solid as their granite stores. Convents jostle the counting-rooms of firms of world-wide reputation. A church, that counts its years by hundreds stands at the side of a market-house, much finer than any our city can show; while near them from the barracks issue in splendid array a little army of soldiers, whose march is like the moving of waters, and their drill a wonder and a school.

     It is not astonishing, therefore, that every summer brings to Montreal a host of tourists to marvel and admire, in whose train follow the inevitable travelling correspondents, who fill the columns of our newspapers with their little collections of thrice-told facts. We “stay-at-homes” expect annually to be informed by the different journals that the towers of the French church are higher than the monument on Bunker Hill, and that the Enfans Trouvés of the Soeurs Grises have clean faces, but bad bumps. The nuns themselves, it seems, are not so pretty as they might be; while the smallest children in the streets talk French with fluency – a fact which I wish you to note as an evidence of their surprising precocity.

     One special point no correspondent neglects. The Haunted House furnishes a paragraph to the whole tribe of nomadic scribblers.

      Sometimes it is stated that the builder of this ghost-ridden mansion hung himself from a beam in its cellar, on discovering – what any sensible man would have expected – that his architect’s estimate covered less than half of the required outlay. Again, we are told that he died from the effect of a cup of “cold poison,” swallowed in humble imitation of the sad example of the illustrious Dinah. I remember one correspondent who struck out an original path, and declared that the devil carried him off bodily – though with what purpose or for what crime, this inventive writer unfortunately omitted to specify. 

     But, however they differ regarding the exit of the troubled spirit, all agree upon its occasional return.

     Haunted the house is, – and deserted, – the very picture of desolation, standing alone, upon as fine a site as fancy can conceive, having behind it the broad green belt of lofty trees that garters the foot of the mountain, and in front a wide slope, which stretches its lawn-like expanse in regular descent from the great doorway of the mansion to within a short distance from the public street.

     This hill affords summer-pasturage for hundreds of cows which lounge among the fruit trees at its base, or dot its surface with their forms. But in winter it is put to a livelier use, for which it is admirably fitted by its length, and height, and the evenness of the declination. 

     To wit – as a slide for tobogans. 

     “A what?” you ask; “in the name of euphony, what is a tobogan?”

     Let me tell you. I must premise that the orthography of this word belongs to the important unsettled questions of the world. Authorities differ; usage affords no guide; and its etymology is lost in the dim ages of the aboriginal tradition. The way I write it comes as near the sound as can be, and pleases me accordingly. But any reader who feels dissatisfied has perfect liberty to spell it as he thinks proper. 

     All I know about toboganing was learned nine years ago. Understand that. Many changes may, nay must, have come since then. The hill may offer no longer an unbroken slope. The practice itself may have grown unfashionable. But in my time, everybody toboganed, and the slide was the glory of the town. 

     Tobogans – to resume them – are Indian sleighs, perfectly flat, without runners supporting themselves above the lightest snow, on the same principle as the snow-shoe, by offering a large surface to its resistance. They are about eight feet long, and sufficiently broad to leave a margin of a few inches on each side of the sitter. They curve upwards in front, like the runner of a sleigh. Light poles, tied along the sides, support the occupants while going over “the jumps,” which are holes worn by the constant ploughing of the curved fronts in their rapid rush down the steep incline. 

     Indian sleighs are often very neatly painted, and almost always christened by appropriate names, – such as the ‘Dart,’ the ‘Snow Wreath,’ and the ‘Bird on Wing.’ Their bottoms, by long use, grow wonderfully smooth. When the snow is a little beaten, or has a light crust, through which our New England sleds would crash in a moment, the tobogans glide along as easily as a ship passing through the water, and as swiftly as an arrow just loosened from the bow.

     I spent a winter in Montreal, during the height of the furore, and visited the ground many times in company with as pleasant a set of gentlemen as I have ever been privileged to know.

     One of these, whom I shall call Roy – Eugene Roy – for this most excellent reason, that it does not sound at all like the real name, was almost always the leader of our party to the hill. He was a young man, quite dark enough to justify the suspicion that he had Indian blood in his veins, – a strange, quiet fellow, who said very little to any one, who steered magnificently, and appeared to love sliding as he loved nothing else in the world.

     No wonder. He owned the fastest sleigh on the field. It was a narrow tobogan, painted blue, carrying its name, the ‘Indian Chief,’ in wide gold letters upon the front. Its bottom was seamed with countless cracks, and worn so thin in many places as to be almost transparent. But it flashed down the hill as no other tobogan could be coaxed to do, darting out from a flight of its most formidable rivals, like a hawk sweeping past a cluster of slow-winged crows.

     No hand save his own ever steered this sleigh, for, though Eugene was free as air with whatever else he possessed, he steadily refused to lend the ‘Chief,’ even for an occasional slide, to his most intimate friend. 

     He and I had some rooms in the same house, we always walked home from the hill together, and, indeed, soon became as intimate as his peculiar disposition allowed. 

     It is not surprising that the sliders, who spent so many evenings in the vicinity of the Haunted House came to feel, in time, a thorough contempt for its terrors, and passed, as regards the existence of its Ghost, in rapid progression from doubt to scepticism and positive unbelief. Many a shout from strong-lunged scoffers has rung through the rafters of that unfinished building, challenging all the spirits who dwelt therein to come forth and try their wings in a race along the hill. But I noticed that the boldness of the call invariably bore a nice proportion to the number of the party, and that, when no more than two or three sliders remained near the mansion, its reputed tenants were treated with the most respectful consideration by all. For there was something so utterly lonesome about this deserted dwelling, standing with blear boarded windows, white in the moonlight, the tomb of the pride of its builder, that its contemplation often chilled the boldest hearts and stayed the noisiest laughter.   

      We all spoke of it lightly, however, when distance had dissolved its spell; and at the suppers, which occasionally followed our return from toboganing, the spectral occupant of the desolate mansion was a frequent toast with the lads of the hill. One excepted, Eugene Roy, never emptied glass to that health, never smiled at the jokes, nor joined in the boasts that allusion to his ghostship had a tendency to call forth; nay, when pressed by our banter regarding his reserve, he always answered – that there were things he thought it ill to jest about, and that, perhaps, we would not find the devil so black as he had been painted; a supposition involving a corollary not very complimentary to the company.

     One evening some person inquired of him if he “dare race his ‘Indian Chief’ with any other tobogan in Canada?”

     We all felt interested on this point, as there had been talk of bringing up a famous sleigh from Quebec, and matching it against his for a medal. The supper drew towards its end when the question was asked. Roy had been drinking pretty freely. He looked up from his glass quite hastily, and replied with an oath that – “the winner of the race he had run one Saturday night need fear no wood that ever skimmed snow-drift.”

     All at the table laughed. They had never before found Eugene influenced by his liquor. I reflected; and that evening on our homeward walk renewed the subject which we discussed rather warmly, till at last I taxed him with knowing more about the tenant of the “Haunted House,” than he appeared willing to admit.

     On this he turned round upon me sharply.

     “Do you believe in ghosts, in bodied or disembodied spirits?”

     “Pooh!” I blew the answer out like a bullet, for I considered his question a reflection upon my good sense.

     He stopped suddenly, and pointed towards the building, which from its commanding situation was visible at a great distance.

     “So you have no faith in haunted houses?”

     “Haunted they may be,” I laughed, “by rats, or owls, at the farthest by nothing more formidable than a skulking mountain fox.”

     He caught my arm.

     “Suppose I told you that I, myself, am the ghost, the devil, the thing whose accursed presence heightens the horror of those lonely walls?”

     His voice and the light in his eyes were unnatural. Shaking myself from his grasp, I jumped into the middle of the road, but came back ashamed enough when I heard his mocking laugh.

     “Again, as ever,” Eugene cried. “You are like the rest of mankind. Liars and cowards all of you – in matters supernatural,” he added calmly. “You scoff at ghosts. That goes without telling. ‘Brave comme un lapin,’ says the proverb, and you jumped from my side like a rabbit, because I spoke a few wild words in a deeper tone. Well, be not afraid. No matter what does haunt that old house; I don’t. Only take this advice from a friend. Till you get stronger nerves, never stay on the hill alone after midnight; and of all evenings of the week, choose Saturday least for solitary sliding!”

     Of course, after such a speech, there were no means of resisting my eager curiosity. He  told me his story that night, as we sat in my room together, while the flashes from the fire-light flickered about  the chamber, till the shuddering darkness of the winter night overshadowed the room like a pall.

     Impossible to give it in his words; needless my interrupting queries. You have it here, as I remember it, plus the many imperfections of a bad narrator, and minus more of the charms derived from his quaint expressions and peculiar manner, than I am at all willing you should realize. 

 “One Saturday night,” he commenced, “about four weeks ago, the tracks, you will perhaps remember, were in a terrible condition. There had been good sliding for a week, on snow deep enough even to cover the big rocks at the foot, and all the world had gone mad about tobogans. With Friday came a dash of rain, followed by severe weather, till on Saturday the whole hill was a sheet of glare ice, so thick that our sticks could not break through it, and so smooth that our hands found little hold to steer. 

     Few cared to go on it that afternoon. Those who did left early. For the sleighs shot down like arrows. To guide them was all but impossible. One boy went off with a broken arm; another, who had cut his ankle, was carried home on his tobogan. 

     It was towards ten o’clock in the evening when the moon got up, heartily cheered by half a dozen of us who were waiting, impatient at the hill. Little cared we for ice or danger; a moonlit slide at such a pace was cheaply bought by any risk. Good steerers all of us, you may be sure, and our tobogans the best of the town. George had the old ‘Hawk’s Eye’ cut down to half her original size, but with a bottom smoother than the ice itself. Mark brought a new sleigh which he had selected out of a hundred in Lorette. Frank, too, was with us; large-hearted Frank, whose name describes his nature, as good at cricket as at steering – deservedly a favourite with girls and men; and Andrew with the ‘Arrow,’ and Arthur’s ‘Falling Star.’

     We had a glorious time. The speed was greater than I had ever before known. We did not slide; we flew, – dancing over “the jumps,” and flashing past the stone-heads, each steering as carefully as if there were a dozen ladies on board – for a mistake would have been no laughing matter. We tried all the runs, even the unusual one which, passing obliquely behind the college buildings, leads towards a bridge that crosses the little brook. 

      Near twelve o’clock, tired of our sport, and bed-weary, we ranged our sleighs at the door of the Haunted House for our last slide.

     It was Frank who proposed that we should try the track on the extreme right, which as yet we had not attempted; and George who suggested that we should go far back among the trees, shoot through the  fence which separates the inclosed ground from the rough foot of the mountain, and thus sweep along the right-hand track with all the advantage which our unusual start would give. By so doing we would nearly double the length of our slide. The track on this side was entirely free from obstruction till you approached the bottom of the hill, where the difficulties increased – rocks being in great plenty, and the trees inconveniently close together. 

     No one dissenting, we dragged our tobogans up the mountain, till we reached the ledge off which we purposed pushing; some of us, whose moccasins were travel-worn, finding it no easy task to scale the slippery ascent. 

     At the top, all tarried a moment, spell-bound by the beauty of the night. Not a cloud soiled the sky. No breath of air rustled through the leafless branches above us. The moonlight seemed unnaturally bright, even for that latitude, showing the towers of the French church on guard over  the sleeping city below us, and beyond, blue in the distance, the crossed summit of Beloeil. Behind us rose the Monument, girt by a high wall of stone. We could see its shaft white among the tree-trunks, marking where rests the builder of the house in, as many believe, his troubled and terrible repose. But none of us thought of the monument or its tenant while we marshalled our tobogans along the edge of the incline – of nothing, in fact, but the track before us, and the wild scamper over it that we were about to take.

     “Now then! The first to the bottom of the hill,” cried George.

     “Give us to the fence, Roy, if you want an even race.”

     “To the house you mean,” two or three called out; “at less than that for a start, ‘the Chief’ will be up with us before we reach the bend of the hill.”

     “Hadn’t you better say half way down at once?” I answered. “You are a plucky set to have a race with. I would not take an inch from the devil himself.”

     “Then stay, and try with him,” they shouted; and all, pushing off at once, dashed over the ice down the hill, darting in and out among the trees, shooting through the fence at different openings, and emerging in a body upon the clear field beyond. They were so well matched that it seemed as if a blanket would have covered them, and swept out of sight round the house in a moment, cheering and daring each other on like the fine brave fellows they were. 

     I sat quietly, a hand down on each side, ready to shove forward, waiting till they had reached the bottom of the hill. My patience was not tried; their halloo, coming through half a mile of that clear air as distinctly as if uttered ten yards off, told me that the track was clear for my run.

     With this halloo came to my ears, from the steeples of the city, the sound of the bells ringing midnight; and I listened to distinguish the clear tones that bounded out of the belfry of Saint Patrick’s from the heavier clang of the Cathedral and the gentle music of the Seminary chimes.

     Those  twelve strokes, ringing above the sleep-bound city, were wonderfully subdued, and blended by the distance into so soft a peal, that I thought they sounded like the tongues of angels, proclaiming, with the advent of the Sabbath, a season or rest and tranquility to men. ‘Twas a devil’s blast succeeded them – a summons flung among the shuddering trees to chill my heart with horror. 

   “Arrête un peu, mon ami. Est-ce que c’est la mode maintenant de toboganer tout seul?”

     The tone crisped my nerves like a musket-ball. I turned, and saw behind me a tall man, dressed in a blanket-coat, who carried snow-shoes at his back, and dragged behind him a tobogan unpainted, but so dark with age that it looked as if it had been varnished. His coat was buttoned to the throat, and  tied about the waist with a silk sash, not red like mine, but of a peculiar shade resembling clotted blood. His leggings were ornamented along the seams by a fringe of long hair; a small fur-cap, adorned with the usual fox’s tail, partially covered the wealth of straight black locks that fell down towards his shoulders; while his feet, at which I glanced instinctively, were protected by moccasins, beautifully worked in beads, and coloured hair. No foot is handsome in a moccasin; his, as far as I could judge, seemed small for his size – voilà tout. His features, though marked, were far from disagreeable. He had the nose of an eagle, the eye of a falcon, a brown complexion, and a figure so slender as to be almost waspish. But long arms swung from his well-set shoulders, and it was plain that he possessed strength, combined with activity, in an uncommon degree. He moved, in fact, like a tiger, noiselessly, easily; in every motion the play of muscles seemed capable of sending him yards through the air at your throat any moment.

      “It is the fashion now to leave a question unanswered?” he said with a sneering emphasis.

     The smile, more than his words, recalled me to myself; for pride came to the rescue of my courage – the shame of cowering thus before a stranger, odd, but not bad-looking, at all events decidedly gentlemanlike in carriage and address, who had spoken to me twice civilly enough, and remained now waiting for my replies with politeness which must be changing very rapidly into contempt. 

     “I beg your pardon,” I said; “I was greatly surprised by seeing any person on the mountain at so late an hour.”

      “Not half so much as I,” he cried, “It is generally lonely enough up here long before midnight.”

     “Do you come, then, often after twelve o’clock?” I inquired, astonished.

     “Often,” he answered. “Does not my sleigh look as if it had been used? This is the best time for a slide. The tracks are not covered with shouting fools, who could hardly steer clear of a haystack, if one stood in the middle of the hill.”

     He glanced at my ‘Indian Chief’ – the glance of a connoisseur, appreciating all its merits, and discovering every defect. 

     “That is a pretty piece of wood you have there. Hardly heavy enough in front, and too wide for a night like this, though I dare say it does very well on a light snow.”

     “You may say so,” I interrupted, with some warmth. “Drift or ice-flake matters little, for on neither have I found its equal.”

     He drew his sleigh toward him, and placed it alongside of mine, which looked three inches broader.

     “My own is narrow” – he continued, speaking no longer in a defiantly-sarcastic tone, but low and very sadly, till his voice thrilled through me like the wail of a winter wind –”too narrow, indeed. It hurts me, and I am weary of it. I would gladly change it for your painted ‘Indian Chief.’ Ah me! I have seen many chiefs, painted after a different fashion. The smoke of their wigwams is with yesterday’s clouds, and the track of their tobogans on last year’s snow. Come,” he added, more cheerfully, “I will make a bargain with you. Have you heart enough to race me one slide along the hill?”

     “Why not?” I answered. “I will beat you if I can with all the pleasure in the world.”

     I felt so ashamed of my late cowardice that, if he had asked me to follow him over the mountain, I believe I would not have refused; and, besides, il faut quelque fois payer d’audace.

     “Then let us start,” he said. “If you are the victor, you may keep your tobogan as long as wood and deerskin hold together. But if I conquer, I warn you that I shall want your sleigh and that you must use mine.”

     “A moment,” I answered. “This is a strange bargain – ‘tis heads I win, tails you lose. I am to keep the swiftest in any event – mine, if it best yours, yours if better than my own.”

     “You agree then?”

     “I should be a fool to refuse.”

     “That is not my affair. Eh bien, c’est connu. Touch there, my friend.”

     He stretched out his hand, which I touched at first as you would handle hot coals, but more heartily when I saw the sneer starting over his face once. How brave we are – afraid even of being afraid. 

     The stranger slipped his snow-shoes from his back, and flung them against a tree, remarking that he would pick them up on his return.

     “Are you coming up the hill again to-night?” I inquired with surprise.

     “It is not night now, but morning,” he answered; “the morning of the Sabbath.”

     “And will you slide on Sunday?” I asked.

     “You should have remembered that ten minutes ago,” he replied, in his old sarcastic tone. “Think no more of it. Think of nothing but the stakes in the race before us. All other considerations are now too late.”   

     We got off together, but parted company from the very outset, for he shoved to the left at once and steered toward a gap in the fence directly behind where a break in the wall of the Haunted House gave access to the cellars beneath – an old doorway, in fact, which pilferers had plundered of its boarding, and the mountain winds of its stones, till an irregular opening had been formed large enough to admit a loaded waggon.  

     At first, as the stranger headed in the direction of this door, I thought that he had mistaken his course, or that his tobogan had become unmanageable. But the skill with which he handled it dismissed this last supposition. His sleigh bounded from knoll to knoll, obeying a touch of his finger, scraping the trees as it flew past them, and taking advantage of every bend in the ground, till it sprang straight at a hole in the fence not much wider than itself, and shot through, as the thread goes through the needle when guided by a woman’s hand. I never saw such steering before or since. After what followed, you may believe that I hope never to look upon its like again.

     I had got abreast of the fence myself by this time, running down it towards an opening farther to the right. The pace was awful. My tobogan sheered along the ice so that I could hardly keep it upon the track, and I came within an inch of missing the gap altogether. When I reached the other side, the stranger was just flashing into the gloom of the opening that led downwards to the cellars of the Haunted House. 

     I screamed. But my voice was drowned in a peal of infernal laughter, and the clapping of countless hands, which rattled from every story of that fiend-ridden building.

     Straight in front of me I stared – not a side-look for a million. On my head each separate hair crawled upward, snake-like, and my breath went and came pantingly, as that of a man who struggles body to body with a mortal foe. My tobogan bounded on with redoubled speed. It seemed to share my terror. 

     ‘Twas not without an effort that, as I passed the end of the mansion, I mustered courage for a Parthian glance.

     What I saw will live before my eyes till they close on this earth and its terrors for ever; a vision of horror ineffable – beyond belief or bearing – compared with which all I had before imagined of ghastly, soul-subduing phantoms, became mere babble of old nurses to frighten timid children.

     Out of the darkness into which my companion had plunged came forth a skeleton bearing in its skinless arms a coffin of unusual size. Its knees rattled as it strode forward staggering under the terrible burden. Nothing of life about it save its eyes; not earthly, even these. From the browless holes beneath its bony forehead looked out two balls of fire, the same that had glared on me a moment before, as I was looking up in the stranger’s face. To look at them now threatened madness. I felt it, and shut my own, pressing my hands over them to keep out the hateful sight.

     So I saw nothing more. But I heard the thud of the coffin upon the ice, and the clatter of the skeleton’s bones, as it bounded into its sepulchral vehicle; then the grit of  the frozen snow beneath the rush of that devil’s tobogan!

     This last sound chased irresolution. I knew what a struggle lay before me. With strength gained from despair I nerved myself to meet the danger, feeling that human skill and courage must be strained to distance my demon pursuer.

     If I failed, what then? I shuddered to think of it. New light had been flung upon the strange conditions of our race, and well I understood their meaning. No marvel that he found his tobogan too narrow. No wonder that he wearied of it and would change it for my ‘Indian Chief’. In the coffin, which thundered behind me, I was to make the next skeleton. Had he not said that I must use it, unless I conquered in this hopeless race?

     Thus, life and death on its issue, I bent myself to the contest, losing not an inch that all I knew of steering and the hill could give me. 

     I have said before that the right-hand track was singularly free from obstructions till you approach the foot of the hill. The descent was much more even than on either of the other slides, so that, at first, dexterity and practice availed but little, the utmost any one could do being to keep the sleigh headed straight toward a stump near the bottom, round which the track bent at an angle unpleasantly acute. On a line with this stump — not quite two yards to the right of it — the sharp black top of a rock peeped out above the ice-crust.  

     The passage between this Scylla and Charybdis was not easy to hit on such a night, when a wrong touch of the finger would have sent the sleigh twenty yards from its course. But a greater danger lay beyond. Three or four yards further on, facing the centre of the passage, the trunk of a large tree, with wide-spread roots, completely barred the way in front, leaving only a narrow gap upon the left, into which the steerer had to turn so sharply and suddenly, that, even at ordinary speed, this bend was considered the most difficult piece of sliding on the hill. Of course the difficulty, as well as the danger, increased proportionally with the pace. That night both reached their maximum. A tobogan striking against any obstacle with the frightful impetus with which mine was bowling down the ice, would be knocked to pieces in a moment, and its rider be very fortunate if he escaped with a broken limb. 

      But I thought little of the perils before me. It was the danger behind that engrossed my attention. 

     I stretched myself at full length upon the ‘Chief,’ bringing my weight to bear along its centre as evenly as possible; for the Indian sleigh never gives its best speed to the rider who sits up-right. Thus, on my back, looking towards the stars, and listening to the grating of the ice-crust under the heavy coffin that followed me, I passed a moment of as intense agony as, I think, ever fell to the lot of mortal. Cold as was the night, the perspiration rolled in clammy drops down my forehead, while my teeth closed so firmly together that they ached under the pressure. 

     Judging as well as I could by hearing alone, I concluded that my pursuer followed not directly in my rear, but a little on the left of my course. An instant afterwards the noise grew more distinct, and my heart sank; for I felt that he was gaining on me. Then the noise changed to my right, from which I presumed that he had crossed behind me and taken an inside position, partly because the ground, being there somewhat steeper, favoured the weight of his ponderous conveyance, and partly because – if he could get alongside of my sleigh in this position – it would be easy for him to force me out of the path against the stump that guarded the left of the narrow strait toward which both were rushing. 

     Having now the advantage of the ground, and even, as was evident, the heels of me in an equal race, he overhauled me very rapidly.

     Nearer and nearer came the sweep of his infernal tobogan. It followed – it approached – it closed upon me. I glanced a-head – the trees were yet a hundred yards away – then around. The front of the coffin was level with the end of my tobogan.

     Another second. It was up with my shoulder, looking ever so black and hideous against the purity of the frozen snow. 

     In that breath a thought came to me; not so much a thought as an inspiration.

     I carried on my watch-chain a small gold crucifix, a present from my mother the night before she died. I remembered well, at that moment, what in my heedlessness I had long forgotten that this crucifix, which had remained in our family many years, was valued as possessing more than ordinary sanctity. It was of admirable workmanship. It had been blessed by a bishop, and, report said, worn once by the Superior of a convent, a lady of singular piety, whom, after death, for her good works the church had canonised. My mother, when confiding it to my care, made me promise that I would carry it constantly about my person – a promise kept neglectfully enough by attaching it as a charm to my chain.

     One vigorous pull tore open my coat, another broke the clasp which secured the crucifix. I held it high above my head, neither expecting or daring to hope for help, but clinging to the cross with the same strong, despairing grasp which drowning men fasten upon a straw. 

     With that, close to my right hand, I heard a clatter, as of boards falling in on one another, while a yell of rage disappointed, and terror indescribable, swept in the direction of the “Haunted House,” where it was taken up by an infernal chorus which seemed to send its echoes into the very heart of the mountain. 

     Then my sleigh rubbed with a sudden shock against some obstacle, and, overturning at once, hurled me many yards along the ice-crust, spun helplessly into insensibility. 

     When perception returned, I found myself surrounded by friends, who, in their anxious care, had placed me upon my tobogan, and were occupied in forcing some very good brandy down a throat not usually so reluctant to receive it. 

     My face was bleeding from a cut or two. One of my hands had been badly bruised in my scramble over the snow. These, physically, were all the injuries I sustained from my race with the devil down that terrible hill. Mentally, however, mischief had been done not so easy to cure. 

     To this hour Saturday midnight finds a nervous coward, terrified by every noise, alarmed by every shadow, imagining through each open doorway the approach of a flame-eyed skeleton, and hearing in each creak upon the stair-case the foot-fall of the lonely slider who stables his tobogan in the cellars of the “Haunted House –”

     Hic finit Eugene’s story, told toward its end to a listener who was buried under blankets. 

     “Very well;” you ask. “Now, is this true or false?”

     One test of its truth I might readily have applied. Nothing easier than to go upon the hill on Saturday evening, and stay there alone till twelve o’clock.

     This idea did not occur to me that night. But the thought and purpose to execute it forthwith came next morning. Unfortunately it happened, throughout the rest of the season, that I had some pressing engagement every Saturday evening, which either prevented me from going on the hill at all, or brought me off it, with the crowd, long before midnight.

     But be comforted. It is not unlikely that the hill and the house remain still intact. Should you happen to be in Montreal next winter, try the experiment for yourself. I can promise you a magnificent slide. If the spectre catches you, tant pis pour vous. 

– C. E. Bockus

ꙮ  ꙮ  ꙮ

Source: C.E. Bockus, “Nips Daimon”, Once a Week, (24 May 1862): 602 – 08

Company News

Haunted Montreal is entering the holiday season!

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English. Tours in French happen on the last Sunday of every month at 4 pm.

Private tours for any of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours are based on the availability of our actors and start at $215 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

You can also bring the Haunted Montreal experience to your office party, house, school or event by booking one of our Travelling Ghost Storytellers today. Hear some of the spookiest tales from our tours and our blog told by a professional actor and storyteller. You provide the venue, we provide the stories and storyteller.

We are also offering Christmas Ghost Stories: A Quebecois Tradition, which we have previously offered as a virtual tour, as an in-person Travelling Ghost Storyteller experience.

To find out more, please contact info@hauntedmontreal.com

Our team also releases videos every second Saturday, in both languages, of ghost stories from the Haunted Montreal Blog. Hosted by Holly Rhiannon (in English) and Dr. Mab (in French), this initiative is sure to please ghost story fans!

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

In other news, if you want to send someone a haunted experience as a holiday gift, you certainly can!

We are offering Haunted Montreal Gift Certificates through our website and redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual events (no expiration date).

We also have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise for the holidays. We are selling t-shirts, magnets, sweatshirts (for those haunted fall and winter nights) and mugs with both the Haunted Montreal logo and our tour imagery.

Purchases can be ordered through our online store.

Lastly, Haunted Montreal is soliciting donations on behalf of Lana Ponting, one of the last survivors of the CIA-funded brainwashing experiments at McGill University’s Allan Memorial Institute. At 82, Lana is living with food insecurity in Winnipeg. Like other survivors and their families, Lana hopes that a class action lawsuit will eventually bear fruit.

Please consider making a donation, no matter how small, to the GoFundMe Page that was set up for Lana’s well-being.

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl, paranormal investigation or virtual event!

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page and/or Google Reviews, something that really helps Haunted Montreal to market its tours. We are a small, specialized tourism company for fans of deranged history, ghost stories and the macabre and appreciate all the support and feedback we can get!

Lastly, if you would like to receive the Haunted Montreal Blog on the 13th of every month, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming up on January 13: Sûreté du Québec Police Headquarters

Located on the site of the former Fullum Street Women’s Prison, the Sûreté du Québec Police Headquarters is rumored to host all sorts of paranormal activity. Disembodied screams echo throughout the building, officers have spotted a ghostly inmate wearing a straitjacket, and sometimes the nauseous stench of burnt food – wafting from an unknown source – disgusts staff on duty. To further the headaches of the commanders, a major cockroach problem has made working conditions even more uncomfortable for Quebec’s largest police force.

Author:

Donovan King is a postcolonial historian, teacher, tour guide and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbott College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed (History and English Teaching, McGill), MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary) and ACS (Montreal Tourist Guide, Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec). He is also a certified Montreal Destination Specialist.

Translator (into French):

Claude Chevalot holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from McGill University. She is a writer, editor and translator. For more than 15 years, she has devoted herself almost exclusively to literary translation and to the translation of texts on current and contemporary art.

With over 500 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal dedicates itself to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

This service is free and you can sign up to our mailing list (top, right-hand corner for desktops and at the bottom for mobile devices) if you wish to receive it every month on the 13th! The blog is published in both English and French!

Haunted Montreal’s seasons of public outdoor ghost tours is now in full swing! Offered every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, we have four ghost tours on rotation (Old Montreal, Griffintown, Downtown and Mount Royal.)

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is also offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 4 pm.

Our Paranormal Investigation in the Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery happens on the first Friday and Saturday of every month.

Private tours for all of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours start at $215 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

Lastly, we have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. More details are below in our Company News section!

This month we examine the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery, a very deranged and haunted place indeed. Set atop Mount Royal in the heart of Montreal, Canada’s largest graveyard is currently witnessing all sort of problems.

Haunted Research

The Catholic Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery is the largest burial ground in Canada. Located atop Mount Royal, it features 343-acres (139 hectares) of garden landscape with more than 65,000 monuments and 71 family vaults. The cemetery also contains the remains of over a million people. Not only is this vast graveyard reputed to be haunted, but in recent years, it has also witnessed all sorts of desecration and other deranged activity.

Groundhogs have dug up numerous bones, coffin boards and sets of dentures. Trees and branches collapsed onto tombs during an ice storm.

Hundreds of bodies are piled up, awaiting burial, due to a lengthy strike by cemetery workers. To make matters worse, grieving families are locked out and cannot even visit their Dead.

Once Canada’s most picturesque burial ground, today Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery is a desolate, overgrown and forlorn place. With little maintenance, shattered trees and scattered bones, Global News described this massive graveyard as “A Montreal cemetery nightmare.”

The Montreal Catholic Diocese established Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery in 1854 because they needed more space for the Dead. In fact, several waves of cholera had hammered the Saint Antoine Catholic Cemetery. It was full of corpses, many of them in mass graves, and was bursting at the seams.

To alleviate this over-crowding, the Diocese opened the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery atop the mountain. Created on a property purchased from Dr. Pierre Beaubien, it was established as a garden cemetery in the French style. Designed by landscape architect Henri-Maurice Perreault, who had studied rural graveyards in Boston and New York, the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery intended to mimic these in style.

The first burial in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery occurred on May 29, 1855. A woman named Jane Gilroy McCready, who died at 35, was interred within the bucolic landscape. She had been the wife of a municipal councilor.

Over the years, many celebrated figures were buried within the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery. These include politicians, soldiers and businesspeople of all stripes. Celebrated locals, such as hockey legend Maurice “The Rocket” Richard, politician Bernard Devlin, journalist Nick Auf der Maur and tormented poet Émile Nelligan were also buried there.

Generally-speaking, most of the Dead are simply everyday Montrealers who were interred into familial plots or vaults.

Others, less fortunate, were buried in paupers’ graves, sections for deceased orphans and creepy fields for the remains of Anatomy victims.

Furthermore, according to the Diocese: “The funerary sites are conceded for a fixed period not exceeding 100 years. The abandonment of the Cemetery entails cancellation of the concession without indemnity by either party. (3.3 Term of the Concession).” This essentially means that after 100 years, burial plots are recycled if payments are not made by descendants of those interred there.

There are also many reports that the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery is haunted. While Canada’s largest cemetery is the home to at least a dozen ghosts, this column will mention only one of them due to word restraints.

The ghost in question is that of Sarah Ellen Page King (a.k.a. “Sadie”). Other alleged spirits include Joseph Guibord, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, René Angélil, Mayor Camillen Houde and many others.

The spirit of Sadie allegedly haunts the gravestone where she is buried. Witnesses have reported hearing the disembodied sounds of a woman and infant weeping and bawling, as though in agonizing emotion.

Excluded in both life and death by her own family, Sadie’s story is a tragic example of how women were poorly treated in the early 20^th Century.

Sadie was married to Richard Willis King (a.k.a. “Dick”), an alcoholic. They had three children together: Mary, Donald and George. Unfortunately, George died after only six months. He was buried away from the main family plot under a small tombstone.

For some reason, Sadie was promptly sent to the Saint-Jean-de-Dieu Lunatic Asylum. The likely reason was depression following the death of her son George. However, instead of being treated for her understandable melancholy, Sadie was locked up in the asylum for 24 years until her death in 1946.

To make matters worse, her alcoholic husband Dick never visited her – nor did any other family members for that matter. Furthermore, her very existence became a matter of shame and taboo for the family. Sadie was never talked about – it was as if she did not exist.

Upon Sadie’s death in the asylum, she was buried beside her deceased son – far away from the family plot. Furthermore, nobody erected a tombstone to commemorate her. In fact, her son Donald did not even attend the funeral.

Sadie’s family also refused to pay the associated fees for her burial in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery. Indeed, the only record of her existence was through the burial records maintained by the Diocese.

Haunted by the treatment of her excluded and abused grandmother, poet and playwright Donna Langevin wrote A Story for Sadie to expose the family taboo. Her goal was to bring Sadie’s memory back to life in her literary work – and she succeeded.

Haunted Montreal’s Paranormal Investigation Unit is planning a visit to the grave very soon.

Also noteworthy, at the time of this writing, Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery is in a total shambles due to a lengthy strike that was only recently resolved.  Represented by the CSN union, graveyard workers began their labour action in January 2023. The strike was triggered because their Collective Agreement had expired, job cuts were harming maintenance operations in the cemetery and the workers were underpaid for their gruesome duties.

The strike resulted in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery locking people out, including workers, visitors in mourning and even the Dead scheduled for burial.

As the months passed, bodies began piling up in a massive refrigerated unit.

An ice storm on April 5 also resulted in hundreds of broken trees and fallen branches, many of which fell upon the tombstones and mausoleums. With maintenance staff on strike, when the spring came, it wasn’t long before the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery was overgrown with long grass, random wildflowers, invasive species and unsightly weeds.

To make matters worse, groundhogs have long plagued the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery. Known to burrow into the graveyard, these creatures have a bad habit of unearthing human bones, coffin boards and even sets of dentures!

Before the strike, gravediggers would quickly re-bury the sinister remains and fill in the groundhog holes. However, during the labour action there was no maintenance in the cemetery for over six months.

Local ecologists have suggested that the groundhogs, a protected species on the mountain, may have gone into overdrive with no human intervention for over half a year.

The cemetery did open on Mother’s Day to allow relatives to visit family graves, but large lineups formed at the entrance. It was the first time the cemetery had been open to the public in months.

However, Union President Éric Dufault said: “For sure it was really popular but it was a disaster. We were there on Mother’s Day and really it was a bad experience for the families.”

Due to the long line-ups, many mourners had to enter the cemetery by squeezing through a damaged fence.

Given the fiasco, the cemetery was not re-opened again during the strike, even for Father’s Day.

At the time of the settlement, approximately 300 corpses were in cold storage awaiting interment. Bereaved families were understandably upset. They have since launched a $6-million class action lawsuit against the cemetery, claiming “the deceased are being locked in refrigeration tanks and the gravesites are being left untended.”

One mourner participating in the lawsuit, whose mother was in cold storage, stated: “It is a refrigerator where they store meat. This is unacceptable. We cannot accept to see our loved ones treated that way, plus our families.”

Generally speaking, the Dead do not like to be disrespected. When their remains and memories are desecrated, ghost-sightings and paranormal activity tend to spike.  

Perhaps worried about the potential of even more ghosts emerging from the cemetery, the Archbishop of Montreal called for an end to the lockout. Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte said that families had suffered enough and he urged the cemetery management and the workers’ union to resolve the dispute.

The Archbishop’s pleas fell on deaf ears and were ultimately unsuccessful.

In response to the impasse and increasingly furious families, Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet finally intervened and mediated a settlement. On July 13, cemetery workers agreed to sign a new Collective Agreement with an 83% approval rating.

Many citizens had wondered why it took so long to resolve the issue especially after a similar cemetery strike in 2007. Why, they asked, was the Diocese not providing proper wages, resources and support to its workers – and the Dead?

Indeed, on its website, the Diocese features an article called “An organization with a human touch.”

The information states: “Building on respect for human life, ethics, quality customer service, professionalism, attention to detail, and teamwork, the Fabrique (translation: “Diocese”) manages its activities carefully to balance its financials, ensure its sustainability and fulfill its long-term obligations.”

In another article, they stated: “A true Montréal institution, the Fabrique oversees the proper development of the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery – the largest in Canada – as well as the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montréal, an essential destination for pilgrimages, tourism and culture.”

However, trusted historians have pointed out that the organization has genocidal roots and therefore must be taken with a grain of salt. Indeed, Montreal’s Catholic Diocese is rooted in a French colonial organization called “The Society of Notre Dame of Montreal for the Conversion of the Savage Peoples of New France.”

Furthermore, they are one of the few Catholic entities that actually charge an admission fee to enter their leading church – in this case the Notre-Dame Basilica. The Diocese also has a lucrative contract for a nightly light show in the Basilica called Aura.

In other words, the Diocese is generating a lot of revenue through its activities at the Notre-Dame Basilica. However, it appears that the Diocese has not been using these profits to support its workers, visitors and the Dead in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery.

Perhaps it is worth noting that the Sulpician Order never took a Vow of Poverty.

In conclusion, at the time of this writing Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery is not what it once was. Due to labour strife, upset ghosts, groundhog colonies and an apathetic administration, it is unlikely that this deranged cemetery in the heart of Montreal will recover anytime soon.

Company News

Haunted Montreal’s seasons of public outdoor ghost tours is now in full swing! Offered every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, we have four ghost tours on rotation (Old Montreal, Griffintown, Downtown and Mount Royal.)

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is also offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 4 pm.

Our Paranormal Investigation in the Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery happens on the first Friday and Saturday of every month.

Private tours for any of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours are based on the availability of our actors and start at $215 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

You can bring the Haunted Montreal experience to your office party, house, school or event by booking one of our Travelling Ghost Storytellers today.

Hear some of the spookiest tales from our tours and our blog told by a professional actor and storyteller. You provide the venue, we provide the stories and storyteller. Find out more and then contact info@hauntedmontreal.com

Our team also releases videos every second Saturday, in both languages, of ghost stories from the Haunted Montreal Blog. Hosted by Holly Rhiannon (in English) and Dr. Mab (in French), this initiative is sure to please ghost story fans!

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

In other news, if you want to send someone a haunted experience as a gift, you certainly can! We are offering Haunted Montreal Gift Certificates through our website and redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual events (no expiration date).

Finally, we have opened an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. We are selling t-shirts, magnets, sweatshirts (for those haunted fall and winter nights) and mugs with both the Haunted Montreal logo and our tour imagery.

Purchases can be ordered through our online store.

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl, paranormal investigation or virtual event!

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page, something that really helps Haunted Montreal to market its tours.

Lastly, if you would like to receive the Haunted Montreal Blog on the 13th of every month, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming Up on September 13: The REM’s Ghostly Gamble Part 3

One section of Montreal’s new light rail system, the REM, is finally operational. The line, running from Central Station in Montreal to Brossard, passes over the Black Rock Irish Famine Cemetery. Given that the REM desecrated the hallowed ground by removing over a dozen bodies to insert a concrete pylon, many people speculated that the REM would become haunted. It appears to be the case – since its opening, the REM has been plagued with electrical problems and was even struck by lightning!

Author:

Donovan King is a postcolonial historian, teacher, tour guide and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbott College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed (History and English Teaching, McGill), MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary) and ACS (Montreal Tourist Guide, Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec). He is also a certified Montreal Destination Specialist.

Translator (into French):

Claude Chevalot holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from McGill University. She is a writer, editor and translator. For more than 15 years, she has devoted herself almost exclusively to literary translation and to the translation of texts on current and contemporary art.

With over 500 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal dedicates itself to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

This service is free and you can sign up to our mailing list (top, right-hand corner for desktops and at the bottom for mobile devices) if you wish to receive it every month on the 13th! The blog is published in both English and French!

For this year’s Hallowe’en Season we are launching our new ghost tour – Haunted Old Montreal!

This haunted walk is available every Sunday night in October!

Tickets are now on sale!

Haunted Montreal is also currently offering our regular ghost tours in both languages:

Every Friday:

Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Every Saturday (on rotation):

Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

Every Sunday:

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English and on the last Sunday of the month at 4 pm in French.

For those who want to try to communicate with the Dead, we offer a real Paranormal Investigation the first weekend of every month (Fridays in French and Saturdays in English). There is also a special investigation on Hallowe’en night:

Paranormal Investigation – Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery

Private tours can also be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors.

Our Virtual Ghost Tour is also available on demand!

Want to give the gift of a haunted experience for the 2022 season?

You can now order a Haunted Montreal Gift Certificate through our website. They are redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual experiences. There is no expiration date.

Lastly, we now have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. More details are below in our Company News section!

This month we explore the venerable Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal hospital and its ghost stories told over the centuries!

Haunted Research

Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal is one of North America’s oldest and most haunted hospitals. Established in 1642 by colonial nurse Jeanne Mance, it has seen many incarnations over the centuries and still exists today.

The founding of this colonial hospital was allegedly rooted in a Godly message received by Jérôme Le Royer de La Dauversière. This devout Catholic tax-collector from La Flèche, France was part of a religious movement that dreamt of colonizing “New France” with the goal of converting Indigenous people to Catholicism.

On February 2, 1630, as he approached his 33rd birthday, Jérôme Le Royer went to the chapel of Notre-Dame du Chef du Pont in La Flèche for the Feast of the Purification. During the communion, Le Royer heard an interior Godly voice, which instructed him:

“My son, consecrate yourself, with your wife and children, to the Holy Family. You will found an order of nuns and consecrate them to my foster father, Joseph. These nuns will go to Montreal, Canada, and found the Hôtel-Dieu there.”

Jérôme Le Royer was so inspired by the otherworldly message that he decided to found “The Notre-Dame Society for the Conversion of the Savage Peoples of New France”.

This colonial organization began fund-raising and assembling supporters with the goal of establishing a French colony on the Mohawk territory of Tiohtià:ke, called “Montreal Island” by the French.

Le Royer also established the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph, an order of nuns to found the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital. He recruited a young woman named Jeanne Mance to be in charge of the project. He also selected a military leader named the Sieur de Miasonneuve to govern the colony.

Once the colonization team was assembled, it sailed across the Atlantic for Quebec City in 1641. After spending the winter in the colony, in May, 1642, it set sail to colonize Tiohtià:ke. The French had an advantage in that the Mohawk people were not in this part of their territory at the time.

It is important to note that the Catholic colonists were terrified of the Devil and his evil minions. They saw demons as having a special mission to harass and thwart any Christian project, especially works of charity and compassion like hospitals, orphanages and shelters.

The first thing the French colonists did when they arrived was fire their cannons to try and scare suspected demons away. Father Vimont, a Jesuit priest who was part of the group that founded the city, wrote:

“The thunder of the cannon reverberated over the whole island. The demons…were no doubt dismayed at a sound that testified to the love we have for our great lady.” The great lady was the Virgin Mary, and the religious colonists named their city “Ville-Marie” in her honour.

With the construction of the Ville-Marie colony, Jeanne Mance created a rudimentary hospital in 1642 within the palisade of the fort.

When the first stone hospital was built in 1645, Jeanne Mance officially founded the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal on October 8, as confirmed by a patent of King Louis XIV of France.

When the Mohawk First Nation realized that Tiohtià:ke had been colonized, and all out war broke out with the French. In 1649 the hospital was briefly closed and converted into military installation

The hospital grew when two surgeons arrived from France in 1653 and authorities began constructing a chapel on the site. However, disaster struck on February 22, 1695, when a mysterious fire burned the hospital to the ground. Authorities blamed the inferno on a demon.

As they rebuilt the hospital, the nursing sisters complained that the same demon had arrived to terrify them.

They claimed that he ran about the hospital at night with a big candle in his hand. The demon was seen dashing from window to window, frightening passers-by on Saint-Paul Street.

The demon also raised a horrible racket by throwing piles of building materials down the stairs into the cellar. Sometimes he could be heard working all night long with an axe and saw, as though he was a carpenter.

There were also nights when the demon galloped around on the roof like a frisky young horse or walked the length of the dormitory, clattering as if wearing wooden shoes. He finally rolled a large barrel down the stairs before moving on to terrorize other places.

In another case, a priest named Father de Fancampt claimed he was visited by a demon on his deathbed at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital. The demon taunted him and tried to bring him to purgatory, so Father de Fancampt refused to die until the demon was exorcised by another priest.

The hospital would burn to the ground again on June 19, 1721. While celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi, soldiers fired a volley into the air. A bullet struck the Hôtel Dieu, triggering a devastating fire that destroyed the hospital and burned down 138 homes.

A third hospital was soon built, but it was not to last very long.

The third version was destroyed on April 10, 1734, when a slave-woman named Marie-Josèphe Angélique was accused of arson.

It had started on the south side of Saint-Paul Street and spread very quickly. The fire was so intense that the law enforcement officers could not get close to it. Due to a strong wind blowing from the west, the fire spread and destroyed forty-six houses along with the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in less than three hours. Half of the city was completely ruined.

Rumours began to circulate that a slave named Marie-Josèphe Angélique had set the fire in the attic of her mistress’ home, one Madame de Francheville, on St. Paul Street. Even the town crier announced that she had started the fire.

Even though there were no witnesses, Marie-Josèphe Angélique was arrested and put on trial for arson. Some twenty colonists filed before the judge. All of them were convinced that the slave of Widow Francheville was guilty, yet not one of them saw her set the fire. She was declared guilty by the Judge and was sentenced to have her hand cut off and then to be burned alive at the scene of the fire, with her ashes scattered to the wind.

However, all death penalties in New France were automatically appealed to the Governor in Quebec City. The Governor reviewed the case and he felt it was too cruel. He decided to reduce the sentence: her hand would no longer be chopped off and instead of burning her alive, she would be hanged first and then her body would be thrown on the funeral pyre.

That afternoon, Marie-Josèphe Angélique was taken one last time through the streets of Montreal on the back of a horse-drawn garbage cart. She was dressed in a long white robe with a sign made from the burnt wood of the home around her neck with the word incindieare, or “arsonist”, inscribed upon it.

She was forced to wear a noose dangling around her neck and to carry a two-pound lit wooden torch as a reminder of her alleged crime.

When they arrived at the site where Madame Franchville’s home had stood, Marie-Josèphe Angélique mounted a scaffold with piles of firewood underneath it. She was then hanged and then the large funeral pyre was lit.  Her body was cut down and then flung into the blaze. Once her body had been cremated, her ashes were scattered in the wind.

Today, the ghost of Marie-Josèphe Angélique is probably the most well-known in Old Montreal. Not only have there been numerous sightings of her limping through the streets in a long white robe with a torch in her hand, but her story has also been featured on TV programs like Creepy Canada.

The fourth Hôtel Dieu Hospital was then built. It would be the last and most enduring structure on the original site.

Religious authorities were thrilled in 1784, when a military officer named James Singer donated his slave Dianne to the Hôtel Dieu Hospital before returning to England. The nursing sisters were so grateful for his “generosity and pious charity” that they promised to forever pray for his health and longevity.

In 1836, the hospital was exposed to scandal when the book Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, or, The Hidden Secrets of a Nun’s Life in a Convent Exposed was published. It claimed to reveal systematic sexual abuse of nuns and infanticide of the resulting children by Catholic priests in her convent and the Hôtel Dieu Hospital. In it, Monk claimed that nuns of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph, whom she called “the Black Nuns”, were forced to have sex with the priests in the nearby seminary. The priests supposedly entered the convent through a secret tunnel.

If the sexual union produced a baby, the priests baptized it – and then strangled the baby and dumped it into a lime pit in the basement. Uncooperative nuns “disappeared”. Widely regarded as an anti-Catholic hoax, the book even provided a map of the grounds with the fictional secret tunnel linking the hospital to the seminary.

In 1861, the Hôtel Dieu Hospital moved to a new location on the slopes of Mount Royal, marking its fifth incarnation. Not only did the living nuns and patients move to new hospital on the mountain – they also took all of the bodies of the deceased nuns, who were transferred to the chapel of the new hospital. A total of 178 nuns had died over the span of two centuries, however only 23 coffins were needed to carry all their remains, as many of the bones had been reduced to powder. These remains are still there, including the skeleton of Jeanne Mance.

The Mountain Campus of the Hôtel Dieu Hospital would serve Montrealers for over 150 years. It witnessed everything from epidemics of smallpox and Spanish Flu to diagnosing the first AIDS patient in Canada. The hospital was the site of medical innovations, the recovery of hundreds of thousands of patients and the deaths of many who did not survive.

It is also rumored to be haunted by ghostly nurses, smallpox victims and all sorts of other ghastly apparitions.

In 1992, the Musée des Hospitalières de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal opened on the site. Created for the 350th anniversary of the City of Montreal, this museum highlights the history of Jeanne Mance and the hospital she founded.

Returning to Old Montreal, the fourth hospital was demolished after the Mount Royal campus opened. Store-Warehouses, the most common type of building in Old Montreal, were erected on the site between 1861 and 1874. They were constructed because the British began to expand the port and these buildings were used to store imports and exports on the upper floors and as shops on the ground level. The religious authorities rented out these buildings to merchants, earning record sums from the property.

When the port moved to the east in the 1970s, all of the Store-Warehouses in Old Montreal became obsolete. These were converted info Old Montreal’s first luxury condos and currently sell for over a million dollars each. Because the Catholic authorities never took a Vow of Poverty, they made a fortune from the old Hôtel Dieu site!

Today, the condos are rumoured to have ghosts. Sometimes people have seen ghostly nurses in the windows of the building. Other times people hear a disembodied female voice crying “Au secours” (or “Help me!” in English). These paranormal cries may be related to one of the many fires that consumed the old hospital.

In any case, on September 23, 2017, the Hôtel Dieu moved from its Mount Royal site into the CHUM Super-hospital along with several older facilities. Today, one of the oldest hospitals in North America is still operating in the most ultramodern of settings.

One constant question is whether any ghosts or demons have followed the Hôtel Dieu Hospital to its newest location. While hospital management has denied that the new location has any paranormal activity, Haunted Montreal was contacted by a man who was recovering from a heart attack in October, 2019 at the CHUM location.

The patient claimed that while resting one afternoon in his hospital bed, he suddenly smelled sulfurous odor, almost like rotten eggs. At first, he thought that an orderly was bringing some sort of nasty food, especially as he could hear footsteps approaching his room.

However, the footsteps stopped outside of his door and nobody opened it.

“Is anyone there?” he asked, but there was no reply.

The patient pulled himself out of bed and slowly walked to the door, holding his nose as he went due to the sulfurous stench. Once at the door, he turned the handle to try and open it. It seemed to be locked!

Puzzled, the patient continued trying to turn the handle, when all of a sudden, the lights began flickering on and off in his hospital room. He then began to hear what sounded like demonic laughter.

It started slowly with some deranged snickering and soon developed into a roaring, full-throated cackling.

The man hobbled back to his bed as quickly as he could and began pressing the buzzer to summon a nurse. The laughter and the smell of sulfur got worse and worse and the man collapsed in his bed in terror.

When he woke up, he was surrounded by nurses and the stench and laughter were no longer present. Medical staff informed him that he had had a minor heart attack.

The patient assumed he may have been dreaming or hallucinating from the cocktail of drugs he was on, so did not mention his experience to hospital staff.

Indeed, it was only a few days later that he confided to Haunted Montreal about what had happened.

Given the Hôtel Dieu Hospital’s long association with demons and other spirits, it is feasible that the CHUM location is haunted.

Whatever the case, as one of the oldest hospitals in North America still in operation, there can be no denying the tales of ghosts and apparitions who have been haunting it for almost four centuries now.

Company News

For this year’s Hallowe’en Season we are launching a new ghost tour – Haunted Old Montreal! This haunted walk is available every Sunday night in October and more dates may be added based on demand.

Tickets are now on sale!

We are also offering all of our regular tours!

Every Friday:

Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Every Saturday (on rotation):

Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

Every Sunday:

Our Haunted Pub Crawl happens every Sunday at 3 pm in English and on the last Sunday of the month at 4 pm in French.

For those who want to try to communicate with the Dead, we offer a real Paranormal Investigation the first weekend of every month (Fridays in French and Saturdays in English):

Paranormal Investigation – Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery

Private tours for any of these experiences can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors.

For private tours, clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours are based on the availability of our actors and start at $170 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

Our team also releases videos every Saturday, in both languages, of ghost stories from the Haunted Montreal Blog. Hosted by Holly Rhiannon (in English) and Dr. Mab (in French), this new initiative is sure to please ghost story fans!

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

In other news, if you want to send someone a haunted experience as a gift, you certainly can!

We are offering Haunted Montreal Gift Certificates through our website and redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual events (no expiration date).

Finally, we have opened an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. We are selling t-shirts, magnets, sweatshirts (for those haunted fall and winter nights) and mugs with both the Haunted Montreal logo and our tour imagery.

Purchases can be ordered through our online store.

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl, paranormal investigation or virtual event during the 2022 season!

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page, something that really helps Haunted Montreal to market its tours.

Lastly, if you would like to receive the Haunted Montreal Blog on the 13th of every month, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming up on November 13: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Montreal

While visiting Montreal during a lecture tour in 1922, Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle learned about a poltergeist in the city. He described the apparition in his 1924 book Our Second American Adventure. Doyle gave a detailed account of how it had harassed a married couple. When a priest came to cast out the poltergeist, “in the midst of his exorcism the rug sprang at him and enveloped his head and shoulders, so that he ran terrified from the house.”

Author:

Donovan King is a postcolonial historian, teacher, tour guide and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbott College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed (History and English Teaching, McGill), MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary) and ACS (Montreal Tourist Guide, Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec). He is also a certified Montreal Destination Specialist.

Translator (into French):

Claude Chevalot holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from McGill University. She is a writer, editor and translator. For more than 15 years, she has devoted herself almost exclusively to literary translation and to the translation of texts on current and contemporary art.

With over 500 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal dedicates itself to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

This service is free and you can sign up to our mailing list (top, right-hand corner for desktops and at the bottom for mobile devices) if you wish to receive it every month on the 13th! The blog is published in both English and French!

Haunted Montreal is very proud to have won the prestigious Making the World Happening Award! As we continue to develop and offer innovative haunted experiences, we are very happy to receive this recognition.

We are also pleased to announce that our new Haunted Old Montreal ghost tour is almost ready and tickets will be on sale soon! Stay tuned on our website and Facebook page!

Haunted Montreal is offering our regular ghost tours every Saturday evening on rotation up until June, when the season will be expanded:

Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English and on the last Sunday of the month at 4 pm in French.

While public tours are available on Sunday afternoons for the Haunted Pub Crawl, private tours can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors.

Our Virtual Ghost Tour is also available on demand!

Additionally, our team is releasing videos of ghost stories from the Haunted Montreal Blog every Saturday, in both languages!

Our hosts include Holly Rhiannon (in English) and Dr. Mab (in French).

Want to give the gift of a haunted experience for the 2022 season?

You can now order a Haunted Montreal Gift Certificate through our website. They are redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual experiences. There is no expiration date.

Lastly, we now have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. More details are below in our Company News section!

This month we explore the giant metal cross on Mount Royal, which is alleged to be haunted.

Haunted Research

The Mount Royal Cross is one of Montreal’s most iconic symbols. Perched high on the mountain and standing at 98-feet high, when it is lit up at night it can be seen from up to eighty kilometers away.

Rooted in deep the city’s colonial history, to many Indigenous people the cross symbolizes genocide. Because the mountain was used as a burial ground for millennia by the Mohawk and other First Nations, some feel that the Mount Royal Cross desecrates this sacred place.

On May 1^st, 2022, an Indigenous group called the Mohawk Mothers (Kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera) said now is the time to take down Montreal’s cross on the city’s famous mountain.

In a Global News report, they noted that the religious symbol rests on un-ceded Indigenous territory.

Another Mohawk resident of Kahnawake named Elizabeth reacted, saying: “Good, I am glad they want the cross down. The cross represents the churches that tortured those poor innocent Native children.”

She added:

“Montreal is haunted by restless souls, as an Elder once told me, who were buried all over the mountain.”

This information is corroborated with archaeological evidence and Indigenous oral history. There are also rumours of Indigenous burials in the vicinity of the Royal Victoria Hospital and even at the Mount Royal Cross itself.

According to paranormal experts, the site where the Mount Royal Cross is located is rife with haunted activity. Ghost hunters have captured photos or orbs and blurry images of what could be spirits lurking in the forest.

According to one paranormal investigator from Toronto: “When I got to the giant metal structure, I immediately sensed that something was wrong and felt panicky. As I went about setting up my equipment, I could feel eyes staring at me from within the forest. My ears started burning, as though someone was talking about me in a negative way. That night I recorded all sorts of EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena) and ghostly images. I have never felt so uneasy in my life during the investigation. Luckily, those feelings subsided as I descended the mountain in the dark.”

Mount Royal is part of a range of hills known as the Collines Montérégiennes.

Situated in the center of Montreal Island, it rises to 233 metres at its highest point. Mount Royal is often said to be an ancient, extinct volcano, and indeed it is part of a vastly eroded volcanic complex, which was probably active about 125 million years ago.

This entire area was underwater until about 10,000 years ago. When the waters started to recede, the mountain appeared as an island at first.

The ancestors of the Kanien’kehá:ka, or Mohawk First Nation, called the island Tiotà:ke, meaning “where the currents meet” because over a dozen rivers developed as the waters receded, with Tiotà:ke being at the center of their convergence. They called the mountain Otsirà:ke, or the “place of the fire”, because they would often build a great fiery beacon on the top of the mountain to attract trade delegations and diplomats from other First Nations for important conferences. The mountain was also considered sacred ground and was used for burials, with bodies being interred in the foetal position, as was the custom.

The ancestors of the Mohawk First Nation built a sophisticated city at the foot of the mountain called Hotsirà:ken, a major trade centre of over 5000 inhabitants. Taking advantage of fertile soils and south-facing sunshine. Hotsirà:ken was a sophisticated city with over 50 longhouses and had a wooden palisade surrounding it. The inhabitants not only traded, but also grew what were known as the three sisters: corn, beans, and squash. For thousands of years it thrived as a prosperous Indigenous city.

However, in 1535, a French explorer by the name of Jacques Cartier arrived on the island. He had claimed the entire region for the King of France a year earlier by planting a cross into the ground in the Gaspé region, and now he was exploring the St. Lawrence River.  Cartier was welcomed by the inhabitants of Hotsirà:ken, which he erroneously recorded as “Hochelaga”.

The leader of the city, or Agouhanna, was a disabled man who was carried to Cartier on animal hides. According to Cartier: “This chief was completely paralyzed and deprived of the use of his limbs.”

Guided by the native inhabitants of Hotsirà:ken, Jacques climbed the great mountain Otsirà:ke and re-named it “Mount Royal”, after French King François I.

The name appeared on subsequent maps that were used by European navigators and eventually the name stuck. Today, the vast majority of Montrealers do not know that the original name of “Mount Royal” was Otsirà:ke.

The French did not return in force until 1642. The mountain city of Hotsirà:ken had mysteriously disappeared, clearing the way to colonize the island in the opinion of the French. In reality, the Mohawks at Hotsirà:ken had temporarily retreated and fled south to the heart of their territory in the Mohawk Valley due to warfare with other First Nations who had allied with the French and an epidemic brought by French colonizers. 

Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, was sent by an ultra-religious Catholic organization in Paris called “The Notre Dame Society for the Conversion of the Savage Peoples of New France” to establish a colony. This is not a joke – it was actually called that!

In 1642, he arrived with three boats of soldiers, colonists, and religious authorities, and they established a fort called Ville-Marie in what is now Old Montreal.

Named after the Virgin Mary, it was intended to be a sort of New Jerusalem, a religious city devoted to converting First Nations to Christianity. There was a relative peace in the colony until the Mohawk First Nation learned the following year that the French had colonized Tiotà:ke, which sparked a brutal war between French and Mohawk that lasted until 1701.

Before the war, the young religious colony faced disaster on December 24, 1642, their first Christmas Eve. An ice jam caused the waters of the St. Lawrence River to rise, threatening to flood their colony.  Sieur de Maisonneuve, Jeanne Mance and the settlers prayed to the Virgin Mary for deliverance from the rising waters about to inundate their fort.

De Maisonneuve built a wooden cross on the spot and promised to carry it to Mount Royal if the flood subsided. Miraculously, the waters receded.

True to his word, on January 6, 1643, de Maisonneuve climbed the mountain and planted a wooden cross on Mount Royal to offer thanks to God for saving the settlement of Ville Marie from flooding.

The location of this cross was not the same as the present-day symbol. Indeed, it was located much lower on the mountain somewhere along Côte-des-Neiges road to the north of the Grand Séminaire de Montréal.

During a pilgrimage to the cross in 1653, de Maisonneuve discovered that the cross had been destroyed by the Kanien’kehá:ka. He entrusted newly-arrived teacher Marguerite Bourgeoys with the mission of erecting a new cross and protecting it with a stake palisade. Accompanied by thirty men and a skilled carpenter named Gilbert Barbier, Bourgeoys spent three days overseeing the construction of a new cross surrounded by a wooden palisade.

Bourgeoys would later go on to help found the first Residential School in modern-day Canada – the ominous Fort de la Montagne.

When the British Army took over the city in 1760, the cross was removed. British authorities, as Protestant worshippers, wanted this prominent Catholic symbol to be removed from the cityscape.

During the 19^th century, Catholic adherents began agitating for another of their symbols on the mountain. When anticlerical mayor Honoré Beaugrand received a proposal for a “titanesque”, 200-foot tall bronze statue of the Virgin Mary, he immediately shot down the idea.

It would have been much taller than the 151-foot Statue of Liberty.

In the early 20^th century, the Catholic Jean Baptiste Society proposed erecting a new cross on the mountain, a much larger version to be installed on the summit. This time they had an ally in Mayor Médéric Martin, a Catholic who enjoyed stirring up trouble with English Montreal residents.

The steel cross was designed by a Sulpician priest. As architects prepared the drawings, other followers started fundraising. Over 4,000 Catholic adults and 100,000 children sold commemorative stamps for five cents apiece, effectively raising $10,000 during the lengthy campaign.

Weighing 26 tons, the cross is made of steel and consists of 1,830 pieces joined by 6,000 rivets. While the original plans included an observation tower on top of the cross, that idea was scrapped for financial reasons.

On December 24, 1924, the cross was illuminated for the first time, allowing it to be seen from about 80 kilometers away.

It is also noteworthy that the cross sometimes changes colour. In the old days, the incandescent lightbulbs had to be changed manually, a very time-consuming task. In 1992, a fibre-optics system was installed to replace the antiquated bulbs.

The colour can now be changed at the flick of a switch.

It usually switches from a bight whitish-golden colour to a deep purple when the Catholic Pope dies. It remains that way until a new Pope is chosen, when it is switched back to the original colour.

This was done for Popes in 1958 (Pius XII), twice in 1978 (Paul VI and John Paul I) and again in 2005 (John Paul II). When Pope Benedict XVI retired (instead of dying) in 2013, many Montrealers were disappointed that the cross did not change colour.

The cross has also changed purple for the death of King George V (1936), yellow for the “Great Mission”, an event of the Diocese of Montreal (1960), blue at the Saint-Jean Baptiste Day celebrations on Mount Royal (1975), and red to mark a march against AIDS in the 1980s.

In 2004, the City officially took possession of the Cross, as it had been offered by the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society. Today it is festooned with cameras and motion sensors that alert police the moment someone attempts to climb it.

Returning to the issue that the Mount Royal Cross may have been erected on an Indigenous burial ground, this theory is entirely possible.

Historically, Europeans have shown almost no respect for the many Indigenous burial grounds found on the mountain and elsewhere on the island. In Lumières sous la ville: Quand l’archéologie raconte Montréal, archaeologists have pinpointed the exact locations of some of these Indigenous cemeteries.

One of them can actually be found underneath the Protestant Mount Royal Cemetery on the mountain, which was built over Indigenous graves. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most prominent ghost seen wandering the cemetery is that of an Algonquin warrior.

Another example can be found on a colonial map where the cartographer noted a “Cimetière des sauvages” (a racist expression for an Indigenous cemetery) just outside the city walls to the north of the Sulpician Seminary.

There is very little historical knowledge about who was buried there or why.

Was it the Indigenous people killed or executed by French authorities? Was it those who converted to Catholicism and then passed away? Or was the cemetery already present when the French started colonizing the island? It is certainly a mystery.

Today, there is a luxury condominium on the site called Les Étolies and there isn’t even a historical plaque to mark the now-destroyed Indigenous cemetery. 

Constructing on Indigenous burial grounds is a common theme in many horror novels and movies – and it almost always ends badly.

The fact that the Mount Royal Cross is seen as a symbol of genocide by many Indigenous people, the idea of removing it is certainly worth debating.

For far too long European colonists have insisted on the erasure of Indigenous history, culture and languages – and its replacement with European versions. In the Age of Truth and Reconciliation, the time is ripe to find ways to reverse this disturbing trend.

Company News

Haunted Montreal is very proud to have won the prestigious Making the World Happening Award!

This is our second award, after winning the Travel and Hospitality Award for “Quebec’s Most Unique Experience of the Year” in 2019.

We are also pleased to announce that our new Haunted Old Montreal ghost tour is almost ready and tickets will be on sale soon! We did a prototype version on June 11^th for the Bloomsday Festival. Stay tuned on our website and Facebook page!

Haunted Montreal is offering our regular ghost tours every Friday and Saturday evening on rotation:

Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English and on the last Sunday of the month at 4 pm in French.

While public tours are available on Sunday afternoons for the Haunted Pub Crawl, private tours can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors and pubs.

Our Virtual Ghost Tour is also available on demand!

For private tours, clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours are based on the availability of our actors and start at $170 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

Furthermore, our team is releasing videos every Saturday, in both languages, of ghost stories from the Haunted Montreal Blog. Hosted by Holly Rhiannon (in English) and Dr. Mab (in French), this new initiative is sure to please ghost story fans!

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

In other news, if you want to send someone a haunted experience as a gift, you certainly can!

We are offering Haunted Montreal Gift Certificates through our website and redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual events (no expiration date).

Finally, we have opened an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. We are selling t-shirts, magnets, sweatshirts (for those haunted fall and winter nights) and mugs with both the Haunted Montreal logo and our tour imagery.

Purchases can be ordered through our online store: shop.hauntedmontreal.com

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl, paranormal investigation or virtual event during the 2021 season!

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page, something that really helps Haunted Montreal to market its tours.

Lastly, if you would like to receive the Haunted Montreal Blog on the 13th of every month, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming up on July 13^th: Jeanne Le Ber’s Ghost

Jeanne Le Ber was a Catholic recluse who paid for a new church on condition she could live in cramped quarters behind the altar. As one of New France’s most revered personalities, she was known for self-flagellation, prostrating herself before the altar, praying, sewing and eating the leftover scraps of the poor. Recently, her ghost has been spotted near the site of the now-demolished church that was once her home – on the west corner of Saint Laurent Boulevard and Cours Le Royer in Old Montreal.

Author:

Donovan King is a postcolonial historian, teacher, tour guide and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbott College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed. (History and English Teaching, McGill), MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary) and ACS (Montreal Tourist Guide, Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec). He is also a certified Montreal Destination Specialist.

Translator (into French):

Claude Chevalot holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from McGill University. She is a writer, editor and translator. For more than 15 years, she has devoted herself almost exclusively to literary translation and to the translation of texts on current and contemporary art.

With over 500 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal dedicates itself to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

This service is free and you can sign up to our mailing list (top, right-hand corner for desktops and at the bottom for mobile devices) if you wish to receive it every month on the 13th! The blog is published in both English and French!

Haunted Montreal is pleased to announce that we are offering our regular ghost tours every Saturday evening on rotation up until June, when the season will be expanded:

Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English and on the last Sunday of the month at 4 pm in French.

While public tours are available Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons for the Haunted Pub Crawl, private tours can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors.

Our Virtual Ghost Tour is also available on demand!

Additionally, our team is releasing videos of ghost stories from the Haunted Montreal Blog every Saturday, in both languages!

Our hosts include Holly Rhiannon (in English) and Dr. Mab (in French).

Want to give the gift of a haunted experience for the 2022 season?

You can now order a Haunted Montreal Gift Certificate through our website. They are redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual experiences. There is no expiration date.

Lastly, we now have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. More details are below in our Company News section!

This month we explore the Fort de la Montagne, the first Residential School in what is now modern-day Canada. Today, only two towers of the old fort remain – and they are reputed to be haunted.

Haunted Research

Lurking behind stone walls on Sherbrooke Street stand two old towers that are reputed to be haunted. As some of the oldest intact structures in the City of Montreal, these fortifications have a deranged history.

Designed as the first Residential School in what is now modern-day Canada, the towers actually feature gun-ports. This military architecture was designed to repel anyone – at gunpoint – who might dare to interfere with the “instruction” happening within the fortified “school”.

Before examining these haunted towers, it is a good idea to look at the history that led to their construction.

When Europeans began colonizing the world in the 1500s, their goal was generally to subjugate Indigenous civilizations in order to steal their lands and resources. This usually involved cultural genocide, or attempts to extinguish Indigenous practices, beliefs, languages and cultures.

When explorer Jacques Cartier arrived from France in 1534, he planted a 30-foot cross in today’s Gaspé region – to claim all of the indigenous territories on behalf of the King of France, François I.

Indigenous leaders, such as Donaconna, objected to Cartier’s gesture and would later tear down the cross.

Regardless, in the early 1600s, the French began establishing colonies in what they called “New France”. Settlements like Port Royale, Tadoussac, Quebec City and Trois-Rivières began to take shape.

Tiohti:áke, the original Mohawk name for Montreal, was seen as a colonial prize worth taking due to its geographic location. With several rivers systems flowing into the archipelago, the island was a major transportation hub and Mohawk trade center.

However, the French were at war with the Mohawk First Nation along with the rest of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. This league of five allied nations also included the Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida and Onondaga. French authorities saw Tiohti:áke as too dangerous for colonization.

Meanwhile, back in France, in La Flèche, a devout Catholic and tax collector named Jérôme Le Royer de la Dauversière claimed that he had been receiving Holy visions for six years. In these episodes, God instructed him to found a religious colony and a hospital on Tiohti:áke.

Along with other Catholics, de la Dauversière founded “The Notre-Dame Society of Montreal for the Conversion of the Savages of New France” (Société de Notre-Dame de Montréal pour la conversion des Sauvages de la Nouvelle-France) in 1639.

The goal of this colonial organization was to create a “New Jerusalem” on the island -and to convert all Indigenous people to Catholicism.

This evangelical project was related to another one that started in 1637 in Sillery, near Quebec City.

Sillery was the first reserve created by Europeans for Indigenous peoples in what is now Canada. It was funded by a French nobleman, Noël Brûlart de Sillery, in response to an advertisement placed by Father Paul Le Jeune in the Jesuit Relations. Le Jeune was looking for a suitable place to attempt to convert Indigenous people to Catholicism.

His aim was to instill an agricultural lifestyle in the semi-nomadic Algonquin and Innu people of the area to evangelize them. French authorities established the land as a seigneury for Indigenous people under Jesuit supervision.

The project was a total disaster. By the 1670s, epidemics such as smallpox had wiped out many of the Indigenous residents. Unhappy with the deadly diseases, strict Catholic doctrine, and un-arable lands, the last Indigenous peoples had left Sillery by the late 1680s.

Returning to “The Notre-Dame Society of Montreal for the Conversion of the Savages of New France”, their leaders hatched a plan to colonize Tiohti:áke. After a fundraising campaign, they recruited French military officer Paul de Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve to lead the project.

On May 17, 1642, de Maisonneuve and his colonists arrived at Tiohti:áke and established the colony of Ville-Marie. Needless to say, this sparked an all-out war between the French and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, who attempted to defend this part of the vast Mohawk territory. The brutal war would last, on and off, until a peace treaty was signed in 1701.

In 1652, while visiting France, de Maisonneuve recruited nun Marguerite Bourgeoys to become Ville-Marie’s first teacher. He envisaged her educating French children and evangelizing Indigenous people, young and old. He also brought over another 100 colonists to bolster the colony during the war.

In April 1658, de Maisonneuve provided Bourgeoys with a vacant stone stable to serve as a schoolhouse for her pupils.

She taught the children of the colony about the Catholic faith, as well as counting, reading and writing. The older girls learned household skills to prepare for marriage and motherhood.

Before long, the stable was deemed too small so another school was constructed. Bourgeoys also started to receive some Indigenous children whom she tried to indoctrinate.

In 1675, a new school called the Fort de la Montagne was established at the base of the mountain.

The purpose of this new institution was specifically to evangelize Indigenous people. The pedagogy was designed ensure their adherence to the Catholic religion, which made up a large part of the curriculum.

However, soon Marguerite Bourgeoys and other authorities noticed that many of the Indigenous students at Fort de la Montagne were practicing traditional culture including ceremonies. Alarmed and upset, the Catholic overseers began describing these practices as “witchcraft”.

Furthermore, in the tradition of Jérôme Le Royer de la Dauversière, certain members of the Catholic community began claiming that they too were receiving direct and visionary messages from God. The highest religious authorities in the colony frowned upon this type of talk, as they could not control it.

As things at the Fort de la Montagne got more and more out of control, word reached the head of the Sulpician Order in Paris, France. In response, a hardliner named François Vachon de Belmont was deployed from Paris to the Fort de la Montagne in 1680 to stop the spread of “witchcraft” and visions.

The following year, de Belmont was named as the Superior of the Fort de la Montagne mission, which at that point housed over 200 Indigenous people, mostly Nipissing, Kanienkehà:ka (Mohawk), and Algonquin children, who were living in cabins on the site.

In order to stamp out the “witchcraft”, it is likely that Marguerite Bourgeoys added ghostly Catholic stories to her curriculum. Apparently, one of her favorites was the deranged tale of Jean Saint-Père’s Talking Head.

Ironically, Marguerite Bourgeoys and other Catholics did not consider the decapitated head of a colonist blabbering away after Death to be “witchcraft”. However, they considered traditional Indigenous culture that had been practiced for thousands of years as the Devil’s work.

To further secure the site, in 1685 de Belmont ordered that fortifications be constructed. Colonial workers constructed a 13-meter palisade and four stone towers with ominous gun-ports around the school.

With these new defenses, Indigenous people who tried to rescue their colleagues in the Fort de la Montagne could be shot as they approached the school.

Despite these efforts, Marguerite Bourgeoys and de Belmont were unable to extinguish Indigenous culture within the Fort de la Montagne.

Things exploded in 1689 the day after the Feast of the Dead. On the night of November 3^rd, Marguerite Tardy, sister of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame claimed she had a vision from God as she watched by the fireside.

She told Marguerite Bourgeoys that a sister “dead for more than sixteen months” had appeared to her. The dead nun told Sister Tardy: “I am sent from God. Tell the Superior of the Congregation that she is in a state of mortal sin, because of a Sister whom she named to her”.

Given that Marguerite Bourgeoys had founded the Congrégation de Notre-Dame – and was the Superior – this allegation especially alarmed her.

It got worse the following year, when Sister Tardy and a man named Joseph de la Colombière claimed to have experienced new divine visions and appearances.

On the night of January 3^rd 1690, Sister Tardy told Marguerite Bourgeoys that she had again received a visit from the deceased nun. This time, the message was more threatening: “This Superior has not yet done what she must do. This is the last time I will warn her…”

François Vachon de Belmont felt that he was losing control, so sent letters to his superior in Paris, Louis Tronson, explaining the situation.

Louis Tronson was very surprised to learn the extent of the affair. He reacted quickly to snuff out the so-called “visionaries” before their claims could spiral out of control. He was especially worried that people like Sister Tardy and Joseph de la Colombière could cause scandal all the way to the King’s court.

For Louis Tronson, these supernatural manifestations were only “chimerical visions” and “ridiculous prophecies”. He described the visions as “the production of a hollow head and a heated imagination”. He charged the culprits with having “visible errors” and said they were “deceived by their false views”.

To break the chain of the conspiracy and to destroy its influence, Tronson recalled all malcontents back to France. These included Sister Tardy, Joseph de la Colombière and a priest named William Bailly.

Once the Catholic rebels had been deported, Louis Tronson demanded the absolute submission of the Sulpicians to their Montreal Superior. Anyone who did not comply with Tronson’s orders were threatened to be sent back to France.

In September 1694, a major fire broke out at the Fort de la Montagne.

A young warrior fired a gun into the cabin of an adversary. The occupants had time to flee, but the fire caught and spread quickly due to high winds.

Within three hours, nearly fifty Indigenous cabins, fifteen frame-houses, the Church and much of the palisade surrounding the village had all burned to the ground.

By 1696, the Indigenous inhabitants had been relocated to the other side of the island, to Fort Lorette at Sault-au-Recollet. In 1721, the mission was finally relocated to present-day Kanesetake.

In 1854, during the building of the College of Montreal, all of the remains of the Fort de la Montagne were demolished expect for the two southern towers. They still stand today.

Originally, the west tower had housed the school of Marguerite Bourgeoys. The nuns of the Congregation used the east tower as a chapel. Today, both towers are empty – and for good reason. They are both reputed to be haunted.

Students at the College of Montreal often dare each other to visit the haunted towers at midnight. There have been many reports over the years that visitors to the West Tower sometimes hear the sounds of children weeping emanating from the gun-ports.

One former student reported to Haunted Montreal that she had visited the towers with some fellow students one Friday the 13^th in 2018. She explained:

“We decided to go on a dare. During the daytime, the towers, while creepy-looking, don’t exhibit much paranormal activity. According to the legend, midnight is the best time to go to experience the hauntings. When midnight struck, we decided to start with the West Tower.”

As they crept up to the imposing fortification in the darkness, one of her friends dared her to approach a gun-port and shine her flashlight inside.

Nervously, she approached until she was mere feet away. She claimed:

“Just as I was about to shine my light into the tower’s gun-port to see what was inside, I heard a loud burst of sobbing coming from inside! I was so taken aback that I literally fell over! As I tried to scramble back to my friends, I heard a softer weeping sound, almost like children. My friends had already run away in terror and once I picked myself up, I ran away also. It was one of the most frightening nights of my life!”

The East Tower is also reported to be haunted by a ghostly nun. Her apparition has been spotted standing outside the heavy door of the structure, as though awaiting others to follow her inside.

According to lore, she appears at night and sometimes beckons those exploring the site to join her inside with a hand gesture. She then turns around and walks straight through the thick wooden door, effectively vanishing.

Many speculate that the ghost is that of Sister Marguerite Tardy. Some believe she returned in the afterlife due to her failure to convince authorities of her visions and subsequent deportation to France.

The towers were designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1970 and as provincial historical monuments in 1974.

Today, despite running the first Residential School in modern-day Canada, Marguerite Bourgeoys is celebrated like few others.

Marguerite Bourgeoys became Canada’s first female Saint on Hallowe’en in 1982, when Pope John Paul II canonized her at Vatican City. There is also a French school board named after her, a museum about her life in the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel, not to mention a stamp in her honour and various other commemorations across the country.

People can also visit her final resting place in the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel in Old Montreal, which is also said to be haunted.

In conclusion, despite the fact that Marguerite Bourgeoys and the Fort de la Montagne were instrumental in cultural genocide against Indigenous people, they have both been immortalized and glorified by Church and government officials. Perhaps this is one of the reasons the towers are said to be haunted.

In the Age of Truth and Reconciliation, perhaps it is time to re-evaluate the discourse surrounding the first Residential School created by European colonists.

It was, after all, the progenitor of all of the others to come. Instead of celebrating and glorifying these symbols of cultural genocide, it might be best to re-contextualize them historically in a more realistic light.

Visit these haunted towers at your own risk, especially during the witching hour!

Company News

Haunted Montreal is pleased to announce that we are offering our regular ghost tours every Saturday evening on rotation up until June, when the season will be expanded:

Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English and on the last Sunday of the month at 4 pm in French.

While public tours are available Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons for the Haunted Pub Crawl, private tours can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors.

Our Virtual Ghost Tour is also available on demand!

For private tours, clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours are based on the availability of our actors and start at $170 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

Furthermore, our team is releasing videos every Saturday, in both languages, of ghost stories from the Haunted Montreal Blog. Hosted by Holly Rhiannon (in English) and Dr. Mab (in French), this new initiative is sure to please ghost story fans!

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

In other news, if you want to send someone a haunted experience as a gift, you certainly can!

We are offering Haunted Montreal Gift Certificates through our website and redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual events (no expiration date).

Finally, we have opened an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. We are selling t-shirts, magnets, sweatshirts (for those haunted fall and winter nights) and mugs with both the Haunted Montreal logo and our tour imagery.

Purchases can be ordered through our online store: shop.hauntedmontreal.com

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl, paranormal investigation or virtual event during the 2021 season!

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page, something that really helps Haunted Montreal to market its tours.

Lastly, if you would like to receive the Haunted Montreal Blog on the 13th of every month, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming up on June 13^th: The Haunted Cross on the Mountain

Visible from 80 kilometers away, Montreal’s 30-meter high metal cross on the mountain glows at night with special lighting. A symbol of Catholicism, it was based on a wooden cross that French colonists erected in 1643. To prevent any interference, the cross is surrounded by metal fencing and has sensors and video cameras to alert the police to any intruders. Today, rumours are swirling that the site of the cross is haunted because the mountain is peppered with Indigenous graves dating back thousands of years. A group called the Mohawk Mothers is now calling for its removal as a symbol of genocide.

Author:

Donovan King is a postcolonial historian, teacher, tour guide and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbott College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed (History and English Teaching, McGill), MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary) and ACS (Montreal Tourist Guide, Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec). He is also a certified Montreal Destination Specialist.

Translator (into French):

Claude Chevalot holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from McGill University. She is a writer, editor and translator. For more than 15 years, she has devoted herself almost exclusively to literary translation and to the translation of texts on current and contemporary art.

With over 500 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal dedicates itself to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

This service is free and you can sign up to our mailing list (top, right-hand corner for desktops and at the bottom for mobile devices) if you wish to receive it every month on the 13th!

With the Halloween Season behind us, Haunted Montreal is moving into winter mode by restarting our Haunted Pub Crawl!

Offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English and the last Sunday of the month at 4 pm in French, the Haunted Pub Crawl is a great way to enjoy some spirits with a spirit! More details are below in our Company News section!

We are bringing back Winter Ghost Stories: A Québécois Tradition, our virtual holiday tour, for just two public presentations: December 23 and 30.

We are also offering our other ghost walks and paranormal investigation as private tours, weather permitting:

Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Paranormal Investigation in the Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery

Our Virtual Ghost Tour is also available on demand!

Want to give the gift of a haunted experience this holiday season? You can now order a Haunted Montreal Gift Certificate through our website. They are redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual experiences. There’s no expiration date.

Lastly, we now have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. More details are below in our Company News section!

This month we examine Montreal’s “secret pool”, one of the many terrifying sites on Mount Royal that are said to be haunted. Once a hidden oasis for hipster swimmers and sunbathers, today the pool is decrepit and has horrible rumours swirling around it of murdered children who are buried beneath its concrete foundations.

Haunted Research

Perched on the slopes of the mountain lies a mysterious and abandoned swimming pool. Authorities at the Old Royal Victoria Hospital constructed it during 1961, allegedly to allow nurses and patients to swim there. Since its construction, rumours have swirled that it was actually built to conceal murdered children buried on the site. These allegedly include Indigenous victims of the nearby Allan Memorial Institute Psychiatric Department.

Known as “Montreal’s Secret Pool”, it was closed down following the drowning of a man in 2013. Once considered a “hidden gem” and “urban oasis”, the pool is now graffiti-scrawled, crumbling and partially filled with stagnant water. It is not only creepy and decrepit, but some say haunted!

The pool is nestled between the Old Royal Victoria Hospital and the Allan Memorial Institute (a.k.a. Ravenscrag), both extremely haunted sites on the mountain.

Constructed in 1961, the swimming pool was allegedly the result of a philanthropic donation made by Henry William Morgan, chairman of the hospital board from 1957 to 1962. The pool is thus officially called the Henry William Morgan Pool. It was supposedly constructed to provide nurses an opportunity to swim and for patients in need of physiotherapy or rehabilitation.

According to the philanthropist’s grandson Charles S. Morgan:

“My grandfather, Henry William Morgan, donated the pool to the nurses of the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1961, during the time that he served as President of the Board of the hospital. He was absolutely devoted to the hospital and, in particular, to its nursing staff.  Over the years, access to the pool opened to the public and I have very fond memories of swimming there as a law student at McGill, a “secret” oasis on the side of Mount Royal.” 

As the years passed, eventually the pool took on a host of regular swimmers. However, it also slowly developed the reputation as a party scene. With an entry fee of only $5/day, it was soon swarmed by rowdy McGill students. Tourism websites and blogs started gushing about “Montreal’s secret hipster pool” and buzzing about the party atmosphere.

Some long time users began to complain that the party atmosphere had gotten out of control and that alcohol and drugs were being freely consumed in the pool area. Others objected to the lifeguards, who did not seem to be supervising the pool properly.

Another problem was that bad behaviour was going on after hours, when the pool was closed. Sometimes people would break in for late-night pool parties or to smash beer bottles and throw the picnic tables into the water.

Things reached a culmination on the afternoon of August 8, 2013. Tragedy struck at approximately 3:45 p.m. when a regular swimmer named Douglas Crabbe was spotted unconscious at the bottom of the pool by other bathers.

They summoned the lifeguards, who noted that Crabbe was not coming to the surface. A passing doctor ran over to help. Once the 67-year old man was finally pulled out of the pool, he was in a state of cardiac arrest. Crabbe was resuscitated, but was unable to breathe on his own. He was sent to the nearby Royal Victoria Hospital in critical condition and died two days later.

Following this incident, the Henry William Morgan Pool was immediately shut down by hospital authorities. Indeed, it has been sitting empty ever since.

This, despite a 2017 promise by Mayor Valerie Plante to try and re-open it, as requested by Les Amis de la piscine du Royal-Victoria . 

One of the problems it that the pool is owned by the McGill University Health Centre, which relocated the Royal Victoria Hospital to the Glen Super-hospital in N.D.G. in April, 2015. In other words, the old Royal Victoria Hospital is currently abandoned and there is zero incentive to re-open a pool with no nurses or patients to swim in it.

The other problem is much more ominous: there are persistent rumours that the pool was actually built to conceal the bodies of children who were murdered at the Allan Memorial Institute. Under the direction of McGill University psychiatrist Dr. Ewen Cameron, unethical brainwashing experiments were carried out in the 1950s and 60s.

These included Project MKULTRA, commissioned on behalf of the CIA.

More details about the abuse are featured in our blog about Ravenscrag, the original name of the Allan Memorial Institute.

Rumour has it that orphans and children in Indigenous Residential Schools were recruited, against their knowledge, for deranged “experiments” involving excessive electro-shock sessions.

Some say that lobotomies were performed. The rumours suggest that Indigenous and other children were essentially murdered and then buried in a surreptitious manner at the site.

According to survivor Ann Diamond:

“These unmarked graves are a big secret. There has been no physical proof that kids are buried there but…some would have been First Nations kids in Cameron’s experiments between 1953 and 1964. Others came from broken homes, or were orphans…Obviously, they’re not laid out to attract attention but we think 17-25 children were buried there… Officially, though, it never happened…. Many, many records were destroyed however, and McGill has been very busy hiding the evidence and making sure witnesses and survivors remain silent.”

Kevin D. Annett’s Hidden No Longer: Genocide in Canada, Past and Present (2010) backs up Ann Diamond’s allegations. Listing unmarked Indigenous gravesites across Canada, on page 348 the document states:

“Quebec: 1. Montreal : Allan Memorial Institute, McGill University , still in operation since opening in 1940. MKULTRA experimental centre. Mass grave of children killed there north of building, on southern slopes of Mount Royal behind stone wall.”

Ann Diamond recalls visiting the pool:

“I have only been in it once or twice. The first time was in summer of 1972 with some friends – we climbed the stone wall at 2 am and swam in the dark. I think there was no Frost fence then because I don’t recall having to get over it– just the stone wall. There were a couple of other people swimming in it who arrived ahead of us. It was the place to swim on hot summer nights.”

Diamond continued: “Ten years later I heard Leonard Cohen went there all summer long and spent afternoons there. In the early 80s I think it was open to the public for 5$ and maybe you could get a membership pass for the summer. I went only once when a girl I met who was traveling to Montreal from Greece told me she wanted to meet Leonard Cohen — I guessed the best place to run into him casually was the Allan pool so I took her there and sure enough, there he was on the grass in his swim trunks.”

Twenty years later, circa 2003, Diamond was researching the MKULTRA program at McGill:

“By chance one day I was walking through NDG park and met a man, 45, who was selling off his possessions. He told me he had a brain tumor and had 6 months or a year to live. He had been a male nurse at Royal Victoria Hospital in the late 1970s and 80s. He was involved in destroying records of “births, adoptions and abortions” which were thrown into the dumpster. He said the swimming pool was a drug dealing site catering to Montreal’s beautiful people in the entertainment industry. He and other nurses would steal the purest cocaine from the hospital pharmacy and sell it to people around the pool.”

More recently, Montreal’s Office of Public Consultations (OCPM) launched a city-wide conversation on the fate of the Old Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute site, which includes the so-called “secret pool”.

One of the most notable and important contributions came from the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera, or Mohawk Mothers. They not only recalled that the Royal Victoria Hospital exists on un-ceded Mohawk territory, but also delved into the History of the site. They informed the OCPM that a former Mohawk village once existed on the site and also called out the fact that Indigenous and other children may be buried there.

In their final brief, they stated:

“In addition to archeological remains, the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera have been aware of allegations that indigenous and/or non-indigenous children may be buried in the vicinity of the Henry Lewis Morgan pool, and in adjacent grounds of the Ravenscrag gardens of the Allan Memorial Institute. The Henry Lewis Morgan pool was built in 1961 during Dr. Ewen Cameron’s unethical psychiatric experimentations on mind control, carried within the Allan Memorial Institute between 1954 and 1963, and funded by the Canadian government and the CIA’s MK-Ultra project.”

As part of their brief, the Mohawk Mothers interviewed 80-year-old Winnipeg resident Lana Ponting, one of the last remaining survivors of the Allan Memorial Institute. The Mohawk Mothers noted that Lana Ponting stressed three points:

1) That indigenous peoples were victims of these experiments, as she remembers seeing at least one indigenous individual receiving intense shock treatment in the Allan Memorial Institute during her stay, in April 1958;

2) That underage children were victims of these experiments, as Lana Ponting witnessed many minor individuals in the building, and as she was herself 16 years old at the time. It is also public knowledge that several MK-Ultra sub-projects included psychiatric experiments on unwitting children;

3) That the rumour that the experiments’ victims were buried in the Ravenscrag gardens surrounding the Allan Memorial Institute was already in circulation amongst its patients as early as 1958. Notably, Lana Ponting recalls that suspicious activities were conducted outside the building at night. Lana Ponting has obtained a letter her doctor attesting that she is of sound mind. Lana Ponting and many other family members of psychiatric experiments at McGill University have strong suspicions that unmarked graves, potentially including indigenous children, will be uncovered beneath the grounds of Ravenscrag.”

Indeed, according to Lana Ponting’s testimony:

“And you know it’s funny, I would get out of my room… One night I saw these people all by the south wall. And they had lights on. What was going on there? It may have happened that they were burying bodies there… They were by the south wall, a cement wall outside, on the south side of the grounds. Now over the years people were hurt by the Allan. I was tortured too, and so were a lot of other people that were in there. There is a swimming pool in the Allan, and it is rumored that it was built to hide the bodies that were buried.…They said the swimming pool was built to hide the bodies that they felt were being buried there. I am convinced that there are bodies buried in the property.”

When pressed about whether or not there were children at the Allan Memorial Institute, Lana Ponting replied:

“Oh yes. I saw underage people. I saw kids that were possibly around 8 to 10 years old. And then there were other younger ones as well.”

Lana Ponting concluded her interview by discussing the many rumours surrounding the Henry William Morgan Pool:

“Yes that was the rumor that was going around the Allan at the time that they built the swimming pool… because they wanted to hide what was around the area…It’s a terrifying thing to have to remember all this. And also the government knew what was going on, because a lot of people complained. They did nothing.”

With such shocking History unfolding, I should mention that I, Donovan King, also gave my own presentation to the OCPM.

Over the years, Haunted Montreal has received several communications about the “secret pool” on the mountain. Most of them describe haunted or paranormal activity within the vicinity.

For example, in June 2017 a client contacted Haunted Montreal who had visited the decrepit pool. She said: “Out of curiosity, I visited Montreal’s Secret Pool today. It is abandoned and filled with about a foot of stagnant water. While I was taking photos of it, I heard a sort of splash in the water. When I looked down into the pool, I swear I could see a decaying hand reaching out of the water!”

The woman was so startled that she dropped her camera and was unable to take a photo of the wretched hand before it submerged again in the murky water.

In another case, a man reported in 2020 that he had a paranormal experience at the site of the old pool. He recalled stretching out by the crumbling poolside to catch some rays and a short nap. As he dozed off, he started to have deranged nightmares. In his troubled dreams, he could hear the voices of children calling out to him, asking him for help. He visualized them underneath the pool trying to get his attention. The man woke up in a cold sweat, and immediately reported his experience to Haunted Montreal.

In conclusion, the Henry William Morgan Pool is a contested site, to say the least. Was it merely constructed to allow nurses to swim and for patients to rehabilitate, or does it hide a much darker secret?

Could it be that the concrete foundations of the “secret pool” were actually built to conceal the bodies of children murdered in deranged “experiments” at the Allan Memorial Institute?

Until a full forensic investigation is launched, the “secret pool” on the mountain will remain one of Montreal’s most notorious and unexplained sites.

Company News

With the Halloween Season behind us, Haunted Montreal is moving into winter mode by restarting our Haunted Pub Crawl!

Offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English and the last Sunday of the month at 4 pm in French, the Haunted Pub Crawl is a great way to enjoy some spirits with a spirit!

Starting at McKibbin’s Pub on Bishop Street, guests will hear some of Montreal’s most infamous ghost stories while enjoying drinks in three haunted pubs!

Designed for the winter, the pubs are each within a 5-minute walking distance to ensure clients stay warm!

We are bringing back Winter Ghost Stories: A Québécois Tradition, our virtual holiday tour, for just two public presentations: December 23 and 30.

We are also offering our other ghost walks and paranormal investigation as private tours, weather permitting:

The Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

The Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

The Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Paranormal Investigation in the Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery

For private tours, clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours are based on the availability of our actors and start at $170 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

We are also offering our Virtual Ghost Tour on demand in both English and French.

Please spread the word to those who might be interested in a Haunted Montreal experience and if you want to send someone a haunted experience as a gift for the holidays, now you can. Introducing Haunted Montreal Gift Certificates available through our website and redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual events (no expiration date).

Finally, we have opened an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. We are selling t-shirts, magnets, sweatshirts (for those haunted fall and winter nights) and mugs with both the Haunted Montreal logo and our tour imagery.

Purchases can be ordered through our online store: shop.hauntedmontreal.com

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl, paranormal investigation or virtual event during the 2020 – 2021 season!

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page, something that helps Haunted Montreal to market its tours.

Lastly, if you would like to receive the Haunted Montreal Blog on the 13th of every month, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming up on January 13^th: Esplanade Tranquille

One of Montreal’s newest public spaces, Esplanade Tranquille, was unveiled by Mayor Valerie Plante in August 2021. Located in the heart of the Quartier des Spectacles, the square was named after writer and 1940’s bookshop owner Henri Tranquille. In the winter, it will feature a large, refrigerated ice skating rink. In the warmer months, visitors will be able to enjoy urban furniture, greenspace, a pavilion and a food court. Despite only being open for a few months, there are already allegations of paranormal activity on the esplanade. The most common report is the appearance and disappearance of books, which sometimes vanish from bags only to reappear on benches and that sort of activity. Some superstitious people believe that Henri Tranquille’s old bookstore somehow influences the site in a paranormal way.

Author:

Donovan King is a postcolonial historian, teacher, tour guide and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbott College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed (History and English Teaching, McGill), MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary) and ACS (Montreal Tourist Guide, Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec). He is also a certified Montreal Destination Specialist.

Translator (into French):

Claude Chevalot holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from McGill University. She is a writer, editor and translator. For more than 15 years, she has devoted herself almost exclusively to literary translation and to the translation of texts on current and contemporary art.