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!

With the Hallowe’en Season fast approaching, Haunted Montreal’s seasons of public outdoor ghost tours is in full swing! Offered every Friday and Saturday Sunday, 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 one section of Montreal’s new light rail system, the REM, which 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 numerous electrical problems and was even struck by lightning!

Haunted Research

After years of planning and construction, the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) finally opened the first leg of its light train system on July 31, 2023. This section of track runs from Montreal’s Central Station to Brossard on the South Shore.

However, it has been plagued with various problems, from electrical failures and noise complaints to broken elevators and passengers being deployed to train garages.

There are also major delays on the construction of the Griffintown Station, which is very late and likely will not open in the near future. It appears that CDPQ Infra, the organization in charge of the project, has been caught totally off-guard.

While it might be tempting to say that it is bad luck causing the REM’s woes, a much more likely cause is paranormal activity triggered by angry Irish Famine ghosts.

Haunted Montreal has been following and blogging this story for several years now. Part 1 of the blog appeared in January, 2020 and examined the REM’s decision to desecrate the Irish Famine Cemetery at the Black Rock. Indeed, the REM’s workers dug up over a dozen skeletons to insert a concrete monorail pylon into the heart of the cemetery.

Generally-speaking, the Dead do not like to be disturbed, especially when their funerary marker, the ominous Black Rock, is engraved with the following words:

“To Preserve from Desecration the Remains of 6000 Immigrants Who died of Ship Fever A.D. 1847- 48.”

Part 1 speculated that the light rail system would likely become haunted due to the desecration. It also theorized which ghosts might appear to haunt the trains and surrounding infrastructure.

Part 2 of the series offered the REM an inexpensive solution to prevent the Irish Famine ghosts from infesting the system by painting the concrete pylon Haint Blue, a colour known to ward off spirits.

Haunted Montreal warned REM officials that failure to comply would almost certainly result in the new system becoming ghost-infested. However, REM administrator Isabelle Lachance dismissed these concerns, stating that there were no plans to paint the pylon Haint Blue.

Paranormal expert Dominique Desormeaux had warned about the disturbing consequences of the REM’s failure to protect its transportation system: “Ghosts will feast on the electrical side. They look for a source to be able to manifest themselves, so yes, ghosts will haunt the REM. I’m telling you, you will see people complaining about strange stuff happening at the REM and to the people working there. The ghosts will even cause trouble for the train and there will be often be power shortages and train malfunctions.”

Unfortunately for the REM, Desormeaux’s predictions turned out to be true for the most part.

On the first day of the REM’s grand opening, electrical problems started appearing throughout the rail network. In fact, the system experienced three power failures during the first three days, forcing passengers off the trains and onto busses.

Furthermore, many elevators and escalators broke down, leaving many disabled passengers stranded and upset.

Then, the evening after opening, three REM passengers were mistakenly sent to a train garage in Brossard. A man named Grégoire, his wife and a tourist from South America ended up trapped in the REM’s garage after the driverless train seemed to take on a life of its own. Instead of driving towards Montreal, it unexpectedly drove backwards from the station into the train garage where it turned itself off.

According to Grégoire: “The train shut down, the lights were dim and then we were looking around, there was no way out and we could see all the trains around us, so that was kind of spooky.”

Fearing they were going to “spend the night” on the train, Grégoire’s wife used the intercom system to tell security guards that they were trapped in the garage. Ten minutes later, an operator ordered the driverless train return to the Brossard station.

From there, REM staff picked them up and drove them home.

The next major incident was literally shocking – a lightning bolt hit the REM! On the night of August 3rd, the electric bolt zapped the light rail system, temporarily halting its operation.

CDPQ Infra’s director of communications, Jean-Vincent Lacroix, later explained that the REM “is designed” to deal with this type of event.

However, a local Irish-Montrealer named Seamus who has ancestors buried at the Black Rock stated: “It’s God himself who is striking the REM with lightning because they desecrated the Irish Famine Dead. What a disgrace! Indeed, I predict that the Dear Lord will continue sending the lightning bolts until the whole system is destroyed! When you mess with the Irish Famine Dead, you are messing with God himself!”

Furthermore, there have been reports that whenever the REM train passes over the Black Rock Irish Famine Cemetery, strange things tend to happen. For example, sometimes the train starts shaking and other times the interior lights begin flickering on and off. In another case, a rider from Brossard complained of feeling nauseous every time the REM train rolls over the hallowed burial ground.

There have also been endless noise complaints from those living in the condo towers that have sprouted up along the line in neighborhoods like Griffintown and Nun’s Island. Initial promises by REM officials to mitigate excessive noise have not born fruit.

Journalists have determined the trains generate a noise level ranging from 75 to 100 decibels, which is far higher than the 55 decibels recommended by the World Health Organization.

Nearby residents have complained this the endless noise exposure causes stress, impacts mental health, and contributes to issues such as high blood pressure and sleep deprivation.

In addition, CDPQ Infra initially stated the new Griffintown station would be finished and up-and-running in 2024.

However, after numerous delays, CDPQ Infra is no longer committing to a completion date.

“We are still studying the possibilities for the construction of this station. It is made more complex by other projects that are in the vicinity and because the train is currently in operation,” CDPQ Infra said in a statement.

To make matters worse, Mayor Valerie Plante turned a blind eye to concerns from the local and international Irish communities when she insisted on co-branding the station with Bernard Landry, a deceased politician.

Despite pleas from the Irish communities and negative local and international media reports, Plante rebranded the station “Griffintown-Bernard-Landry.”

Given the disrespect and endless delays, many in the Irish community believe the station is cursed – and will never be completed. Indeed, according to Seamus: “Griffintown was once Canada’s largest Irish neighborhood. It was where the survivors of the Irish Famine settled during the dark days of Black ’47 after crossing the Atlantic on coffin ships. Rebranding the Griff is nothing short of sacrilege and that REM station is doomed, I tell you!”

Lastly, there one of the most serious issues. Since Hydro-Québec purchased the land where the Black Rock cemetery lies in 2017 to build a new substation, there has been a lot of doubt about its promise to preserve the burial ground. Hydro-Québec had promised to build a world-class park on the site in conjunction with Montreal’s Irish community.

However, since Hydro-Québec got involved there has been one desecration after another against the Irish Famine Dead and their memory. An upcoming Part 4 of this series will delve into those issues and related hauntings.

To conclude, the REM has failed to protect its system from the paranormal. In desecrating the Irish Famine Dead at the Black Rock Cemetery with a concrete pylon, REM essentially invited their ghosts to haunt the system. The resulting disturbances, electrical and otherwise, will likely only intensify in the future.

As such, ride the REM at your own risk!

Company News

With the Hallowe’en Season fast approaching, Haunted Montreal’s seasons of public outdoor ghost tours is in full swing! Offered every Friday and Saturday 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 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 October 13: Dow Brewery

Built in 1861, the massive Dow Brewery in Grffintown was once the largest producer of beer in Montreal. However, after a poisoned beer scandal in the 1960s, the brewery began falling into a slow decline. In 1998, it was abandoned – electricity was cut off and the building was allowed to fall into ruins. Contaminated with asbestos, the Dow Brewery has since been used by urban explorers, ghost hunters and mediums. With a confused ghostly girl sometimes appearing inside the ruined building, many are convinced that the old brewery is haunted.

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 350 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!

Haunted Montreal is offering a full season of outdoor public tours starting in the spring! Tickets are now on sale!

The Haunted Montreal Pub Crawl also runs year round on Sunday afternoons.

Lastly, our ghost walks can still be booked for private groups, including Haunted Griffintown and Haunted Downtown. Haunted Mountain is not available due to dangerous icy conditions on Otsirà:ke / Mount Royal until it melts in May.

Our March blog is Part 2 of our January edition about the Réseau express métropolitain (REM). In Part 1, the question arose as to whether or not the REM will become haunted due to an Irish Famine cemetery disturbance. While there is much debate about this potential paranormal problem, there are no proposals yet on the table to protect the $6.3 billion electric train network from the Irish Famine Ghosts in the cemetery where the monorail pylon is going to be inserted.

Haunted Montreal, experts in all things haunted, offers a perfect and inexpensive solution and asks for the help of you, our dear reader, to assist in implementing it!  

Haunted Research

The Réseau Express Métropolitain recently extracted over a dozen skeletons from the Black Rock Famine cemetery. Many of them were children who had succumbed to typhus. Tragically, they were buried in mass graves after crossing the Atlantic Ocean on “coffin ships”. The REM’s rationale for the exhumation was to install a concrete pylon for its upcoming $6.3 billion electric train network. This act prompted fears that ghosts of the Irish Famine Dead could easily haunt the system. Artists have already begun creating visuals depicting a paranormal station atop the pylon that serves as a disturbing connection between the living and the dead.

Part 1 of the blog speculates about some of the ghosts who might infest the REM network, from ghostly priests to Famine beggars to the old mayor of the City of Montreal himself.

Part 2 offers Haunted Montreal’s analysis of the situation and an innovative and inexpensive solution to try and protect the $6.3 billion electric train system from becoming haunted by Irish Famine ghosts and spirits.

It must be noted that there was a strong reaction to the suggestion made in Part 1 of the blog that the REM could become haunted as a result of the graveyard disturbance. Opinions on the issue are polarized with many believing the horrible hauntings are inevitable and other stakeholders insisting otherwise.

Fergus V. Keyes, fellow Director of the Montreal Irish Monument Park Foundation, does not believe the REM will become haunted by malevolent spirits.

He wrote his lengthy rationale on the Haunted Montreal Facebook page in response to Part 1 of the blog:

“It is important to note that the REM organization has been absolutely terrific when working with the Montreal Irish Community on this project. They did not suddenly come across these remains but knew that the area where they were excavating likely was the main cemetery for the 6000+ Irish that died and were buried in the area in 1847 and that there was certainly a strong possibility that they might uncover some remains of the victims. After meeting with Montreal Irish representatives more than a year ago, they invested a great deal of time, money, and engineering costs to mitigate any disturbance in the area. They also arranged, and paid for, a full religious ceremony representing various religious denominations that were in Montreal at the time including First Nation representatives. This included having trained archaeologists on the site before they even started digging and these archaeologists remained there for the entire month of November – once again paid for by REM.”

Keyes continued: “Once some remains were discovered, they immediately notified the Irish Community and at the end of the dig allowed some of the Irish representatives to visit the actual site and view all of their procedures. Their excavation represents an area of no more than 1% of the entire area where this main cemetery is probably located.”

In conclusion, Keyes stated: “REM has treated these remains with the greatest of respect, and once some tests are completed that might determine the gender, approximate age, and perhaps yield some DNA, the Irish community intends to rebury these remains in close proximity to the Black Rock in a proper ceremony. So in my opinion, no – the site will not be haunted by the victims of the tragic event of 1847, and more likely the REM organization will be blessed & protected by these victims for the beautiful care that they took in showing them such a great deal of respect.”

However, the REM were extremely disrespectful to the human remains of the Irish Famine Ancestors. They drove a caisson (a big metal tube) through the cemetery, likely slicing bodies apart, before lowering a basket into the tube to remove human remains.

These damaged skeletons were then sent to a creepy laboratory to be studied. Their final resting places, along with their skeletons, were totally desecrated.

Indeed, the Montreal Irish Monument Park Foundation was so pleased with the “quality” of the work that Directors Fergus Keyes and Victor Boyle presented the REM with an award at the Centaur Theatre in early February, 2020. They did this without consulting the Board of Directors.

Given these disturbing circumstances, the spirits of the cemetery might very well take advantage of the pylon to begin infesting the system with paranormal activity.

Indeed, according to founder of 13 Paranormal Spirits and ghost expert Dominique Desormeaux:

“Ghosts will feast on the electrical side. They look for a source to be able to manifest themselves, so yes, ghosts will haunt the REM. I’m telling you, you will see people complaining about strange stuff happening at the REM and to the people working there. The ghosts will even cause trouble for the train and there will be often be power shortages and train malfunctions.”

When pressed for examples, Desormeaux elaborated:

“Full shadows and full body apparitions. They removed the bodies of the dead people from their final resting place – that is one of the reasons they will have problems. Like I said, there will be multiple ghost and apparition sightings, high spikes in the electromagnetic field, burning lights, contact between the living and the dead, strange voices, touching, etc.”

Desormeaux pointed out that the Black Rock funerary marker is engraved with the following words: “To Preserve from Desecration the Remains of 6000 Immigrants Who died of Ship Fever A.D. 1847- 48.”

The Famine cemetery at the Black Rock has a long history of desecration. In the past, it has been used as a dump, a rail yard, and today a highway runs over the cemetery. Officials have consistently tried to erase it, deny its existence and have never ceded the burial ground to the Irish community.

The Oxford Dictionary defines “desecration” as: “the act of damaging a holy thing or place or treating it without respect,” whereas for Cambridge it means “to damage or show no respect towards something holy or very much respected.”

Technically, the Famine Cemetery was damaged when the large hole was dug through the mass graves to accommodate a giant concrete pylon for the monorail. With the removal of over a dozen skeletons from their final resting place, the damage cannot be denied.

Whatever the case, the remains are in a laboratory for the time being and will supposedly be re-interred at a later date in a “respectful ceremony”. This announcement can be seen as very dubious, given that there was zero governance in the process, The full Board of Directors of the Irish Monument Park Foundation was not consulted, let alone the wider Irish-Montreal community whose ancestors were desecrated by the REM.

Unfortunately, one result of this cemetery disturbance is the worry that the $6.3 billion network will now become haunted, compromising Montreal’s goal of providing top notch public transportation.

For those who scoff at the idea of a haunted train system, it is noteworthy that haunted trains already exist in Canada and the States.

Indeed, one of the Saskatchewan’s most infamous paranormal tales, The Ghost Train of St. Louis, is one such haunted legend. It is such a popular Canadian ghost story that it was featured on a postal stamp in 2014 and continues to attract tourists to this very day.

South of the border, a phantom funeral train apparently runs from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Illinois, every April around the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s death. The ghostly train, draped in black and adorned with streamers, stops watches and clocks in surrounding areas as it passes.

There is no guarantee the REM won’t be affected by the paranormal after unearthing the Famine Dead.

Luckily, to prevent Famine ghosts from haunting the $6.3 billion REM system, Haunted Montreal has come up with an innovative and inexpensive solution:

Paint the pylon Haint Blue

Haint Blue originated in the deep American South. Today, in cities and towns throughout the south, one will find these bluish-green tints on shutters, doors, porch ceilings and windowsills, gracing many historic homes.

However, the first painted strokes of Haint Blue adorned not the homes of the rich, but the simple shacks of African slaves.

Known as the Gullah or Geechee people, the original Haint Blue creators were descendants of African slaves who worked on rice plantations in South Carolina and Georgia. Many of their ancestors came from Angola, which may be where the name Gullah originated.

These people have kept alive the traditions, stories, and beliefs of their ancestors, including a fear of haints.

Haints, or haunts, are spirits trapped between the world of the living and the world of the dead. These are very angry and dangerous spirits, but according to legend, they cannot cross water. The Gullah people dig a pit in the ground, fill it with lime, milk, and whatever pigments they can find, stir it all together, and paint the mixture around every opening of their homes.

The haints, confused by these watery pigments, become tricked into thinking they cannot enter.

In painting the REM pylon that pierces the Black Rock famine cemetery Haint Blue, it is quite possible that the Irish Famine ghosts would be tricked to avoid haunting the electric train network.

What, one might ask, is the Irish connection to Haint Blue.

It turns out that Haint Blue is widely used in the South, including Caribbean nations such as Barbados and Monserrat, which have large numbers of Irish descendants, including the legendary Redlegs.

The Redlegs are the descendants of 50,000 Irish men and women who were sold into the white slave trade between 1652 and 1659.

This little-known episode in Irish history is documented in Seán O’Callaghan’s To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland.

Cromwell decreed that “troublemakers”, including the poor, the hungry, Catholic clergy and landlords be sent Connaught in the west of Ireland. This policy of ethic cleansing prompted the rebel songs “Tobacco Island” and “To Hell or Connaught“. Those who refused to go were sent to Barbados instead to work on the British sugar plantations.

Innocent Irish people were rounded up from across the country by teams of Oliver Cromwell’s “man-catchers”.

In chains, they were herded south into holding pens in Cork and Waterford, then crammed into African slave ships. One in five died en route to Barbados and those who survived were sold at the slave market.

The women were stripped and checked for virginity. Those deemed “good breeders” were sold to studs, to make future slaves and brothel girls.

The men were checked for muscle tone and strength of teeth, then branded with a hot iron their owners’ initials.

Their descendants are still there today. While many have since assimilated into the mainstream culture, some of the Redlegs still live in absolute poverty. Isolated, un-assimilated and uneducated, they are yet another group of victims of British injustice.

How did the Redlegs come to use Haint Blue? The most prominent theory is that because the of the interbreeding and cross-cultural exchange between Irish and African slaves, the use Haint Blue was adopted culturally as a method to protect people from dangerous spirits.

Even in North America Haint Blue has gone mainstream, with paint companies such as Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore marketing the colour and magazines such as Costal Living and Architectural Digest reporting on it.

There is a lot of public money invested in the REM, including from the Canada Infrastructure Bank, CDPQ Infra (a wholly owned subsidiary of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec) and the Government of Quebec.

According to financial activist Paul Boden:

“If the REM becomes haunted, it will be a total waste of taxpayer’s dollars because nobody wants to ride on a train that is infested with ghosts and rife with paranormal dangers.”

Boden agrees that Haunted Montreal’s solution is solid: “Paint it Haint Blue! A brilliant proposal to keep the ghosts at bay. Rooted in history and folklore, this is likely the best way to protect the REM system from becoming haunted. Kudos to Haunted Montreal for monitoring the city’s ghosts and providing solid solutions to protect us when they are disturbed. These guys deserve an award!”

Isabelle Lachance, REM Community Spokesperson, said at this time there are no plans to paint any pylons, although the REM is listening to community concerns.

As such, Haunted Montreal is proposing a campaign to lobby the REM to do the right thing with the offending pylon:

Paint it Haint! Peignez-le Haint Bleu!

We are asking our readers to contact the REM via their website to request that the pylon be painted Haint Blue to try and protect future riders and employees of the multi-billion dollar electric train network from the Irish ghosts who haunt the Black Rock Famine Cemetery.

As many of our readers know, Mayor Valerie Plante has been in conflict with the local Irish community over her proposal to co-brand the Griffintown REM Station with a controversial politician. As her Ambassador, I wrote an Open Letter about it with many media links.

Incredibly, the REM has announced the names of all stations expect Griffintown (originally labelled “Peel Basin”), suggesting that there are political heritage maneuvers happening behind the scenes.

It will certainly be interesting to see how everything unfolds as politics, heritage, and commemoration clash with ghosts and the paranormal in a unique situation! Ultimately, choices made today will define whether or not the REM will paint the pylon Haint Blue or risk becoming infected by the upsetting Irish Famine ghosts.

Please add your voice by contacting the REM via their website with your concerns!

Company News

Haunted Montreal is excited to announce that our full 2020 season of public tours is now online and tickets are on sale!

In addition, for this first time ever, we are operating year-round with our award-winning Haunted Pub Crawl, every Sunday at 3 pm in English and often at 4 pm in French.

Private tours are also available for the Haunted Pub Crawl. We also offer weather permitting, private tours of Haunted Griffintown, Haunted Downtown, and our new Paranormal Investigation into the old Saint-Antoine Cemetery.

The Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk is not offered in the winter due to dangerous and icy conditions on the slopes.

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl or paranormal investigation during the 2019 – 2020 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 April 13: Bonhomme Sept Heures

Bonhomme Sept Heures is a character from Québec folklore that was used by parents to keep their children obedient, starting in the days of “New France”. Translated, his name means, “The Seven O’Clock Man”. This creature is described as a tall, lanky old man with a long, crooked nose who roams the streets at night, carrying a large burlap sack. Bonhomme Sept Heures is known to snatch up children who have stayed out past their 7 o’clock curfew, stuff them in his sack, and quietly leave town. According to the folklore, the children would never be seen or heard from again.

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.

With over 350 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!

Haunted Montreal is now in winter mode and is not offering a season of outdoor public tours until the spring. The good news is that we are pleased to announce that the Haunted Montreal Pub Crawl runs year round on Sunday afternoons. We are also looking for an indoor haunted location for our new Paranormal Investigation. Lastly, our ghost walks can still be booked for private groups, including Haunted Griffintown and Haunted Downtown. Haunted Mountain is not available due to dangerous icy conditions on Otsirà:ke / Mount Royal until it melts in May.

Our February blog examines Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel and the persistent rumours that the oldest church in the city is also the most haunted.

Haunted Research

The Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel is both the city’s oldest church and, if paranormal experts are to be believed, one of the most haunted locations in Old Montreal. Also known as the Sailor’s Church, this quaint stone structure is topped with three statues including the magnificent Lady of the Harbour, flanked by two Angels of the Apocalypse.

The church is shrouded in mystery. Not only are there the bodies of several nuns buried in the crypt, but it is also the location of Saint Marguerite Bourgeoy’s sacred remains, a miraculous statue, and a possibly haunted 1848 painting called “Le Typhus” by Theophile Hamel that depicts the gruesome impact of the Irish Famine on the city.

There are also several reports from tourists at having photographed either a man in a tuxedo or a priest from the outside of the church’s stained-glass windows. Some believe the ghost captured on film is none other than Famine priest M. Gottefrey, who suffered a terrible injury in the church hours before dying in the summer of 1847 while caring for Irish refugees.

To understand the significance of the church, it is important to look at some history. The island of Tio’tia:ke is part of the traditional territory of the Kanienʼkehá꞉ka or Mohawk First Nation. As part of European colonization, a French Catholic organization called “The Notre Dame Society of Montreal for the Conversion of the Savage Peoples of New France” established a colony called Ville-Marie on the island in 1642 when the Mohawk people were in their southern territory.

It wasn’t long before an all-out war broke between the French colonists and the Kanienʼkehá꞉ka First Nation, which lasted until 1701.

In 1652, colony leader Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, visited his sister in France and invited her colleague, Marguerite Bourgeoys, to join the colony as its first teacher.

According to Bourgeoys:

“One morning, when I was fully awake, a tall woman dressed in a robe as of white serge, said to me clearly: “Go, I will never forsake you.” And I knew that it was the Blessed Virgin, although I did not see her face.”

Being a devout Catholic, she decided to join the colony where she was tasked with educating French children and “converting” Indigenous children to Catholicism. While today her “education” might well be considered cultural genocide against Indigenous people, in the mid-1600s, Catholic doctrine was almost ubiquitous in France and adherents believed that all non-Catholics were heathens in need of conversion.

It was a dangerous time for colonists to leave the palisaded settlement as the Kanienʼkehá꞉ka First Nation wanted their territory back and were willing to fight for it.

It was during this war that Marguerite Bourgeoys had the idea for the church.

In 1655, she rallied the colonists to build a chapel as a site of pilgrimage outside of the colony’s palisade, despite the danger. Before long, enough stones and materials had been collected to lay the foundation. However, in 1657, due to a change in ecclesial jurisdiction in the colony, the new Sulpician leaders suspended construction work for several years.

When the “The Notre Dame Society of Montreal for the Conversion of the Savage Peoples of New France” gifted her a stable to be used as a schoolhouse, Marguerite Bourgeoys kept herself busy with indoctrinating her students with Catholic ideology while also teaching them skills deemed useful for the colony.

In in 1658, she founded the Congrégation de Notre Dame, a religious community for women that was not cloistered and which spent a considerable amount of time with “education”. They instructed not only the colony’s children and Les Filles du Roy (orphaned girls sent by the King of France to “populate the colony”), but also various Indigenous people, especially children.

The Congregation was directly associated with “The Notre Dame Society of Montreal for the Conversion of the Savage Peoples of New France”. The overall and feverish goal was to colonize and actively “civilize” the Indigenous people who had lived there for thousands of years by converting them to Catholicism. These religious zealots believed that they were “saviours”, and mainstream history has largely recorded them in this manner to the present day.

In 1676, with the help of the new Order of Sulpicians, Bourgeoys established a small school for Indigenous girls in a village located at the base of the mountain, known as the Mountain Mission.

It’s effectiveness in evangelizing the students was seen as successful by the French. As a result, funding was granted to further her “educational” projects.

Marguerite Bourgeoys died in 1700, leaving a legacy of practical and religious “education” for French colonists – and cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples.

Following her death, the mission she founded moved from its location on the mountain to join with the Sulpicians at the Sault-au-Recollet.

For 20 years, the religious authorities continued their efforts to evangelize the children of the Nipissing, Kanienkehà:ka and Algonquin First Nations.

The mission would then move to Oka, in the area where Kanestetake exists today.

In 1678, the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel was finally completed after numerous setbacks. A statuette that Marguerite Burgeoys had acquired in France of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was placed in the church as a religious relic.

The chapel would continue to serve the community until a fire broke out in 1754, reducing it to a smoldering ruin.

The colonists claimed a miracle when the statuette acquired by Marguerite Bourgeoys was discovered in the ashes unscathed inside its reliquary.

Just six years later, the city capitulated to British forces, who saw the site of the ruins as an ideal location to construct a barracks. The Sulpician priests intervened and persuaded British authorities that the chapel be rebuilt instead.

In 1771, a new church in the Norman-Gothic style was erected on the foundations of the old ruins and the “miraculous” reliquary and statuette were placed above the entrance on St. Paul Street. With the British in charge of new immigrants arriving from the United Kingdom, Irish and Scots Catholics soon began attending religious services in the church.

In 1831, the little statuette went missing and was presumed stolen along with its jewel-encrusted reliquary. In 1844, the statuette was discovered in one of the attics of the Mother House of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame.

Its reliquary was found in a dusty corner of the chapel 50 years later. It was only in 1988 that the statue was permanently returned to the chapel, now encased in a protective glass.

As the numbers of Irish immigrants rose dramatically, Sulpician authorities decided to build the new Saint Patrick’s Church, inaugurated in 1847. This was the same year that the Irish Famine devastated Montreal. Both Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel and Saint Patrick’s Church were instrumental in providing assistance of over 75,000 typhus-stricken Irish refugees. The shocking details can be read at the Haunted Montreal Blog about the Black Rock (issue 35).

Tragedy occurred on July 11, 1847, when a priest named M. Gottefrey had a terrible accident after tending to the Irish refugees in the fever sheds. According to the Annals of the Grey Nuns:

“On the 11th , M. GOTTEFREY, having to exercise his ministry at the convent, arrived in the evening, probably after returning from the SHEDS. A few of our sisters met him, he told them with his vivacious and joyous humour: “Courage, my dear sisters, the sufferings are short, but the reward is eternal.” In wishing goodnight to the superior whom he found very anxious and preoccupied with her patients, he said to her: “Take care to not kill yourself.” It was 6:30 in the evening. He directed himself towards the Church of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours to be given the Holy Sacrament which he wished to receive as the last rites. Reaching the third floor of the sacristy and wishing to open the door giving passage to a gallery, he forgot, perhaps, or he did not know most probably that we had got rid of this gallery, and since he had made a great effort to open this door which we had taken care to nail shut sufficiently, he rushed into a drop of more than THIRTY feet high. We transported him to the Hotel-Dieu, where it was not long before he expired and went to receive, the palm of the good servants always ready to immolate themselves in the service of the divine Master.”

At the time, Bishop Bourget contracted typhus during the course of his duties and was nearing death. He prayed to the Virgin Mary for a divine intervention to save his life.

He promised that, if spared, he would restore the church as a pilgrimage site, create a new statue to adorn the church and commission a votive painting about the Church’s role during the Famine.

When the bishop survived the epidemic disease, he made good on his promises and commissioned Theophyle Hamel to paint “Le Typhus”, which was installed on the ceiling above the main entrance to the chapel, where it can still be seen today. It depicts the bishop and three orders of nuns tending to the typhus-stricken Irish famine refugees.

At least one American tourist believes the painting is haunted. Indeed, in late 2019, when looking up at the painting she witnessed something incredible. The tourist stated: “In the painting, the typhus victim of the dead man with the child clinging to him suddenly opened his eyes and stared directly at me! I was shocked! I grabbed my phone to snap a photo, but when I looked up his eyes were closed again. And no, I wasn’t taking advantage of Canada’s new legal marijuana laws, if that’s what you are thinking.”

Many tourists have reported paranormal activity within the church and its vicinity. On July 2, 2014, another visitor attending a ghost tour took some strange photos of the church and later wrote:

“While the tour guide was showing us around, I decided to capture moments and took pictures of the buildings and churches. One of the pictures was the Notre Dame De Bon Secours’s windows on the side of the building. I’ve shown the picture to my friends and we were wondering if one of the stained glass on the side of the building had an image of a man. I have attached here the photo and if you zoom in the 2nd window, you will see a man wearing a black tuxedo looking right back at the shooter. We just want to confirm if there really is an image of a man on the window.”

One paranormal expert believes the image is none other than the ghost of M. Gottefrey and that far from wearing a tuxedo, it is his ripped collar in the image, caused by his terrible plunge into the pews.

Another point of interest is the chapel’s maritime connection. It is also known as the “Sailor’s Church” because God-fearing seafarers would pray for safe crossings, trans-Atlantic or otherwise. Another of Bourget’s promises was to install a statue of the Virgin Mary, and in 1848 Charles Dauphin’s “Star of the Sea” was. This inspired a larger statue of The Lady of the Harbour on the rooftop in 1892. She faces the port, flanked by two Angels of the Apocalypse holding trumpets.

There is a fascinating Montreal legend about an apocalyptic and paranormal day when The Lady of the Harbour turned her back on the port, resulting in some serious tragedy. The story can be found in the Haunted Montreal Blog about the Phantom Calèche (issue 37).

Several miniature ex voto ships also hang from the chapel’s ceiling, gifts from thankful seafarers over the years.

Marguerite Bourgeoys became Canada’s first female Saint when she was Canonized on October 31, 1982. The Hallowe’en ceremony at Vatican City was presided by Pope John Paul II.

On the 350th anniversary of Marguerite Bourgeoys’ arrival in Montreal in 2003, celebrations marked the occasion. Two years later, the remains of Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys were placed in the left altar, below the statue of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours. A few weeks after that, the remains of devout recluse Jeanne Le Ber were inserted into the east lateral wall of the chapel.

Le Ber is one of the city’s most devout personalities from the “New France” era. On June 24, 1685, then 18-year-old Le Ber took a simple vow of perpetual seclusion, chastity, and poverty.

Once a recluse, she spent long periods of time below a church altar when not self-flagellating, sewing or praying – right up until her death in 1714. Given her bizarre life of eternal seclusion and repentance, some paranormal experts believe that she too has returned as a spirit.

Today, visitors to the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel can enjoy exploring the church in quietude and examining the exceptional relics, architecture and artworks. It costs nothing to enter.

For a fee, guests can explore the Margueritge Bourgeoys Museum to learn more of the history, climb up to the steeple for a panoramic view, and visit the creepy subterranean crypt.

According to archaeologists, the bodies of several nuns lied buried beneath the crypt. Apparently, they were victims of an epidemic during the New France era and were buried below the first church. There is speculation that they too may haunt the chapel.

With all of the chapel’s storied history, statues, artworks, relics and various human remains, it’s no wonder that Montreal’s oldest church, Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, is also reputed to be its most haunted!

Company News

Haunted Montreal is now in winter mode! For this first time ever, we will be operating year-round with our award-winning Haunted Pub Crawl, every Sunday afternoon.

Private tours are also available for Haunted Griffintown, Haunted Downtown, the Haunted Pub Crawl and our new Paranormal Investigation into the old Saint-Antoine Cemetery, weather-permitting for outside tours.

The Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk is not offered in the winter due to dangerous and icy conditions on the slopes.

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl or paranormal investigation during the 2019 – 2020 season!

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to spread the word and 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 March 13: Réseau Express Métropolitain’s Ghostly Gamble (Part 2)

The Réseau Express Métropolitain recently extracted over a dozen skeletons from the Black Rock Famine cemetery. Many of them were children who had succumbed to typhus. Tragically, they were buried in mass graves after crossing the Atlantic Ocean on “coffin ships”. The REM’s rationale for the exhumation was to install a concrete pylon for its upcoming $6.3 billion electric train network. This act prompted fears that ghosts of the Irish Famine Dead could easily haunt the system. Artists have already begun creating visuals depicting a paranormal station atop the pylon that serves as a disturbing connection between the living and the dead. Part 1 of the blog speculated about some of the ghosts who might infest the REM network. Part 2 offers Haunted Montreal’s innovative and inexpensive solution to try and protect the $6.3 billion electric train system from becoming haunted by Irish Famine ghosts and spirits.

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.

With over 350 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!

Haunted Montreal is now in winter mode and is not offering a season of outdoor public tours until the spring. The good news is that we are pleased to announce that the Haunted Montreal Pub Crawl runs year round on Sunday afternoons. We are also looking for an indoor haunted location for our new Paranormal Investigation. Lastly, our ghost walks can still be booked for private groups, including Haunted Griffintown and Haunted Downtown. Haunted Mountain is not available due to dangerous icy conditions on Otsirà:ke / Mount Royal until it melts in May.

Our January blog examines the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) and asks whether it will become haunted due to an Irish Famine cemetery disturbance. The REM is a new automated light rail network under construction in the greater Montreal area. At a cost of $6.3 billion, it will include 26 stations and span the region.

In November, workers digging a hole for a pylon near the Victoria Bridge discovered the bones of over a dozen Irish Famine victims from 1847 at the site of the Black Rock. Given these Irish refugees were fleeing westward, it is entirely possible their disturbed spirits will come back to haunt the new electric train network.

Haunted Research

On June 12, 2019, Montreal’s Irish community gathered for a ceremony to bless the hallowed land at the Black Rock Famine cemetery, where an estimated 6000 ancestors of Montreal’s Irish community lied buried. The purpose of the ceremony was to bless the burial ground’s soil due to concerns about potential disturbances during the construction of the REM (Réseau express métropolitain).

It must be noted that the REM did not offer solid collaboration with the local Irish community. They only consulted two members (out of four) of the Irish Monument Park Foundation’s Board of Directors. Furthermore, the Irish Monument Park Foundation had a history of lack of governance and failed leadership. Fergus V. Keyes and Victor Boyle made a decision to green-light the desecration of the Famine Cemetery without even consulting the Board of Directors.

The REM’s engineers and architects took a gamble when they decided to plant a monorail pylon into the vicinity of the sacred Irish burial ground, which is the largest Famine cemetery in the world outside of Ireland. Because moving the train line away from the cemetery was deemed unfeasible, the gamble involved potentially disturbing Montreal’s Irish Famine Dead.

The tragic tale as to how this cemetery came into being is a result of brutal British colonialism, famine and some even say genocide against the Irish in the U.K.’s very first colony. The burial ground was hastily prepared during the typhus epidemic of 1847 and the dead were trenched anonymously.

After workers discovered the human remains of their ancestors while building the Victoria Bridge in 1859, they installed The Black Rock atop the Montreal Famine cemetery. The purpose of marking the cemetery was to protect it from desecration. For the full and terrible backstory about Black 47’s impact on Montreal, please read Haunted Montreal Blog #35 – The Black Rock.

As the REM workers went about their construction tasks, in December word broke that their pylon project had essentially pierced the cemetery. While the REM claimed that excavation was being done with extreme care and sensitivity, the fact remained that over a dozen of Montreal’s Irish ancestors were being dug up from the graveyard.

Generally-speaking, the Dead do not like to be disturbed, especially when their funerary marker, the ominous Black Rock, is engraved with the following words:

“To Preserve from Desecration the Remains of 6000 Immigrants Who died of Ship Fever A.D. 1847- 48.”

Not wanting the Famine Dead to come back to haunt the city, on December 9, I organized a hasty ceremony to offer a minute of silence to Montreal’s Irish ancestors. Their anonymous remains were being exhumed from their final resting place by careful and meticulous archaeologists in a tube-like machine.

I wanted Montreal’s Irish ancestors to know that we love them and that they are in our thoughts and prayers as they begin a second terrible journey, this time to a laboratory. When we get the remains back, there are plans to re-inter them as respectfully as possible given the circumstances.

To further complicate matters, Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante announced in November, 2019, that she wanted to co-brand Griffintown’s REM station after a divisive and controversial politician.

This sparked an outcry from the Montreal Irish community, which turned especially bitter when the Irish asked her to back off to mourn the ancestors being excavated – and instead she doubled down against the Irish community!

As an Ambassador of the City, Tour Operator and Montreal Destination Specialist, I sent her an Open Letter with dozens of media links about the scandal. Mayor Plante has not responded yet.

Haunted Montreal is asking our readers to politely ask Mayor Plante to rescind the unfortunate proposal by contacting her through her webpage. Please personalize your message and write from the heart.

Please also sign the petition here.

Despite my best efforts to assuage the Irish Famine Dead, there is no guarantee that their ghosts will not go on to haunt the $6.3 billion dollar REM network.

Indeed, I would say the likelihood is actually quite high that some of these spirits might choose to return to haunt the electric train network.

I imagine an REM commuter, sipping a Starbucks Café Latté while reading a newspaper, suddenly spewing their frothy java across the carriage as it pulls into Beaconsfield station!  The appearance of a ghostly Famine refugee wearing tattered rags over a skeletal frame could easily trigger such a reaction!

There are many reasons to believe the REM could be already haunted upon its scheduled opening dates, in various stages from 2021 to 2023.

Firstly, I personally believe the western portion of the REM is going to be the most haunted part of the network should the ghosts decide to infest it. It is important to remember that these Irish refugees were involved in a westward migration to escape the British colonization, which was exacerbated by the Famine.

Many of the Irish refugees hoped to reach the United States of America, far away from the clutches of the British Crown and its dreaded colonization enforced by heavy-handed Redcoats.

Secondly, the death toll in Montreal was staggering. By the end of the epidemic in 1848, an estimated 6,000 Irish typhus victims had been “trenched” in the mass graves located next to the fever sheds in Pointe Saint-Charles.

To further the tragedy, almost 1000 Montreal residents also died of typhus, including at least eight Catholic priests, thirteen nuns, and seven Anglican clergymen. Lastly, the devoted mayor, John Easton Mills, also succumbed to typhus on November 12, 1847.

Mills had personally tended to the sick in the fever sheds and his fearless compassion earned him the sobriquet “Martyr Mayor of Montreal”.

Certainly the city’s former mayor, who is already reputed to haunt the site of Montreal’s first famine cemetery on the Lachine Canal, would be interested in a public works project like the REM. Could the ghost of our heroic mayor, John Easton Mills, be spotted riding on the system?

Another ghost who might ride the REM’s rails could be that of Catholic priest M. Gottefrey, who perished in the course of his duties assisting the Irish typhus-victims. Having contracted the deadly disease, he made a serious and deadly miscalculation while trying to receive his last rites.

The Annals of the Grey Nuns reports that on July 11th, 1847:

“M. GOTTEFREY, having to exercise his ministry at the convent, arrived in the evening, probably after returning from the SHEDS. A few of our sisters met him, he told them with his vivacious and joyous humour: “Courage, my dear sisters, the sufferings are short, but the reward is eternal.” In wishing goodnight to the superior whom he found very anxious and preoccupied with her patients, he said to her: “Take care to not kill yourself.” It was 6:30 in the evening. He directed himself towards the Church of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours to be given the Holy Sacrament which he wished to receive as the last rites.”

“Reaching the third floor of the sacristy and wishing to open the door giving passage to a gallery, he forgot, perhaps, or he did not know most probably that we had got rid of this gallery, and since he had made a great effort to open this door which we had taken care to nail shut sufficiently, he rushed into a drop of more than THIRTY feet high. We transported him to the Hotel-Dieu, where it was not long before he expired.” (pages 37-38)

According to paranormal experts, M. Gottefrey’s ghost already haunts Notre-Dame de Bonsecours Church, along with other spirits. Tourists have captured images in the stained glass windows that could very well be the good Father.

Given his tragic accident and death, some paranormal experts believe that he never crossed to the other side. Will the spirit of M. Gottefrey haunt the REM?

There is also the chance an anonymous, skeletally-thin Irish girl might appear. Clutching a tin cup and wearing a tattered nightgown, the poor girl might even ask the REM clients for some coins.

This emaciated young Irish girl was first spotted in late July, 1847. Montreal’s citizens began to panic when they spotted her begging on the corner of Notre Dame and McGill Streets. Clearly stricken with typhus and its accompanying dusky hue of the skin, she was “clad only in a nightgown and with a tin cup in her hand while a policeman was keeping the street clear of all pedestrians until means could be found to convey her back to the quarantine sheds.”

In his dissertation thesis, Ports of Recall: Memory of the Great Irish Famine in Liverpool and Montreal, Colin McMahon writes:

“For John Loye, [former] President of the United Irish Societies, the discovery of remains at the memorial site [in 1942] jogged memories of stories told to him by his grandmother, Margaret Dowling, who was a young witness to the arrival of Irish Famine refugees in Montreal. Loye recalled her describing the pitiful scene at the corner of Notre Dame and McGill streets.” (page 188)

Lastly, there are many reports and theories about some of the Irish refugees being buried alive. In the same thesis, McMahon observes:

“An even more unsettling anecdote survived the century to surface in 1942—told by a Mrs. Bergen to her friend Margaret Dowling, who then passed it down to her grandson, who finally relayed it to the Montreal Gazette. Stricken with typhus in 1847, Bergen “was believed dead and put in a coffin which was lowered in to the pit. Her husband, a quarantine subject rushed among the coffins and saw her skirt protruding through the lid of the coffin. He opened it to find she was still breathing.” Such stories reportedly “gave rise to the belief that many of the victims were buried alive as the Government wished to dispose of them to make room for fresh cases.” (page 188)

Those who were indeed buried alive are also likely candidates to haunt the REM, as are the Dead who were trenched anonymously in the middle of the night with no proper funeral.

Like jabbing a stake through the heart of a vampire, the REM’s pylon mimics this effect on an industrial scale, albeit through the heart of Montreal’s sacred Irish Famine cemetery at the Black Rock.

Who is to the say the Dead won’t feel invited to join commuters on futures rides of the REM heading westbound? In planting the pylon through the middle of the cemetery, one can say that Black Rock Station will be the only paranormal platform on the REM network that is used exclusively by the Dead.

Company News

Haunted Montreal is now into winter mode! For this first time ever, we will be operating year-round with our award-winning Haunted Pub Crawl, every Sunday at 3 pm in English and 4 pm in French.

Private tours are also available for Haunted Griffintown, Haunted Downtown, the Haunted Pub Crawl and our new Paranormal Investigation into the old Saint-Antoine Cemetery, weather-permitting for outside tours.

The Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk is not offered in the winter due to dangerous and icy conditions on the slopes.

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl or paranormal investigation during the 2019 – 2020 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 February 13: Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel

The oldest church in Montreal, the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel, is one of the most haunted locations in Old Montreal. Not only are there the bodies of several nuns buried in the crypt, but it is also the location of Saint Marguerite Bourgeoy’s sacred corpse, a miraculous statue, and a famous 1848 painting called “Le Typhus” by Theophile Hamel. There are also several reports from tourists at having photographed either a man in a tuxedo or a priest from the outside of the church’s stained-glass windows. Some believe the ghost captured on film is none other than Famine priest M. Gottefrey, who suffered a terrible injury in the church hours before dying in the summer of 1847 while caring for Irish refugees.

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.

With over 300 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! 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 Hallowe’en season behind us, Haunted Montreal is moving into winter mode. We are pleased to announce that the Haunted Montreal Pub Crawl runs year round on Sunday afternoons. We are also looking for an indoor haunted location for our new Paranormal Investigation.

Lastly, our ghost walks can still be booked for private groups, including Haunted Mountain, Haunted Griffintown and Haunted Downtown, weather conditions permitting.

Our November blog examines the Lachine Canal, one of Canada’s most haunted waterways. Today the site of a linear greenspace run by Parks Canada, the canal has witnessed hundreds of drownings, especially during the era of Industrialization. It is also littered with many old factories and silos, some repurposed into condominiums, several of which are reputed to be haunted. Ghostly ships are known to ply the canal and various spirits are known to wander the banks. 

Haunted Research

The Lachine Canal is widely considered to be one of Montreal’s most haunted places. During the day, its banks are bustling with cyclists, dog-walkers, people having picnics and sunbathers, but at night it is a different story. The polluted waterway is a dark, eerie and desolate place reeking of the paranormal.

Since the canal officially opened in 1825, hundreds of people have drowned in its dark waters. These included suicides, murder victims, people who drowned while swimming and those who died during industrial accidents. The polluted banks are also peppered with old buildings, many being repurposed into condominiums, that are reputed to be haunted. Last but not least, not only are ghost ships known to ply the canal’s waters, but there are also an unknown number of bodies buried along its length. Mostly victims of the Irish Famine of 1847, these forgotten corpses of desperate refugees result in all sorts of ghosts and paranormal activity along the canal.

Historically, a portage trail existed along roughly the same trajectory of today’s canal.

Today’s Island of Montreal / Tiohtià:ke was formed approximately 10,000 years ago when an ancient sea drained away with the melting of glaciers. Geographically, the archipelago is an ideal location for trade, with 12 rivers pouring into the area. Furthermore, anyone coming into the area was forced to stop and portage canoes, given that the islands are surrounded by dangerous rapids.

As such, the ancestors of today’s Kanienʼkehá꞉ka or Mohawk First Nation established Hotsirà:ken, a city of around 5,000 people, which thrived on the island.

According to Dr. Michael Doxtater, a Mohawk Elder and specialist in Indigenous oral knowledge:

“Hotsirà:ken is an ancient ancestral place, an Indigenous place. The island was what I would call a metropolitan trade centre. The Algonquin people would come down the Ottawa River, [people] would come down from the Innu territories up the St. Lawrence and then there would be the various Iroquois linguistic groups that would converge and that was a major, major trade centre.”

The portage trail where the Lachine Canal is located today followed a small river that led to a shallow lake. Before the arrival of the French colonists, the banks of the lake were cultivated by the ancestors of today’s Kanienʼkehá꞉ka or Mohawk First Nation.

The French would later name the small river “St. Pierre” and the shallow lake “Lac aux Loutres” or “Lac à la Loutre”, which means “Otter Lake” in English.

There are several theories about the origin of the name of the lake. The otter can be likened to the beaver in French. Some say the name comes from the fact that the lake was home to a large beaver population in the 16th century. According to another story, the indigenous people who cultivated the surrounding lands gave the lake this name because of its shape. It was also said that Otter Lake symbolized the baby beaver that slept in the womb of the beaver mother, namely Tiohtià:ke or today’s Montreal island.

Starting in 1534, colonization problems began to occur on Tiohtià:ke. French explorer Jacques Cartier, on a voyage of exploration, attempted to claim the entire Indigenous territory of Turtle Island (today’s North America) for the French King, Francois I.

On July 24, 1534, Jacques Cartier planted a cross in today’s Gaspé region, a Catholic symbol that the King of France was trying to claim the territory as his own through a now-discredited Catholic doctrine called Terra Nullius.

The following year, Jacques Cartier arrived in Tiohtià:ke on October 2. He could not pass the islands due to the dangerous rapids that surrounded them. He was welcomed with great hospitality by the Mohawk villagers and leader of Hotsirà:ken. The Kanienʼkehá꞉ka hosts offered a feast of food and even provided Indigenous tour guides to Jacques Cartier so he could scale the great mountain Otsirà:ke to survey the western area beyond the rapids. It is noteworthy that Cartier promptly tried to rename Otsirà:ke as “Mount Royal” in honor of his patron.

He also mis-spelled Hotsirà:ken as “Hochelaga” in his journals.

The following day, Jacques Cartier turned his ships around and sailed back eastward up the river. Cartier’s visit would foreshadow the horrors that were about to be brought on by French colonization.

When the French began to colonize, they started in the east with settlements including Tadoussac (1599), Port Royale (1605), Quebec City (1608) and Trois-Rivières (1634).

Tiohtià:ke was seen as off-limits because it was a well-known part of the Mohawk territory and the Mohawk warriors were seen as among the fiercest in the land.

They were also part of a Confederacy of five nations known as the Haudenosaunee, which consisted of the Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga and Mohawk First Nations.

With French colonization came deadly epidemics such as smallpox that had never been encountered before by Indigenous people. The French also began forming military alliances with other First Nations who were not on friendly terms with the Haudenosaunee. With intermittent warfare and wave after wave of smallpox, the residents of Hotsirà:ken moved further south into Mohawk territory to try and avoid the diseases and warfare and to strategize.

Meanwhile, in Paris in 1639, Catholic zealots Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière, Jean-Jacques Olier and Pierre Chevrier founded the Société de Notre-Dame de Montréal pour la conversion des Sauvages de la Nouvelle-France (The Society of Notre-Dame de Montréal for the Conversion of the Savages of New France). Le Royer claimed that God had visited him during a dream and instructed him to do so.

The religious organization founded the colony of Ville-Marie on Tiohtià:ke in1642, sparking an all-out and brutal war between the French and their allies and the Haudenosaunee, which lasted until 1701.

Today’s canal is situated on land originally “granted” by the King of France to the Sulpician Order. Beginning in 1689, attempts were made by the French Colonial government and several other groups to build a canal that would allow ships to bypass the treacherous rapids. Sulpicians François de Salignac Fénelon and Dollier de Casson spearheaded the first plans to dig the canal.

The need for of a canal to bypass the rapids was a major concern since the beginning of European colonization. In 1680, the Sulpicians had planned to build a canal between Ville-Marie and the village of Lachine to connect the various watercourses in the region.

The word “Lachine” derives from French “la Chine” (China), and was named in 1667, apparently in mockery of its then owner Robert Cavelier de La Salle. He was known to explore the interior of the continent in an effort to find a passage to Asia. When he returned without success, he and his men were derisively named “les Chinois” (the Chinese). The name was adopted when the parish of Saints-Anges-de-la-Chine was created in 1678, with the name Lachine appearing on subsequent maps for both the rapids and the village.

The canal, which would have been the first in North America, was never completed due to a lack of funding, although several large sections were dug starting in 1689.

Following the British Conquest of 1760, there was a renewed interest in digging the canal. In 1821, a budget was prepared and 200 Irish navies from Griffintown were hired to dig the project. 

After four years later of back-breaking labour, the canal was completed and opened to shipping traffic.

It wasn’t long before the canal needed to be deepened to allow heavier ships to pass through and to harness hydraulic power for the industries located on its banks. Work began in 1843, but trouble started immediately when construction work was privatized and worker’s received a wage cut of a shilling a day, almost 30% of their salary! This sparked the first strike in Canadian history, as workers stopped digging and demanded a wage increase, at both the Lachine and Beauhornois canals. 

At Beauhornois, authorities were alarmed and 50 soldiers from the 74th Regiment, under Major Campbell, were brought in. Magistrate Laviolette read the Riot Act, and when the workers refused to disperse, he yelled out: “Major Campbell, fire!” The soldiers raised their muskets and fired into the crowd of navies, causing a scene of panic. At least 6 workers were killed by bullets, 4 of them shot in the back as they fled. 

A priest on the scene named Father Falvey cursed the magistrate, calling him a coward and murderer. However, an inquiry later cleared the government, declaring it to be a case of “justifiable homicide”. It was a dark moment in the canal system’s history.

By 1850, factories were springing along the canal’s banks. With the enlargement of the Lachine Canal and its plentiful hydraulic power, huge foundries, factories, and metal works were built, their smokestacks spewing out noxious, black clouds. Giant ships would frequently dock to load and unload cargo and the area was soon known as the Canada’s cradle of industrialization.  

Residents of working-class neighborhoods like Griffintown were put to work in the factories, often for 14 hours per day, 6 days a week, in grueling conditions. Women and children, some as young as 6 years old, earned a lot less than a man for the exact same job. 

With no environmental standards in place, the Lachine Canal and its banks were soon heavily polluted with dangerous chemicals and metals such as chromium, lead, zinc, copper and mercury. 

This continued until around the 1950s, when the expansion of the port and opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959, on the other side of the river, made the Lachine Canal obsolete.

The factories began closing up shop and over 20,000 people were put out of work. The neighborhood began dying as people moved away in search of better prospects. 

The canal was neglected, and at one point, the entrance was used as a dump for debris from the Expo 67′ Metro construction, closing it to shipping. Eventually it was re-excavated and Parks Canada took over in 2002, transforming the canal into a linear park with a bike path.

As for the pollution, they decided to simply not disturb the contaminated sediments at the bottom of the canal. The pollution is still down there, a twisted reminder of the canal’s deranged history.

Today, the canal has ghosts and hauntings all along its 14.5 km trajectory, both in the dark waters and along the shoreline, including in many of the old buildings.

Starting in the water itself, there are reports of ghost ships plying the waterway and the spirits of the dozens of people who drowned in the canal. Coolopolis author Kristian Gravenor researched some of these drownings in his blog:

“The waters have not spared children or elderly women, as people of all types breathed their last breaths before their bodies were fished out in macabre scenes all too familiar to city-dwellers. Many were suicides, others murder victims and many others were people who just drowned after swimming or slipping in fully-clothed.”  

Former Griffintown resident Denis Delaney described children swimming in the canal and drowning when boats suddenly shifted against the banks, forcing the doomed kids under the water.

Gravenor describes the Lachine Canal as a “watery graveyard” and “Montreal’s spookiest place.” The spirits of the drowned can sometimes be heard in the waters and manifest themselves as unusual splashes, waters thrashing about for no reason and gurgling noises emanating from the depths of the canal.

There were also countless industrial accidents along the Lachine Canal, which resulted in hauntings.

For example, the spirit of a nervous young boy wearing a black suit has been spotted on several occasions on the Swing Bridge. He appears to be running across the length of the bridge before leaping and disappearing into thin air.

There is a theory as to who this ghost might be. At around 9 pm on the evening of Tuesday, September 17, 1908, a little boy was attempting to cross the Lachine Canal from the south side by using the Swing Bridge. He was wearing a black suit with knee-high pants. The bridge was designed to swing 90 degrees to allow canal boats through, meaning cars and pedestrians had to wait for a ship to pass before the bridge swung back into place.

When the boy arrived on the south side, the bridge began to swing to allow a boat to pass. He jumped on the bridge to catch a ride across the canal. The bridge-keeper didn’t notice, as many pedestrians in a hurry would jump on the bridge as it swung. They had to wait in the middle as a ship passed. Once the ship was through, the bridge began swinging back into its regular position, connecting both sides of Wellington Street.

Unfortunately, the boy attempted to jump off on the Griffintown side before the bridge had swung fully into place and instead of landing on the street, he fell between the abutment and the bridge. He was crushed before the bridge-keeper could cut the electricity to the structure. 

When the bridge-keeper realized what had happened, he swung the bridge back out again and people pulled up the mangled body of a teenage boy with brown hair of about 13 years old. In his suit pocket was a Montreal Swimming Club Card bearing the named Arthur Carr. An ambulance brought him to the General Hospital but the surgeon on duty noted that the boy was killed instantly when crushed by the Wellington Swing Bridge. The boy was placed in the morgue, but nobody claimed his body. Instead, it was sent to Anatomy.

The most prominent theory about the haunting is that young Arthur Carr’s ghost remained after the tragic accident that killed him. He was probably in a hurry to get home to the Griff after attending some sort of church function on the other side in Point Saint Charles, which may be why he was so well-dressed. Sometimes when a person is killed suddenly, their ghost returns but is not aware that they are actually dead. There is speculation that the ghost of the boy appears because he is still trying to return to his family home in the Griff after all these years.

Running below the rusting Swing Bridge is the decrepit and abandoned Wellington Tunnel, another haunted site. Desolate and foreboding, crumbling and graffiti-scrawled, the tunnel is strewn with garbage and its hidden entrance is sealed off with concrete blocks and prison-like iron bars. The place feels extremely creepy and dangerous and is known to house several ghosts, including one of a man carrying a bucket of blood. It was covered in the #7 Haunted Montreal Blog.

As for the buildings, one of the most famous hauntings occurred in the Redpath Sugar Refinery when it was abandoned and used as shelter by homeless people. According to the Narcity Blog:

“The bike path that runs along it passes several haunted buildings, like the former Redpath factory, for example. A spirit would wander with the mission of dislodging the homeless people squatting the place by chilling the air and releasing an abominable stench.”

Today, the Redpath is the site of luxury condominiums and it is unknown if these paranormal activities continue for the more affluent residents who live there now.

Other buildings that are reputed to be haunted include Silo #5, the Belding Paul & Co. Limited Buildings, the Old Malt Factory and the Fur Trade Museum in Lachine.

Going further back in time, the Lachine Canal was also hard hit by the Irish Famine of 1847, resulting in many more ghosts and paranormal activities. One of these includes a regiment of ghostly British Redcoats, who have been spotted marching along the banks in military unison with bayonets in the air.

In the summer of 1847, Montreal was a city of 50,000 people. Due to the famine exacerbated by British colonial inaction, Montreal was completely overwhelmed by 75,000 Irish refugees, most of whom made the crossing on “coffin ships”. Many were suffering from starvation and typhus, a highly contagious disease.

Due to a shortage of canal boats, many of the refugees chose to walk the canal path to Lachine. According to reports, many of them died on the banks of the canal and were buried on the spot in unmarked graves.

Despite aid from various religious institutions and Mayor John Easton Mills himself, the death toll that year was staggering: in addition to the 6,000 Irish victims, almost 1000 Montreal residents, at least 8 Catholic priests, thirteen nuns, and seven Anglican clergymen also perished from typhus.

In early November, the Mayor dropped out of sight and citizens began to wonder what had happened to him. It turns out that Mayor Mills contracted typhus himself during his duties. According to his doctor, he never issued a word of complaint about the pain or his misfortune. He died on November 12, at the young age of 54. An elaborate funeral was held and he was declared “Montreal’s Martyr Mayor” for his heroic efforts.

His ghost is known to wander the site of Montreal’s first fever sheds, at the Wellington Basin on the south side of the canal, late at night. It is as though he is still caring for his charges in a paranormal afterlife.

Thousands of orbs have also been photographed at this site, sometimes floating about in the air. One local resident went into a trance and the orbs appeared to him.

He felt as though the dead were wailing, perhaps a likely paranormal occurrence given that the site also contains the first Irish Famine cemetery, which is presently not marked in any way.

The full horrors of the impact of the Irish Famine are covered in the #35 Haunted Montreal Blog.

In conclusion, the Lachine Canal is indeed a very haunted waterway. Wandering its eerie banks at night is a spooky experience, one not recommended for the faint of heart. It’s advisable to go in pairs or a group, because you never know what might be luring in the dark waters, the old factories or the haunted shoreline of the Lachine Canal!

Company News

Haunted Montreal is has concluded the Hallowe’en Season and is moving into winter mode! For this first time ever, we will be operating year-round with our award-winning Haunted Pub Crawl, every Sunday at 3 pm in English and 4 pm in French.

Private tours are also available, weather permitting, for Haunted Mountain, Haunted Griffintown, Haunted Downtown, the Haunted Pub Crawl and our new Paranormal Investigation into the old Saint-Antoine Cemetery.

Haunted Montreal has also launched our first promotional video ever! Please share it if you like it!

We are also proud to announce that I, Donovan King, have been accredited as a “Montreal Destination Specialist” by Tourisme Montréal. I will use these skills to improve our tours and to continue to develop new experiences as we put Montreal on the map as Canada’s most haunted destination.

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl or paranormal investigation during the 2019 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 December 13: Hôpital de la Miséricorde

The former Hôpital de la Miséricorde is just one of many now-vacant hospital complexes in Montreal, in the wake of decisions to centralize hospital services. During its sordid past, thousands of orphans were falsely diagnosed with mental illnesses and single mothers were housed in hostile conditions within the walls of the former “Hospital of Mercy”. Today, the building is abandoned by the living – but certainly not by the dead! Considered a paranormal hotspot by experts, there are many stories of disembodied children’s voices crying, sounds of clanging, strapping and other abuse, not to mention the appartitions of angry nuns and a fearful young mother.

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.

HAUNTED RESEARCH

The Black Rock, or Irish Stone, holds an important place in the heart of Montreal’s Irish community. Sometimes a city can be haunted by an event so tragic that it leaves dark, indelible traces in the public imaginary. This feeling of being haunted by a terrible past can be exacerbated when the commemorative site to mark the tragedy is compromised. Such is the case with Montreal’s Black Rock, the first monument in the world dedicated to Black ’47, the year tens of thousands of Irish refugees crossed the Atlantic Ocean aboard “coffin ships” in search of a better life.

Unlike a typical ghost story that focusses on apparitions and the paranormal, this story is about how citizens are haunted by a dark, ingrained memory.

The Black Rock is the guardian of Montreal’s Irish Famine Cemetery. The graveyard is presently criss-crossed by an urban blight of highways, railway tracks, parking lots, electricity pylons and industrial billboards. The commemorative site is largely inaccessible and consists of the Irish Stone, a massive black boulder, squeezed onto a tiny traffic island straddled between two busy highways on Bridge Street. In an unsightly industrial zone, gaudy advertisements on giant billboards glare down on the Black Rock, which is encircled by a wrought iron fence peppered with rusting metal shamrocks.

Installed in 1859, after workers discovered human remains while building the Victoria Bridge, the Black Rock was dredged up from the river and placed atop the graveyard to mark the Famine cemetery. The monument’s purpose is engraved in the stone: “To Preserve from Desecration the Remains of 6000 Immigrants Who died of Ship Fever A.D. 1847- 48.” Today, its purpose is largely forgotten by the thousands of commuters speeding past every day. From a commemoration point of view, Montreal’s Irish Famine Cemetery can perhaps best be described as “disgraceful”.

In the summer of 1847, Montreal was inundated with thousands of desperate Irish Famine refugees and was totally unprepared to deal with the influx. Known in the history books as Black ’47, it is the year more than 75,000 Irish Famine refugees landed on Montreal’s wharves. At the time, Montreal’s population was only 50,000 people, so the city was completely overwhelmed.  Many of the refugees were hungry, emaciated and diseased.

Fleeing brutal political oppression and a potato famine in Ireland, these emigrants suffered dangerous crossings over the Atlantic Ocean on what were described as “coffin ships”. Never designed to transport human beings, these were rickety ships that transported Canadian lumber and other products to Europe and took on human cargoes of desperate refugees, on the return crossing, to supplement profits. Hundreds of often-starving families were crammed below-deck and forced to live in overcrowded and filthy conditions. The food wasn’t nutritious and there wasn’t even enough water for washing during the 3 month crossing, only for drinking. With only buckets being used for toilets, the holds of the ships soon became contaminated with human waste.

This proved to be the perfect breeding ground for a deadly epidemic disease known as typhus. Also called Ship’s Fever, it is transmitted by fleas and lice infected with the rickettsiae bacteria, which breed in filthy conditions and feed on humans. Scratching the bite would allow the bacteria to enter the bloodstream and replicate.

The incubation period was 1 – 2 weeks. Those infected could expect a high fever, headache, dull pains and loss of appetite. On the 5th day, a rash would appear on the abdomen and the face would become bloated and congested. Many victims would develop complications, including a clouded mental state, followed by muscular twitchings, then delirium. The final stage was a deep stupor before the skin took on a dusky hue and turned black before the victim died. The mortality rate was estimated at about 30% – 50%.

From the coffin ships, diseased corpses were thrown overboard during the crossing.

Schools of sharks were often spotted trailing the vessels. As they entered the Saint Lawrence River, they approached a quarantine station that had been set up at Grosse Ile, near Quebec City. The station witnessed thousands of deaths but could not contain the epidemic.

It moved upriver towards Montreal after passengers transferred onto steamships at Quebec City. Montreal was at the end of the long sea journey because the Lachine Rapids prevented ships from continuing westward. To do so, passengers had to transfer onto smaller boats to traverse the Lachine Canal.

Montreal’s Famine challenges began on June 7, 1847, when 2,304 typhus-stricken Irish migrants disembarked on the city’s wharves. It was just the beginning of a long and difficult summer as Montreal was inundated with thousands of the most debilitated and wretched beings ever thrown upon its shores. Many of the sickly refugees collapsed on Montreal’s wharves in the Calcutta-like heat that was baking the city that summer.

There were only two fever sheds, to the south of Wellington Bridge, that were left over from a cholera epidemic in 1832. Those sick with typhus were directed there from the docks of Montreal.

Before long, these sheds were overcrowded centers of filth and misery, with stinking corpses littering the nearby fields. Many of the bodies were buried randomly on the banks of the canal until a plan was later hatched to dig burial trenches near the site.

The Grey Nuns, who were located nearby in their Motherhouse, sprang into action to care for the sick and dying emigrants.

Their first-person account can be found online at the digital archives at the National University of Ireland in Galway. Assembled by Dr. Jason King, the Annals describe the horrors that the nuns witnessed and experienced that summer.

According to the Annals: “Hundreds of people were laying there, most of them on bare planks, pell-mell, men, women and children. The moribund and cadavers are crowded in the same shelter, while there are those that lie on the quays or on pieces of wood thrown here and there along the river.”

Mother Superior McMullen assembled her sisters to point out the stark task ahead of them in caring for the unfortunate souls in the fever sheds. Visibly shaken, she told her underlings: “Sisters, the plague is contagious. In sending you there, I am signing your death warrant, but you are free to accept or refuse.” Having taken Catholic vows, the nuns all accepted the assignment and immediately went to the fever sheds to care for the sick and the dying.

In the horrifying stench of the ramshackle structures, they found dying patients moaning in pain and begging for water. The filthy quarters were shared by the living and the dead, with crying orphans still clinging to deceased parents.

The nuns did their best to care for the sick, but soon they too caught typhus and seven of them died. They were replaced by the Sisters of Providence, who were in turn replaced by the Sisters of the Hotel-Dieu. Priests also came to offer blessings, hear confessions and hold services, at great personal risk.

The newly-elected Mayor, a handsome and compassionate American named John Easton Mills, sprang into action. He ordered the construction of a dozen new fever sheds just across the canal in the vicinity of the Wellington Street Bridge. Coffins were piled up near the sheds and the dead were “trenched” at night, with up to 2 dozen being interred in burial trenches every 24 hours.

Citizens began to worry after spotting an emaciated girl, clad only in a nightgown, with a tin cup on the corner of McGill and Notre-Dame Streets.

They called the police to remove her to the fever sheds. Montreal’s citizens were terrified that the typhus would spread. When the disease began to appear throughout the city, an angry mob assembled on the Champ-de-Mars and threatened to throw the fever sheds and their victims into the Saint Lawrence River.

The Mayor urged restraint and tried to calm the citizens with new measures. A fence went up around the landing site and policemen stood guard at the gate to prevent infected emigrants from roaming into the city. The canal itself formed another barrier and guards were posted on all the bridges to further isolate new arrivals.

The Mayor also ordered the sheds to be moved further away from the city – to a place about a mile down-shore in Point Saint Charles called Windmill Point. Twenty-two more fever sheds were constructed to serve the victims and another grim burial ground was prepared on the west side.

As the death toll mounted, more trenches were dug and typhus victims were buried unceremoniously in the middle of the night.

Finally, Mayor Mills personally volunteered to care for the sick and dying emigrants and could often be seen at the midnight hour, going from shed to shed, offering water and hope to patients, allowing doctors and nurses some much needed rest.

With the cold of the autumn, the typhus began to retreat from Montreal and the survivors either moved westward down the canal, or for those with no means, moved into Griffintown.

The death toll was staggering: in addition to the 6,000 Irish victims, almost 1000 Montreal residents, at least 8 Catholic priests, thirteen nuns, and seven Anglican clergymen also perished from typhus.

The Mayor dropped out of sight and citizens began to wonder what had happened to him. It turns out that Mayor Mills contracted typhus himself during his duties. According to his doctor, he never issued a word of complaint about the pain or his misfortune. He died on November 12, at the young age of 54. An elaborate funeral was held and he was declared “Montreal’s Martyr Mayor” for his heroic efforts.

Black ’47 would be remembered as a major injustice against Irish people in Montreal. As the years began to pass, the cemetery became overgrown and weed-choked, with only a small mound and a cross to mark the spot.

In 1854, the old fever sheds were converted into housing by Peto, Brassey and Betts, the British firm responsible for building the Victoria Bridge. The site was soon bustling again when up to 500 English and Irish bridge workers moved in. The adjacent cemetery was seen as a sacred spot, no doubt since many of the laborers were Irish Famine survivors and had relatives buried there.

In the autumn of 1859, the Victoria Bridge was nearing completion. When human remains were accidentally unearthed, workers became so concerned that the remains of their poor countrymen would be forgotten that they decided to erect a monument upon the spot. According to legend, the Irish Catholic workers refused to continue working until the victims of Black ‘47 were commemorated.

The monument took the form of a gigantic, 30-ton granite boulder that was pulled up from the riverbed. On December 1, 1859, chief engineer James Hodges oversaw the Herculean business of installing the enormous, rough monument in the cemetery. He arranged a derrick to hoist the boulder onto a six-foot stone pedestal, where it was affixed.

On the same day, the Anglican clergy oversaw a dedication ceremony. The fact that Catholic authorities were not invited to consecrate this important cemetery, containing mostly Irish Catholic Famine victims, rankled the Irish community. During the ceremony, Anglican Bishop Fulford promised that the bodies of the faithful would “rest undisturbed until the day of resurrection.”

In 1870, the memorial grave site was transferred from Messrs. Peto, Brassey and Betts to the Anglican Bishop of Montreal, in perpetuity.  Redemptorist priests began organizing annual visits to the gravesite in the mid-1880s to perform requiems “for the repose of the souls of the thousands of Irish Catholics whose bones are there interred.” In 1892, the Montreal chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) was founded and took over organizing the annual march with a mandate “to protect the welfare of fellow Irish Catholics.”

The cemetery began to fall into a state of neglect and The True Witness and Catholic Chronicle complained that “the tall, tangled grass and the sturdy weed riot luxuriantly over the neglected plot where man’s feet seldom stray.’

The following year, the Anglican Bishop was approached by the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) because the company wanted to purchase the Famine cemetery to expand railway operations.

Upon hearing the news, the Irish community became incensed and stakeholders vowed “to prevent by every means in their power the carrying out of such a project.”

With tensions mounting, in the early morning on December 21, 1900, the GTR did the unthinkable: its workers removed the Irish Stone from the Famine cemetery and transported it on a railway track to Saint Patrick’s Square, beside the canal, where it was installed. The Irish community was outraged and demanded the return the monument to its proper location.

By now, industrial work carried out by GTR was beginning to compromise the cemetery. The company had laid down three railway tracks and was using part of the cemetery as a dumping ground. GTR refused to replace the monument, and began to publicly refute the fact that the site was indeed a cemetery. The case was referred to the Railway Board of Commissioners in Ottawa, which ruled in January of 1911 that GTR could expropriate the entire site of the burial ground apart from a small, thirty foot plot of land. The Irish Stone was returned to its proper location, albeit on a much smaller cemetery footprint.

While Montreal’s Irish community continued to host commemorative events and annual marches, the forces of industrialization would relentlessly encroach upon the hallowed Famine cemetery, again and again.

In August, 1942, workers engaged by the Kennedy Construction company made a ghastly discovery while digging a passenger tunnel under the city approach to the Victoria Bridge. They unearthed twelve “coffins of rotting pine wood, blackened by time, in a long trenchlike grave at the foot of Bridge Street. The Irish community reburied the deceased at the site of the monument, in plain grey caskets, during an All Saints Day ceremony on November 1, 1942. The discovery put to rest any denial that the site was, in fact, a cemetery.

A new threat to the cemetery was perceived during construction work for Expo ’67. By now, the Irish Stone had been blackened by a century of traffic and was often referred to as the “Black Stone”. In the spring of 1966, Montreal urban planners decided that the Stone needed to be moved from its existing position to allow the construction of a new approach road to the Expo site. The Irish community insisted that the Irish Stone remain in its place. An unhappy compromise was reached when both parties reluctantly agreed on a “split-solution”: Bridge Street would be expanded around the Irish Stone, leaving the monument on a traffic island. The Irish community had prevented the monument’s removal for a second time, but the fact that a busy highway now surrounded the memorial site was seen as far from ideal.

During the 1990s, to mark the Famine’s 150th anniversary, commemorative monuments were erected around the world. In an effort to improve the site of the Irish Stone, the United Irish Societies launched a successful campaign to decorate the fence surrounding the memorial site with 128 now-rusting shamrocks. A nearby road, which passes by the site where 22 fever sheds once stood, was baptized Rue des Irlandais.

In 1994, the City offered to create a fenced in viewing area on the east side of Bridge Street, which the Irish community gladly accepted. A plaque was installed with the following words:

“In 1847, six thousand Irish people, seeking refuge in a new land, died here of typhus and other ailments, and were buried in mass graves. The stone marks approximately the centre of the cemetery. Immediately to the east of here, twenty two hospital sheds had been constructed. Many Grey Nuns, several priests, and also John Easton Mills, Mayor of the City of Montreal, who selflessly came to care for the sick, themselves contracted typhus and died. May they rest in peace.”

Despite these improvements, there were concerns that more could be done to improve the site. In 2014, the Montreal Irish Monument Park Foundation was established to propose a world-class cultural and memorial park. The Foundation proposes honouring the key players during Black ’47, including the 6,000+ victims, the Montrealers who went to the aid of the emigrants, including Mayor John Easton Mills, and the French Canadians who adopted Famine orphans. Indeed, today an estimated 40% of Quebeckers have Irish roots.

The Foundation has since worked tirelessly lobbying different levels of government and other stakeholders to assist in this process. For a while, it appeared as though progress was being made, but in May, 2017, the land was suddenly sold to Hydro-Québec to build a new electricity distribution station. The Irish community was once again outraged, prompting Hydro-Québec to agree to use part of the land to establish the desired memorial park.

Since then, Hydro-Québec has been busy conducting an archaeological study. On Tuesday, October 10, 2017, Hydro started digging a series of test holes at the site, a legal requirement to check for soil contamination.

Victor Boyle, in his capacity as Canadian President of the AOH, organized to have a local Irish Catholic priest present as this work started. Father McCrory, assigned to St. Gabriel’s Parish in Point St. Charles, took charge of the ceremony. As the majority of the 6000 victims buried in the area in 1847 were both Irish and Catholic, the Good Father blessed the site, the workers, the soil, the machinery and the task at hand so as not to disturb the Irish dead. The workers, moved, turned off the machines and one of them removed his hard hat, solemnly declaring: “My grandmother was Irish.”

Irish Monument Park Foundation Director Fergus Keyes said at the time:

“We certainly have to take a moment to mention that the company doing these tests seems to be called GHD – likely a contractor for Hydro – and the guys working were absolutely terrific. Couldn’t have possibly asked for more co-operation. They shut down their machinery so Father could give his blessing and mentioned that in all the years that they have done this work, they had never been blessed before and seemed pleased with the small ceremony. So thanks to Father McCrory, Victor Boyle and the workers on the site – it just seemed like the right thing to do as they drill into the ground. We don’t really suspect that any sign of the victims will be uncovered, but with 6000 buried there; and the haphazard fashion that the burials were conducted – particularly in the late fall of 1847 – one never knows.”

While nobody knows what the future holds for the site yet, the community is hopeful that Famine cemetery marked by the Black Rock will finally be commemorated in a fitting and respectful manner.

To this day, every year on the last Sunday in May, the Irish community marches to the Black Rock under the leadership of the AOH. Speeches are delivered and the community takes a moment to solemnly remember the Famine dead. The experience can only be described as haunting.

According to AOH President Victor Boyle, “When you touch the Black Rock, it is always warm. It has a texture unlike any other stone I’ve ever touched. It doesn’t feel like a rock. It almost feels like something is coming through it.”

He then added: “When I was touching it once, I remember leaning against it and getting a feeling of life. It was a spooky feeling, almost like underground roots were holding up the Irish Stone. The people buried there don’t want to be forgotten. They can’t talk. It bothers me that the Black Rock was cut off when the road was built around it. Those buried here are crying out because they can’t participate. They don’t like it because they are cut off. It’s a curse.”

A painting by Karen Bridgenaw of the Group of Sven Painting Ladies captures the haunted mood that exists at the Black Rock very nicely.

For those wishing to experience the commemoration, the 2018 Walk to the Stone is scheduled on May 27, beginning at noon at St. Gabriel’s Church in Point St. Charles.

It is an incredibly moving event, a dark reminder for Montrealers of just how much the tragic episode of Back ’47 continues to haunt the city to this very day.

COMPANY NEWS

Haunted Montreal is currently in winter mode, meaning there will be no more public ghost tours until May, 2018. Private tours are still available for groups of 10 or more people, subject to the availability of our actors and weather conditions.

Haunted Montreal has been contacted by a media production company because they wish to do an episode about ghosts and hauntings in Griffintown. Based in the United Kingdom, the company has requested Haunted Montreal’s assistance in finding people to appear on the television program to share their personal ghost story from the Griff. Shooting will take place from May 16-18, 2018.

If you have a Griffintown ghost story or paranormal experience to share and are willing to appear on television, please contact us at info@hauntedmontreal.com

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk during the 2017 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 April 13: The Victorian Ghost of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue

Sometime around 2010, two women were visiting the quaint little town of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, at the western tip of Montreal Island. After visiting a secondhand book shop, they both spotted an adolescent girl dressed completely in white, complete with an old Victorian-style dress, white hair ribbons, white stockings and white shoes. Nobody else seemed to notice the strange girl on the street, who was walking very quickly towards the bridge that connects to Ile Perrot. When the women drove away, leaving the weird scene behind, they were shocked to see exact the same girl some distance up the road, ready to start her walk all over again. With other verified sightings, people are starting to wonder just who the Victorian ghostly girl is and why she is haunting Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue.

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).