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 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. 

With over 200 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal is dedicated to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly-researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

Our October edition examines Ravenscrag, one of the world’s most frightening house of horrors. Perched on the slopes of Mount Royal, it is the location of deranged brainwashing experiments during the Cold War and may host a secret children’s cemetery.

For the Hallowe’en Season, Haunted Montreal has added many extra tours, including our newly-revised Haunted Downtown Montreal ghost walk – in both English and French! During the month of October, please consider making Haunted Montreal part of your Hallowe’en Season. Tickets are now on sale!

Haunted Montreal also offers private tours for groups of 15 or more people, including company outings, school groups, bachelorette parties and other gatherings of all types. Please contact info@hauntedmontreal.com to organize a private tour.

HAUNTED RESEARCH

Ravenscrag is a prominent Pine Avenue mansion that is currently used as McGill’s psychiatry department. Now known as the Allan Memorial Institute, it is a very creepy estate and is also rumoured to be extremely haunted. Tortured, disembodied voices are known to echo the corridors and not only do caretakers often refuse to clean the terrifying morgues in the building, but sometimes at night a mysterious light appears in the cupola of the main tower overlooking the McGill campus.

According to a report in the McGill Tribune:

“The upper buildings of the McGill campus, above Dr. Penfield, appear to be the most ghost-ridden of them all…[especially] the Allan Memorial Institute. In the 1950s and ‘60s, the MKULTRA experiments, partially funded by the CIA, subjected patients to electroshock therapy, sensory deprivation, and lobotomies. Experiments also forced patients to listen to broadcasted messages (either from loud speakers or from under their pillows), as well as giving them experimental hallucinogenic drugs. Any ghosts trapped in this building will be forever reminded of their tortured pasts.”

There are also rumours that a secret, haunted children’s cemetery exists behind the property, just behind the stone wall. It is at the bottom of a slope that leads up to the Olmsted Road on Mount Royal. This rocky, forested area is popular with psychics and paranormal investigators, and often mysterious people can be seen there at night conducting strange rituals, often involving votive candles. Rumour has it the investigators sometimes hear disembodied children crying. Survivors of horrific brainwashing experiments claim that child victims were secretly buried at this location, out of sight from the public.

Given the creepy rumors, mental health patients are often apprehensive about being treated at the Allan Memorial Institute – and for good reason, given its deranged history!

Ravenscrag was built in 1863 by Sir Hugh Allan. An extremely affluent banker and entrepreneur of Scottish origin, Allan used his political connections to obtain favorable contracts and subsidies for his enterprises and was known to exploit workers, including children in his factories. In 1860, Sir Hugh Allan purchased fourteen acres on the slopes of Mount Royal, for $10,000, from the estate of the late Simon McTavish.

Built in the style of an Italian Renaissance villa or palazzo, Ravenscrag consisted of 72 lavish rooms spread over five floors and decorated in the opulent Victorian fashion of the era. The mansion also featured an imposing tower with an observatory in the cupola, which Sir Hugh Allan used to monitor his ships with a telescope in the old port of Montreal. When built, Ravenscrag was also fitted with gas lighting and the most advanced plumbing and heating technology available at the time. It was the most lavish address in the city and hosted decadent parties for some of the most prestigious and wealthiest of people, including members of the Royal Family.

When Sir Hugh Allan’s died in 1882 while visiting his son-in-law in Edinburgh, he was one of the richest men in the world with a fortune estimated to be between eight and twelve million pounds.

His is son, Montagu, inherited the regal Ravenscrag mansion. Following Montagu’s death in 1940, his wife donated it to McGill University. Ravenscrag was gutted of its lavish interior and  transformed into a psychiatric hospital called the Allan Memorial Institute.  With funds from the Rockefeller Foundation, Dr. Ewen Cameron, the founder of McGill’s Psychiatric Department, was appointed its director.

In the early 1950s, during the first decade of the Cold War, the CIA believed it was crucial to learn how to brainwash people after the apparent success of the Chinese during the Korean War. A handful of American POWs made inexplicable confessions while publicly praising communism and denouncing the United States.

Starting in 1950, the CIA reached out to psychologists, physicians and toxicologists and embarked on several mind-control projects, such as Project Bluebird, Project Artichoke, and Project MKULTRA. In 1957, the CIA managed to recruit Dr. Ewen Cameron, who was trying to discover whether doctors could erase a person’s mind and instill new patterns of behaviour. The purpose of his brainwashing experiment was to discover techniques that could destroy a person’s time-space continuum in order to re-program them.

Dr. Cameron and his colleague Dr. Hebb started the experiment with 22 paid student volunteers.  Each student was placed on a bed in a lighted cubicle and made to wear opaque goggles, cardboard handcuffs and lie with their head embedded into a U-shaped foam pillow that limited audio stimulation.

Most subjects quit after a few hours, complaining that being in the apparatus felt like a form of torture. Most also had experienced hallucinations similar to those had on drugs like LSD. Dr. Hebb concluded that “even short term sensory deprivation produced a devastating impact on the human psyche,” noting that “the subjects very identity began to disintegrate.”

Realizing the potential, Dr. Cameron moved the research trial to Phase 2, which would require subjects who could not leave, as the student volunteers had done. Dr. Cameron began hand-picking patients at the Allan Memorial Institute for participation in the brainwashing research, against their knowledge. For subjects, Dr. Cameron chose people suffering from minor mental and emotional problems, such as anxiety disorders or postpartum depression.

Dr. Cameron developed and tested three major psychiatric procedures on the mental patients at the Allan Memorial.

He started with the technique of “depatterning”, his theory that people’s patterns of behaviour could be erased and replaced with others. In an attempt to erase their memories and personality, Dr. Cameron subjected them to brutal electroshock sessions that were well-beyond the norm in psychiatric hospitals in terms of frequency, duration and voltage.

His second technique was called “sensory isolation” and involved putting subjects in a sealed box where they would receive the minimum sensorial stimulus possible. Their eyes and ears would be covered, their body would be padded, and their movement impeded. It induced a form of sleep deprivation and disintegration of the personality.

Dr. Cameron then used his third technique, an attempted reprogramming known as “psychic driving”. Using powerful drugs he would put patients through 15 to 30 days of drug-induced, almost uninterrupted sleep. His patients were forced to listen to pre-recorded messages on a loop for as many as sixteen hours a day, designed to implant the desired new personality in the patients’ psyche.

Dr. Cameron was largely successful in erasing the identity of his patients, but was unable to implant the desired new personalities. Many of them suffered permanent brain damage. A study commissioned by Dr. Cameron’s successor in 1967 found that many of the tested patients suffered permanent amnesia, incontinence, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents, and even thinking their interrogators were their parents.

The CIA was so impressed with Dr. Cameron’s work that these techniques became the core of its torture methodology and were used in Vietnam, and most recently, in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay.

Most of Dr. Cameron’s un-consenting human guinea pigs did not discover what had really been done to them until more than twenty years later, which made it very difficult to obtain compensation.  A few of Cameron’s over 300 former patients did file lawsuits, but they were originally obstructed by the Canadian government, which had also contributed to the financing of Cameron’s experiments.

The reason Dr. Cameron was able to carry out such cruel experiments for almost a decade could be explained by the prestige that he enjoyed as a doctor. He was one of North America’s most eminent psychiatrists; he had served in the medical tribunal at the Nuremberg trials, and had been the president of the Quebec, Canadian, American and World Psychiatric Associations. Following his cruel and deranged career, Cameron died of a heart attack while mountain climbing with his son on September 8, 1967.

Today, despite its horrid past, the Allan Memorial Institute continues to operate as a psychiatric facility and houses ambulatory (out-patient) services.

The In-Patient Services were recently amalgamated into the facilities at the Montreal General Hospital.  Essentially, the Allan Memorial Institute now only offers out-patient psychiatric and psychological services, including cognitive behavioural therapy, as well as day clinics, programs and administrative services. Thankfully, there are no longer any beds at the Allan.

One survivor of Ewen Cameron’s experiments named Ann Diamond suggests that there are unmarked graves in the forested area behind the Allan Memorial Institute.

She wrote:

“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.”

Whether or not these are just the ramblings of an Allan Memorial Institute survivor or if there are indeed children buried down there is open to speculation.

In Brenda Norre’s article “Location of Mass Graves of Residential School Children Revealed; Independent Tribunal Established” (Atlantic Free Press, 2006), she provides a list of hidden cemeteries across Canada where First Nations children who died in Residential Schools were secretly interred.

The Residential Schools were designed to carry out cultural genocide against First Nations people.

By stripping parents of their children, Canadian government authorities and religious officials forced the children to abandon their native languages and cultures to embrace austere Christian values. The death rate of children in some institutions was as high as 60%.

Based on eyewitness accounts from survivors of these horrible institutions, the secret burial grounds are cataloged in “Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust (2nd ed., 2005) by Kevin Annett”.

Needless to say, the following information appears on the list of hidden cemeteries:

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.

Over the years, there have been many conversations in hushed tones as to why the government is not investigating the situation.

There can be no doubt that the Allan Memorial Institute’s deranged experiments have also influenced fertile imaginations. The Manchurian Candidate, a novel by Richard Condon, was inspired by the experiments and first published in 1959. It is a political thriller about the son of a prominent American political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy. The novel has been adapted twice into a feature film, in 1962 and again in 2004. The 1962 version is faithful to the book and stars crooner Frank Sinatra.

To this day, the creepy topic is still discussed on social media and recently was examined on the Haunted Talks Podcast. In Episode 36, House of Horrors, Jimmy Dean interviewed Haunted Montreal about Ravenscrag (July 27, 2018).

Whether or not there is actually a hidden cemetery on the mountain site is still unknown at this time. Only one thing is certain. Until someone goes down there with a shovel or a spade and starts digging, this is one mystery that will remain unsolved.

COMPANY NEWS

The Hallowe’en Season is now upon us and Haunted Montreal is pleased to announce we are offering all three of our ghost tours, including the newly-updated Haunted Downtown!

For the month of October, please consider making Haunted Montreal part of your Hallowe’en Season. Tickets are now on sale!

Haunted Montreal also offers private tours for groups of 15 or more people, including company outings, school groups, bachelorette parties and all types of gatherings. Please contact info@hauntedmontreal.com to organize a private tour.

We are also pleased to announce a new book called Macabre Montreal. Written by Mark Leslie and Shayna Krishnasamy, it is a “collection of ghost stories, eerie encounters, and gruesome and ghastly true stories from the second most populous city in Canada.”

The authors write:

“Montreal is a city steeped in history and culture, but just beneath the pristine surface of this world-class city lie unsettling stories. Tales shared mostly in whispered tones about eerie phenomena, dark deeds, and disturbing legends that take place in haunted buildings, forgotten graveyards, and haunted pubs. The dark of night reveals a very different city behind its beautiful European-style architecture and cobblestone streets. A city with buried secrets, alleyways that echo with the footsteps of ghostly spectres, memories of ghastly events, and unspeakable criminal acts.”

With the introduction written by Haunted Montreal, Macabre Montreal is a must-read for anyone interested in Montreal’s dark side.

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk during the 2018 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 (at the top of the page, on the right).

Coming up on November 13: The John Doe Pub

The John Doe, on Bishop Street, is one of Montreal’s many haunted pubs. Currently closed due to a fire, the Victorian building is said by bar staff and the owner to be infested with ghosts. Purchased in 1990 by a man named Troy, he originally intended convert the upper floor into his apartment. However, during renovations, he could hear phantom footsteps following him, no matter where he went in the building. After several other creepy paranormal encounters, he decided not to move in after all. Troy is believes his pub is haunted by three ghosts from different eras – a woman, a man and a little girl. He is very keen to get to the bottom of the story and has invited Haunted Montreal investigators to spend the night when his bar finally re-opens. It is an opportunity the company is definitely looking forward to!

Donovan King is a 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 Abbot 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).