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

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

We are pleased to announce that our season of public outdoor ghost tours is now running and tickets are on sale!

These include Haunted Old Montreal, Haunted Mountain, Haunted Downtown and Haunted Griffintown. Paranormal Investigations include Old Sainte-Antoine Cemetery and Colonial Old Montreal.

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

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

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

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

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

More details are below in our Company News section!

There is a little-known old ghost story set in Beaurepaire Village, Beaconsfield, called “The Ghostly Soldiers of Pointe à Quenet”. Recorded by famous folklorist E.-Z. Massicotte, the tale involves the oldest house on the peninsula. Connected to the remnants of a colonial fort, people in the home have spotted ghostly soldiers in the cellar and marching about the property in formation. This strange ghost story has been passed from generation to generation in the ancient home known today as Maison Beaurepaire.

Haunted Research

Beaurepaire Village in the West Island suburb of Beaconsfield is a quaint area where locals can do their shopping and enjoy a meal at a local pub. Known for its slower pace of life, the village has a nearly-forgotten ghost story that dates back centuries.

Titled “The Ghostly Soldiers of Point-a-Quenet”, the haunted tale was published in French by Édouard-Zotique Massicotte. The tale appeared in the August, 1927 edition of LE BULLETIN DES Recherches Historiques, VOL. XXXIII, No. 8.

Massicotte, an author and folklorist, collected some 5000 versions of songs and stories from French Canada. He also published many articles and works on the traditions, customs and anecdotal history of Quebec.

“The Ghostly Soldiers of Point-a-Quenet” is set in one of Beaurepaire Village’s oldest homes. 

Known variously as Maison de Beaurepaire, Dornal Hall and Maison Amable-Curot, the stately home was originally constructed around 1765 by craftsman Basil Proulx.

Located on the riverfront at 13 Thompson Point Road, Maison de Beaurepaire has fieldstone walls and is topped with a symmetrical, low-pitched roof that includes five dormer windows. 

Maison de Beaurepaire is a rare historical and architectural gem in the municipality of Beaconsfield. Indeed, so important is the home that it even boasts a historical plaque on its front lawn.

The point of land where the house is located has a long history that dates back thousands of years. Situated on Tiohtià:ke, the Mohawk name for today’s Montreal Island, the area was likely used by various First Nations for navigation, fishing, trade and shelter from choppy waters and inclement weather.

However, when the French began to colonize Tiohtià:ke in 1642, Sulpician priests “inherited” the entire island in 1663 after it was “ceded” by “The Notre Dame Society of Montreal for the Conversion of the Savage Peoples of New France”. Prior to that, Jacques Cartier had claimed all Indigenous lands for the King of France in July 1534 – by erecting a cross at Gaspé Bay. 

However, neither the Mohawk First Nation nor any other Indigenous Peoples in present-day Quebec ever ceded their territories to the French or anyone else. Indeed, they are still demanding their land back to this very day.

These arguments did not stop the Sulpicians from granting the first concession of land at “Pointe de Beaurepaire”, as they called it, in 1678. It was also known as “Pointe Ana8y. Ana8y, (pronounced “Anaouy”) was evidently an Algonquin name for the point that means “river and current”.

The Sulpicians granted the land to a colonist named Jean Quenet who was involved in the fur trade. Quenet wanted to build a fortified trading post on the land, which the Sulpicians demanded to offer protection to the settlers.

However, a war between the French colonizers and the defending Haudenosaunee Confederation thwarted Quenet’s plans.

He had to wait until 1698 to build his fortification when military tensions had lessened before a major peace treaty in 1701. 

According to documents provided by the Beaurepaire Historical Society, Jean Guenet built his house ‘pièces sur pièces’ (with logs) which was designed as a fortified trading post. The fort included bevelled loopholes (gunports) in its stone foundations for defense. A map from 1744 shows Fort de la Pointe à Quenet on the site. 

Following the British Conquest of 1760, forts from the French regime largely became obsolete and many were left abandoned or demolished.

When Maison de Beaurepaire was constructed around 1765, the foundations of the old fort were evidently incorporated into the new house as a part of its cellar.

Over the decades, the house would exchange hands on many occasions. The second tenant, Amable Curot, bought it in 1769 following Quenet’s death. By the time Massicotte published his ghost story in 1929, the house had been owned by around 15 different families since its original construction. 

Indeed, a whole suburban neighbourhood had developed around the house at the time of publication.

The owner in 1929 was lawyer John Augustine Mann, C.R. and the house was known as Dornal Hall.

Massicotte begins “The Ghostly Soldiers of Point-a-Quenet” with the following preface:

“A legend is attached to this location, which was told to us last year by Miss Louise Swindlehurst, then a journalist and now the wife of Mr. Cooper, a member of the editorial staff of The Gazette.”

Masicotte then jumps into the story:

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On a hot and oppressive afternoon, fifteen years ago, the cook of Dornal Hall rested in her “rocking chair,” quietly digesting a hearty meal.

The kitchen, the domain of the servant, is adjacent to the remains of an old fort, which serves as a vault or storage area. A door connects the two rooms. A deep silence reigns in the house when the servant sees the door to the vault open, and a young soldier enters the kitchen. He wears a tricorne hat and has white or powdered hair, with certain details of his uniform indicating that he is an officer.

Without acknowledging the servant, whom he seems to ignore, the newcomer stops a few steps from the vault, and with his left hand resting on the hilt of his sword, he waits.

Through the door that remains slightly open, four soldiers appear, each carrying a rifle over their right shoulder. The terrified cook sees (without hearing any sound) the officer silently giving orders to his subordinates. After this, the five men cross the kitchen, exit through the door that leads to the lawn at the back of the house, and then vanish in the direction of Lake Saint-Louis, whose shore marks the location.

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Massicotte then discusses the speculation about who these ghostly soldiers might be.

Please be aware that Haunted Montreal has quoted Massicotte directly for historical accuracy and that we do not approve of his racist language.

He wrote: 

ꙮ  ꙮ  ꙮ

The story of this vision or dream has been repeated many times. Every owner of the Quenet house has passed it down, and it has sparked many conjectures.

First, people tried to guess the nationality of the soldiers. Some thought they might be soldiers of the Hessian regiment who had sought refuge at Beaurepaire after fighting alongside the English in Washington’s Army.

Others suggested that they were the ghosts of French guardsmen who might have been in the service of Jean Quenet, the beaver inspector who lived at this site.

It is plausible that Jean Quenet did have a guard, for after the massacre at Lachine, it is likely that this official, when building a fortified house, maintained a small garrison to protect the furs of the Company of the Indies that he represented. A post so far from Montreal would have been vulnerable to incursions, both from marauding redskins and from pale-faced thieves.

There were also efforts to determine if any battles had occurred where soldiers might have been killed and buried at this spot, but excavations in the soil and searches through records have been unsuccessful so far.

ꙮ  ꙮ  ꙮ

When questioned by Haunted Montreal, Pauline Faguy-Girard, current President of the Beaurepaire-Beaconsfield Historical Society, wrote:

“I knew of the ghost story from Barbara, the owner of the old house of 1770, from 1997 until her death in 2023. Barbara was the President of the Société historique Beaurepaire-Beaconsfield for many years…As far as the ghost soldiers, the owner (Barbara) described them as being Fenian soldiers but, as you can read in the text that you mentioned, we are not sure what type of soldiers it was.”

Faguy-Girard also found the following text, “Ghosts of Thompson Point”:

“Mr. Robert Reford (born in 1867) father’s cook was the one who saw the ghosts. Eric Reford, his son, told me the story as related to him. The cook asked Mr. Reford if she could sit with him. He asked her if anything was wrong. She told him that the door opened from the cellar, a man came out, a soldier with sergeant stripe; he ordered 6 or 7 soldiers marched out outside started drilling. Description fitted the British Regiment. When Mr. Reford stood up to watch, they had disappeared.”

When speculating about the origins of these military ghosts, analyzing the history and uniforms of French, British, Hessian and Fenian soldiers is a useful exercise.

French soldiers were included with the settlers that began colonizing Tiohtià:ke in 1642. French soldiers typically wore white or light-colored coats with red or blue facings, along with red breeches and a tricorn hat. There were also different minor variations depending on the regiment and rank.

The British Army marched on Montreal in 1760, which capitulated without a single shot being fired. The new colonizers effectively put an end to the New France era.

British soldiers wore the traditional red coat, a white shirt, grey trousers and a cocked hat. Facings and lace could vary depending on the specific regiment.  

Hessian soldiers were German troops hired by the British to fight during the American Revolution.

They typically wore blue coats with lace and colorful trim, and some regiments had yellow cloth, braids, and tassels.

Lastly, the Fenians were Irish rebels who attempted to invade Canada from the United States on several occasions. Their goal was to throw off the yoke of British colonial power in Ireland by taking their North American holdings as a bargaining chip.

Fenian soldiers wore a green jacket, based on the US Army’s shell jacket, with gold edging on the collar and along the edges. The jackets included six brass buttons inscribed with ‘IRA’ (‘Irish Republican Army’) and surrounded by shamrocks. For headgear, they wore a blue cloth cap.

Given that the description of the young ghostly soldier includes a tricorne hat and white, powdered hair, both the Fenians and Hessians can be ruled out. Neither of these forces wore powdered wigs, which were first popularized by King Louis XIV of France.

Known for his extravagant lifestyle and fashion sense, the King wore a powdered wig to combat hair loss and to project an image of power and authority. 

Powdered wigs were essentially a symbol of power and aristocracy, and were usually reserved for higher ranking officials in colonial armies.

As for the weapons described, both a sword and rifles, these were common among French and British soldiers.

Perhaps the best clue is that the ghostly soldiers emerged from the remains of Fort de la Pointe à Quenet, which suggests a connection to the New France era.

Also, given that the soldiers were given an order to conduct a drill hints at the desire to display military dominance.

The only time this point of land was under military threat was during the New France Era.  From the beginning of the island’s colonization efforts, warriors of the Haudenosaunee Confederation strived to evict the colonists from their traditional territories. There were hundreds of bloody conflicts between these two forces until the Great Peace of Montreal was signed in 1701.

As such, the most likely origin of these ghostly soldiers appears to be French. Of course, it is also possible that the story was fabricated from fertile imaginations hundreds of years ago.

Indeed, Massicotte concludes his story with this:

“It is understandable to question the truthfulness of the legend of the ghost soldiers. It is likely based on a dream, and the elements of the story must have come from conversations about the past of Fort Quenet that the servant overheard. But should we apologize for discussing it? Many legends, even if proven false, do not fade away. When they are charming, they are stronger than history. Moreover, legends are sometimes delicate adornments that embellish the garment of true – or nearly true – history, and there is no reason to abolish them if we are willing to take them for what they are.”

Company News

We are pleased to announce that our season of public outdoor ghost tours is now running and tickets are on sale!

These include Haunted Old Montreal, Haunted Mountain, Haunted Downtown and Haunted Griffintown. Paranormal Investigations include Old Sainte-Antoine Cemetery and Colonial Old Montreal.

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

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

Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours are based on the availability of our actors and start at $235 for small groups of up to 7 people.

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

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

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

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

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

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

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

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

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

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

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

McGill University isn’t just known for its academic prestige – it’s also home to some of Montreal’s most fascinating ghost stories. Our upcoming publication, Haunted McGill, digs into the campus’s eerie legends and real-life hauntings, taking you to key landmarks like the Roddick Gates, and the Arts Building, rumored to house lingering spirits.

We’re crowdfunding through The Stygian Society’s Scriptorium, with the first 25 backers receiving an exclusive 1st edition copy, beautiful art prints, and other spooky treasures. Help us reach our goal by July and secure your piece of Montreal’s haunted history. Don’t miss out – back us today and make history a little spookier!

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

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

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

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

Coming Up On May 13: Update on the Haunted Nightclub at 1234 de La Montagne

Montreal’s most infamous haunted nightclub at 1234 de La Montagne has been reborn as a Japanese steakhouse. Rebranded as Yoko Luna, the high-end restaurant is Canada’s largest fine dining supper club set within the 20,000 square foot space.  Set in “a dream-like environment”, the establishment boasts a whiskey den, cocktail lounge, dining room and terraces. However, with a dark history as a creepy and ghost-ridden funeral home, one must wonder if and how the old hauntings are affecting the new supper club.

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.

HAUNTED RESEARCH

According to a persistent 20th Century urban legend, Montreal once had an extremely cursed house that was the site of tragedy in 1905.

While the location of the cursed home is unknown, several sources tell the terrifying story of a little 5-year-old girl named Gisèle Fortier.

In the gruesome tale, Gisèle had the misfortune of moving into the cursed house with her parents, an author named Paul Fortier and his wife Denise. Paul was excited because he had purchased the old home for an extremely low price in 1905. The father was happy with the large, New France-style home because he thought it would be an ideal place to further his writing career.

His first book, The Fields of Amaranth, was receiving positive reviews. This encouraged him as he worked steadily on his second literary work.

Everything was going fine until Denise began to worry when she noticed paranormal activity manifesting itself inside the dwelling. On some days, she could hear the disembodied voices of children laughing and felt as though invisible eyes were following her. At other times, the temperature would mysteriously drop and gnawing cold spots would emerge inside the home. Perturbed, she began researching the home’s past.

After speaking with neighbours, she was upset to learn that her home was steeped in tragedy. It had once housed a correctional facility for wayward children and during the 1800s two boys had murdered the owner and his wife before setting the building on fire.

Denise learned that the boys had been arrested for their gruesome crime. Following court proceedings, they were found guilty and were then hanged by the neck until dead. While the home had since been rebuilt, it was apparently haunted. Apparently nobody wanted to live there, which explained why Paul was able to purchase it for such a low price.

When Denise told her husband about her findings, he was dismissive. Upset, she began pondering what to do about the problem. She finally decided to go to a priest at the local church and she asked him to exorcise the cursed home in order to banish the ghosts. The sceptical priest also dismissed her, assuming she was simply having difficulty maintaining such a large home.

One evening, there was tension in the home after Paul had consumed a full bottle of wine. He and his wife were not getting along due to her obsession about paranormal activity in the home and his refusal to believe it.

Young Gisèle didn’t want to go to sleep because a mysterious cold spot had appeared in her bed the night before. She begged her mother to take her away from the cursed house. Denise insisted everything would be fine in the morning after the sun rose. She tucked Gisèle in, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and told her not to worry. It would be the last time Gisèle ever spoke with her mother.

Lying there in the dark, afraid, Gisèle tossed and turned in her bed.

After some time, she soon began to smell smoke drifting through the house. She bolted out of her bed and ran down the corridor to her parents’ bedroom. She flung the door open and saw what looked like a fiery inferno engulfing the bedroom. Peering through the thick smoke, the first thing she spotted was her father, who was lying on the floor in a pool of blood with a pair of scissors jutting out of his neck.

Gisèle then noticed a commotion on the bed. She looked over and saw that her frenzied mother was being viciously attacked by two small boys who were both ghostly and naked. Their bodies shook with soundless laughter as they pounded their fists into Denise’s bloody and bruised face.

Gisèle immediately ran to the neighbor’s house, crying incoherently for help as she tried to explain what was happening. Unfortunately, the damage was already done. Her father was already dead and her mother was found to be in a coma. In a catatonic state, Denise was taken to hospital. The doctors were unable to awaken her from the coma and she died three months later.

The police tasked with investigating the case interviewed Gisèle, but were skeptical about her description of the events. The chief investigator noted that there was no evidence of any fire in the home, or ghostly boys for that matter. The police concluded that it was a tragic case of conjugal violence. They believed that the father had attacked the mother in a state of drunken rage and assumed that during the violent struggle, Denise had defended herself with a pair of scissors, which resulted in her husband’s death. The police also believed that young Gisèle’s description of the events was not based on reality, but more on psychological trauma and childhood imagination.

Orphaned and traumatized, Gisèle would be sent to Seattle to live with her grandparents, leaving the home abandoned once again.

In 1906, the cursed house burned down for a second time. It was never again rebuilt.

Given the persistence of this Montreal urban legend, questions arise about its origins and whether there is there any truth behind it.

Urban legends are a very strange type of story indeed. The term is used by folklorists to describe stories of doubtful authenticity that are widely circulated as being true. An urban legend is a second-hand story, alleged to be true and just plausible enough to be believed, about something horrific, embarrassing, ironic, or exasperating that supposedly happened to a real person.

English Professor Jan Harold Brunvand of the University of Utah introduced the term “urban legend” in a series of popular books published in the 1980s. Brunvand made two arguments using his 1981 collection of legends, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings; firstly, that legends and folklore do not occur exclusively in so-called primitive or traditional societies, and secondly, that people can learn much about modern, urban culture by studying such tales.

Many urban legends contain elements of mystery, horror, fear or humour and they often serve as cautionary tales, usually for children or teenagers. The problem is that most urban legends are simply not true, despite their legions of believers. How these legends begin is often unknown, but their ability to spread is impressive. Like a game of broken telephone, urban legends can also change over time, and the people retelling the stories may add their personal biases or prejudices.

There can be no denying that the urban legend of Montreal’s cursed house has its believers. It has been published again and again in both books and blogs and has even appeared in various chat-rooms on the internet. For example, in 2012, a person using the handle someone98 posted the following statement about the urban legend on the website livejournal.com:

“My dreams and nightmares as a child were haunted by a story I read in a book my parents bought for me. It was a book of true ghost stories, which I loved when I was a little kid. It remains the most disturbing and creepy true ghost story I’ve ever come across.”

The book in question is likely Haunted America by Michael Norman and Beth Scott, which was published in 1994.

Beth Scott was full-time freelance writer for more than thirty-five years who died around the time of the book’s publication. Michael Norman, born on June 29, 1947, is an American author known for his supernatural series of books such as Haunted Heartland, Haunted Wisconsin and Haunted Heritage. When contacted to learn what his sources were for “The Cursed House”, he did not respond to requests for an interview, essentially thickening the mystery.

With talk of this being a “true ghost story”, in 2012, a website called “Scary for Kids” also listed the tale.

In another case dating from 2010, a woman named Briana Oseguera from California posted on the website ancestry.ca in response to a post by one Samuel Fortier, who was researching his family’s genealogy. Briana, who also took the urban legend as true, further twisted the story by adding a racial element: somehow the two ghostly children in the original tale were now described as “black boys”. She wrote:

“I am very sorry to hear you lost in contact with your family, I wish the best for you and your family. But, I was wondering if you knew about the Fortier family in 1905. They moved in a house that was a reform school for young black boys. The house was built in 1805, and was also a home for incorrigible children. The house was haunted. But, soon after two children killed the director and his wife. And when Fortier family moved in to that house which was a residential property, the little girl (the daughter) saw a figure, and heard laughing, and ran to her parents room.”

 “When she ran to her parents she saw two black boys leaning over the bed of the parents, one boy had bloody scissors in his hand. It turns out, in the bed was the director and his wife. Gisele (daughter) ran to her neighbour’s house, and was speaking rapidly in way no one could understand what she was saying at their front door. When Gisele looked at her house it was on fire. And she saw her parents dead. Now there is still mystery. Who started the fire? And did the black boys kill Gisele’s parents, or [start] the fire? I’m terribly sorry that this wasn’t a message you expected about your family, but I need [to conduct] research. Please help if you know history about this family. The father’s name is Paul Fortier, [the] mother is Denise Fortier, and of course their daughter [is] Gisele Fortier. People say this happened in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Who’s to say this was an accident at all?”

The fact that the two ghostly children in Briana’s version were replaced by “black boys” raises questions about unconscious racism, and whether it was somehow at play in her retelling of the tale.

The urban legend broke the language barrier in 2010, when it first appeared in French. Scholastic Books published Lieux hantés 4: Histoires véridiques d’ici, a direct translation of Michael Norman and Beth Scott’s earlier works. Entitled “Les enfants de la nuit” (translation: Children of the Night), the story appears on pages 59-62.

In 2016, the story crossed another language barrier when a Romanian blogger named Rodica Bretin wrote “Amintiri Incendiare”, a detailed and further-embellished version of the legend in her mother tongue.

It seems as though the urban legend of Montreal’s cursed house keeps growing and spreading, despite its dubious origins. To get to the bottom of the story, Haunted Montreal asked its archivists to delve as deeply as possible into the historical records to look for answers. After scouring various archival sources for over a month, the researchers came up empty-handed. Simply put, there is no evidence that any of it ever happened.

There are no media reports of the tragic incident, no hospital records, no death notices for Paul or Denise Fortier, no reports of children being executed, and no evidence that the book The Fields of Amaranth by Paul Fortier even exists.

The archivists suggested the story was an elaborate ruse, pointing out that it first appeared in the American tabloid World Weekly News on November 10, 1981 (Volume 3, Issue 5). Under the headline: “Murderous ghosts were deadly guests in house of horror”, tabloid journalist Rob Robbins recounted the tale in gory detail.

Further research revealed that the original source for the story, The Weekly World News, was a largely fictional news tabloid that was published in the United States from 1979 to 2007. Infamous for its outlandish cover stories, often based on the supernatural or paranormal, its themes and approach to news verged on the satirical. The Weekly World News ceased publication in August 2007, but its characteristic black-and-white covers went on to become pop-culture images widely used in the arts.

Why American tabloid journalist Rob Robbins chose to set the outlandish story in Montreal or create a family of francophone protagonists is unknown at this time. The precise level of detail in the writing, from exact year of the home’s construction to the title of the father’s book, creates an air of believability. However, by all appearances, this story is nothing more than a piece of tabloid journalism, or “fake news”. How this urban legend was able to spread so far and garner so many believers attests to the power of these types of stories. In their constant re-telling and embellishment, urban legends have the uncanny ability to grip the public imagination and keep people talking for years to come. If anything, the story of Montreal’s cursed house amply demonstrates that urban legends tend to take on a life of their own, despite their dubious origins.

COMPANY NEWS

Haunted Montreal is pleased to announce that a company called Feedspot has bestowed our blog an award for being among the most popular in Montreal.

With the season of public ghost tours now over, Haunted Montreal is moving into winter mode, meaning there will be no more public 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.

We are going to try and develop some activities for the winter, such as haunted pub crawls. Indeed, a research trip to Savannah, Georgia is in the works to explore the haunted pub crawls there.

If you have any suggestions for haunted activities during the winter months, please contact info@hauntedmontreal.com.

A big thank you to all of our clients who attended a Haunted Montreal 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 January 13th: La chasse-galerie

The legend of la chasse-galerie, or The Flying Canoe in English, is one of the most popular folktales in Quebec. Dating from the era of New France, the story has many different variations, most of which involve sinful men, a flying canoe and a deal with the Devil. In Montreal, the most popular version was written in 1892 by Honoré Beaugrand, a famous journalist, politician, author and folklorist. His tale involves loggers in the Gatineau region who make a pact with the Devil in order to give their canoe the power of flight. Their goal is to visit their sweethearts in the village of Lavaltrie on New Year’s Eve. The Devil warns the men they must not blaspheme, drink alcohol, or touch any crosses atop church spires during their voyage. When the canoe flies over Montreal, it whips past steeples, including the towers of Notre Dame Church, en route to Lavaltrie. On the return voyage, a drunken, cussing navigator named Baptiste crashes the canoe into a snowy clearing on Mount Royal, causing the men to panic and fear for their very souls. Just what are the roots of this fantastic legend and how is it connected to Montreal?

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).

HAUNTED RESEARCH

Maison Pierre du Calvet is one of the most ancient houses in the city, the sixth oldest, in fact. Built during the French regime in 1725, the house has remarkable architecture and a fascinating history.

From the outside, the Breton stone facade is built with 3-foot-thick field stone walls, iron window shutters, tall chimneys, French windows and a pitched roof.

The home had to be constructed out of stone after a law was passed following a devastating fire in 1721 that forbade wooden structures inside the city walls.

It is named after Pierre du Calvet, one of Montreal’s more colorful characters historically. A Hugenot merchant from France, he sailed for New France in 1758 after a cousin-in-law provided him with the capital needed to purchase goods for trading. Unfortunately, Le Lion, the ship he was on, was shipwrecked about 100 miles from Quebec. With his cargo lost, he was forced to find employment on his arrival.

After much hard work, he recovered and operated as a merchant for two years until the British Conquest of 1760. The new British overlords soon appointed him as a Justice of the Peace, perhaps due to his Protestant faith.

In 1771, Pierre du Calvet purchased the old stone building following his marriage to a woman named Marie-Louise Jusseaume, where he intended to raise a large family. Unfortunately, two of his three children died in infancy.

To make matters worse, only 3 years after his wedding, in 1774 his wife perished, some say under mysterious circumstances.

The following year Montreal was invaded by Americans and occupied by the newly formed-Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. The objective of the campaign was to gain military control of the British Province of Quebec, and to convince the French-speaking Canadiens to join the revolution on the side of the Thirteen Colonies.

With the American Army occupying Montreal in 1775, Pierre du Calvet raised eyebrows when he openly supported the invaders. Not only did he offer them supplies, but he also hosted meetings inside his home with American leaders, including Benjamin Franklin himself.

The American occupation lasted only 188 days, and the British authorities were not happy with Pierre du Calvet once the invading army had fled the city. He was accused of being a traitor and was imprisoned for three years. His home was seized by the British government.

Pierre du Calvet would spend the rest of his life unsuccessfully trying to prove his innocence to the British while simultaneously attempting to get compensation from the Americans for his support. He was lost at sea in 1784, when The Shelburne, the ship he was sailing on from New York City to France, sank in the Atlantic Ocean.

Over the following years, the house exchanged hands many, many times, and was even inhabited by Jacques Viger, the first mayor of Montreal.

By 1960, Old Montreal, was practically a ghost town. Legions of farmers had abandoned the Place Jacques-Cartier as a place of commerce following the closure of the Bonsecours Market. The Old Montreal district became deserted and counted only about 200 or so people living there. Heritage activists, who were trying to preserve the district among constant threats of demolition, worked hard to secure a historic designation for the storied neighborhood. Due to their efforts, in 1960, plans for an elevated expressway through Old Montreal were abandoned and the Ville-Marie Autoroute was built farther to the north.

When authorities were finally persuaded that Old Montreal was worth keeping, it was designated a historic district by Government of Quebec in 1964.

In 1962, Jean-Jacques Trottier and Gertrude Beaupré Trottier decided to become part of this heritage solution. They relocated their family and seven children to the old house of Pierre du Calvet where they founded the restaurant Les Filles du Roy. They furnished the house with a wide range of beautiful antiques, including wicker chairs with cushions made from boys’ pants. The couple also adorned the walls with family portraits.

Gaëtan Trottier, son of Jean-Jacques, and his associate Ronald Dravigné would later purchase Maison Pierre du Calvet to keep the magnificent building in the Trottier family.

Today, Maison Pierre du Calvet is an intimate 9-room boutique hotel known for hosting private receptions, business meetings, weddings, and romantic getaways. Its gourmet restaurant, Les Filles du Roy, specializes in Québecois cuisine. The hotel has a beautiful interior décor, including many antiques, and its rooms are luxurious. It also features a Victorian greenhouse where three bilingual parrots live in large cages: Pedro, Chico and Coquette.

Maison Pierre du Calvet is popular with celebrities like Richard Gere, Sophia Lauren and Brad Pitt, who resided there in 2007 while shooting portions of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in Montreal.

With rooms renting for almost $400 per night, the Maison Pierre du Calvet offers an unforgettable experience for guests who want to soak up Montreal’s history – and possibly witness a ghost!

Various sources suggest that the inn is haunted and that apparitions of both Marie-Louise Jusseaume and a card-shuffling man dressed in 19th century clothing have been seen on many different occasions.

Some guests report hearing disembodied voices, including entire conversations. In another case, a deep imprint appeared on the just-made bed in Room 1, almost as though someone were sleeping there. Light anomalies have also been seen and photographed in the room.

A strange female presence, believed to be Marie-Louise, is felt throughout the inn. Some feel the ghost is benevolent whereas others find her outright menacing. Marie-Louise is most often seen and felt in Room 3, where one guest complained of a woman sitting on the edge of her bed all night long, which prevented her from getting any sleep.

In 2016, a woman named Katariina, a Holistic Health Coach from the San Francisco Bay Area, booked herself into Maison Pierre du Calvet after hearing that it was haunted. She wrote on her blog:

“I read few reviews before I booked it and what sold me to it were the ghost stories. You know I love connecting with spirits. And believe it or not, at around 7 am in the morning, the ghost appeared. It was completely dark in our room and I felt someone grabbing my arm gently and just holding it. I felt the presence and started to panic, but was unable to move, scream or open my eyes, no matter how hard I tried. I’m not sure how much time passed, but eventually I was able to kick with my foot, open my eyes and get up and asked my husband to turn on the TV so that there would be some light in the room. I was pretty shaken up for a while after that, but forced myself back to sleep, because I truly needed some more sleep.”

According to another guest who left a review on Tripadvisor, Room 3 of the inn is haunted. She wrote:

“When we checked in, we were taken to our room in which Brad Pitt just checked out of. The room was on the first floor with a beautiful bed – very antique looking. I felt like a princess. We stayed in the hotel for 3 nights…As for the ghost, the second night I woke up and looked at the foot of the bed, strangely there was a man in clothing from late 1800s sitting at the table by the foot of the bed shuffling cards…”

The presence of ghosts is verified in Haunted Canada 5, where a version of the story written by Joel A. Sutherland is entitled “Step into the Cold”.

Sutherland mentions that the staff have “witnessed bizarre things and felt an angry presence in the rooms and halls.” He speculates that the ghost of Marie-Louise Jusseaume interacts not only with the staff and the guests, but even with the parrots living in the greenhouse!

Concerning the staff, Sutherland describes a man who was working in the hotel’s restaurant one night who felt the presence of Marie-Louise Jusseaume’s ghost while cleaning alone.

According to the author:

“At first the spirit seemed pleasant enough and he tried to ignore it, unaware that he did so at his own peril. For the ghost demanded attention, and he began to feel that her presence was becoming menacing. Eventually the unseen company of the ghost became too oppressive for him to carry on with his closing duties, so he screamed at the top of his lungs for her to go away and leave him alone. Apparently, Marie-Louise finally got the message and backed off, leaving him in peace from that day forward.”

Concerning the guests, according to Sutherland, while the ghost of du Calvet’s wife often terrorizes the female visitors, “she is flirtatious with the men, often winking at them.” Surtherland believes the ghost of Marie-Louise Jusseaume keeps one eye on female visitors and the other on the males. He wrote: “Men staying at the hotel have seen her ghost step from the shadows to smile at them with a wink, while Marie-Louise gives women the literal cold shoulder.”

The reason for this, speculates Sutherland, is that in life Marie-Louise Jusseaume may not have been very faithful to her husband. According to his research: “Rumours swirled around Montreal claiming that Marie-Louise got along well – too well – with her husband’s male guests who stayed overnight in their home. These accusations found their way to du Calvet’s ear and infected his mind like maggots wriggling in his brain. Some believe that his jealousy blackened his soul and in a fit of rage he murdered his young wife for her accused sins.”

As for the parrots, Sutherland also mentions that the colorful birds in the greenhouse sometimes communicate with her ghost. The three parrots are known to greet guests passing through the greenhouse with a chirpy “Allô, allô!”

Sutherland states: “Their greeting is friendly and never fails to warm the hearts of those who hear it. Except, of course, when the room is empty and Pedro and Chico can be heard welcoming unseen visitors into their greenhouse. It’s believed animals are more highly attuned to the spirits of the departed, and the hotel’s employees make sure to give the greenhouse a wide berth when they hear the parrots talking to an empty room.”

With so many stories about ghostly activity, Maison Pierre du Calvet has all the hallmarks of being a haunted house.

However, proprietor Gaëtan Trottier doesn’t appreciate all the rumours. He denies that the house is haunted because he doesn’t believe in ghosts. He claims that there are no spirits haunting his establishment, but rather that the old building simply radiates magic from its thick stone walls. Indeed, in 2014 he told CBC News: “The house is very magical. When you come into the house, you feel a particular atmosphere. It’s like a person and you feel it.”

Perhaps fed up with all the ghost stories about the building being haunted, in 2014 the Trottier family decided to put Maison Pierre du Calvet up for sale with an asking price of $9.5 million. After 55 years of ownership, maintaining the inn was becoming burdensome for the Trottier family. After sitting on the market for several years, the building was finally sold in 2017. The new owners are the same people who operate the nearby restaurant La Champagnerie, a gourmet bistro that specializes in fine champagnes.

The new proprietors have not yet announced their plans for the historic building.

Whatever they decide to do with it, only one thing is certain: in purchasing the ancient and allegedly ghost-ridden Maison Pierre du Calvet, the new owners may have gotten more than they bargained for!

COMPANY NEWS

The Haunted Montreal public season of ghost tours is now open, with Haunted Griffintown and Haunted Mountain being offered in both English and French. From July to October, Haunted Griffintown is being offered on Friday nights and Haunted Mountain is on Saturday nights.

There are also many extra tours that have been added on Mount Royal in French due to high demand.

We have also been busy helping establish a new company called Secret Montreal! The new enterprise has taken over the Haunted Red Light District Ghost Walk and also offers a brand new Montreal Burlesque Walking Tour that is being led by real burlesque queens!

From June 23 to September 4, the Haunted Red Light District Ghost Walk will be offered in English on Sunday nights, in French on Monday nights and in both languages on Friday nights.

Secret Montreal plans to develop other tours in the future that delve into the city’s fascinating past with a focus on hidden history.

For details on Secret Montreal and its walking tours, please visit the Secret Montreal website.

Lastly, a big thank you to all of our clients who attended a Haunted Montreal ghost walk! 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. Furthermore, 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 August 13th: McGill University Faculty Club

Located on McTavish Street, the McGill University Faculty Club welcomes the school’s elite, including professors, deans, provosts, and other academics and administrators. The opulent mansion is a private oasis on the bustling campus, a place where the university’s elite come to relax, dine, socialize and discuss important matters. However, according to many sources, the Faculty Club is haunted by ghosts of the past. Designed in 1886 by Baron Alfred Baumgarten, a wealthy German sugar tycoon, it was acquired by McGill University in 1926. When it was converted into the Faculty Club in 1935, the professors immediately felt that something was amiss. Over the decades, there have been reports of all sorts of strange an paranormal activity in the building, from a piano playing on its own accord to ghostly billiard matches unfolding in the basement. A dangerous presence is also known to terrify the most hardened of security guards, raising the question: just who or what is haunting McGill University’s Faculty Club?

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).

Haunted Research

Located in the McGill Ghetto, Sainte-Famille Street is a rare beauty. The bucolic, tree-lined streetscape features stunning Victorian architecture and blissful quietude. Maple, oak, lilac, ginko, and cedar trees overshadow small garden plots bursting with flowers.

At the northern end of the street sits the beautiful, historic chapel of the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital. It almost seems like a utopian oasis quaintly tucked into an urban environment.

However, a paranormal mystery has long-plagued this exquisite street. Since the summer of 1929, mysterious knots have been appearing in one of the homes, tying up curtains and bedsheets and the like. According to various reports, some residents blame the unsolved mystery on a poltergeist.

Apparently the poltergeist was first detected in 1929 on the section of Sainte-Famille Street located between Prince Arthur Street and Pine Avenue. With rumours swirling on the internet, there are many different versions of the tale. Some place the home on Prince Arthur Street, but more trusted sources have it located on Sainte-Famille.

So intriguing was the tale of the poltergeist to author Pat Hancock, that in 2003 she decided to research and write a version of the story, entitled “Nightmare Knots”. Written for Scholastic Books, the story is featured in Haunted Canada 1.

In Hancock’s version of the tale, a young family living on Sainte-Famille Street became distraught in 1929 when knots began appearing in their towels, curtains and various other items in their home: “in sheets, pillowcases, tablecloths and dishtowels, in socks, shirts, dresses and trousers.” Before long, everything that could be knotted was tied into small, tight knots.

The family was frantic and unsure whether it was all the work of a practical joker or something more sinister. The parents began spying on the children and then on each other, but were unable to find any logical answer as to who was tying the cursed knots. Embarrassed and confused, they did not want the bizarre story to reach the general public.

However, a journalist somehow learned about the story and attempted to interview the parents, who insisted on complete anonymity in the final publication. At the end of their wits, the parents contacted religious authorities and asked for some priests to come and bless their home. Two priests arrived from St. Patrick’s Church and attempted to exorcise the spirit, but unfortunately they were unsuccessful.

One family member told the journalist: “The spiritualists who came there said that somebody must have cast a spell on the place.”  As a last resort the family finally called the cops.

When the police arrived, they were perplexed and did not understand how the knots could have appeared. They searched the home, top to bottom, and interviewed all members of the family separately. One officer thought he detected a foul odor in the basement, raising suspicions that a body had been buried there, which might have accounted for the haunted activity. Using spades and shovels, the police dug up much of the basement but did not discover a decomposing corpse or anything else unusual.

According to the author, the police then devised a plan: “Officers left several handkerchiefs in one of the rooms, and locked and sealed the door behind them.” When they returned the following morning and broke the seal, they were baffled to find the handkerchiefs all tied up into knots. Next, the police separated family members again and asked them to tie things into knots. They then compared the knots tied by family members with those found in the handkerchiefs in the room they had sealed. Apparently the police felt that the knots tied by the youngest daughter looked eerily similar to the ones discovered in the handkerchiefs and put the blame on her. They suggested she had probably tied them in a “trance-like state” and decided to close the investigation.

The family members were perturbed because it was logically impossible for their daughter to have tied the knots because the room had been sealed. The family finally decided to move out. One member put their paranormal ordeal in perspective, saying: “And it was terrible. It put knots in everything. I wouldn’t live in that house again for a million dollars.”

In Hancock’s version of the story, the knots stopped appearing in the home after the police investigation. She asks: “Did a ghostly double of the young girl haunt the house for those few months in 1929?”

Others believe that the knots did not stop getting tied in 1929, but rather continued after the family had finally moved out. Apparently, several years later a new tenant maintained that he would also find knots tied in his curtains and bed sheets.

Furthermore, many versions of the tale blame the knot-tying on a tormented poltergeist. The term “poltergeist” comes from two German words (polter: to make noise by throwing or tumbling around, and geist: ghost or spirit). The literal translation of the term is therefore “noisy ghost.” While tying knots is generally not seen as a noisy activity, poltergeists are known to wreak all sorts of havoc and it is unlikely one would disappear simply because of a questionable police investigation.

According to Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon of the Ankerberg Theological Research Institute: “Poltergeists are commonly interpreted as troublesome ghosts which haunt houses, causing disturbances and a variety of problems for those who live there. Casual observers often see them as harmless and intriguing or “entertaining” spirits while naturalists and materialists often view them as simple hallucinations.”

Before theorizing why a poltergeist might haunt one of the homes on Sainte-Famille Street, it is a good idea to explore the history of the area.

During the era of New France, French colonists had originally named the plateau-like area at the south-eastern foot of Mount Royal “Mont Sainte Famille“. Sainte Famille can be translated as “Holy Family”, and it was a popular name in ultra-Catholic New France because it refers to the trinity of St. Joseph, Mary and the Baby Jesus.

Members of the Basset family were the first people to own the site and they cleared the land for farming. In 1730, they ceded it to Les hospitalières de Saint-Joseph, a Catholic organization who used the fertile lands for agriculture to supply the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital, then located within the walled city. Following the British Conquest of 1760, wealthy families from Montreal began to acquire the adjacent lands in order to build luxurious villas on the slopes of Mount Royal.

In the early nineteenth century, the city expanded towards the sloping terrace then called Côte-à-Baron, which was the southern boundary of the Mont Sainte Famille area. Starting around 1840, large estates were subdivided and a few isolated houses were constructed, but the area remained sparsely built. Major urban development only began to appear in 1859, when the Les hospitalières de Saint-Joseph started building a new Hôtel-Dieu Hospital on their land located at Mont Sainte-Famille.

The original Hôtel-Dieu Hospital was founded by nurse Jeanne Mance in what is now Old Montreal, on October 8, 1645. Unfortunately, the hospital was prone to catching fire in the dense neighbourhood, and burned down on three separate occasions. As it continued to grow in size, the hospital moved to its present site near Mount Royal in 1861.

The fresh mountain air was seen as being ideal for recovering patients and a beautiful healing garden was laid out behind the hospital. Not only did the living nuns and patients move to new hospital on the mountain, but they also took all of the remains of the deceased nuns, who were transferred to the chapel’s crypt of the new hospital at the end of Sainte-Famille Street. 178 nuns had died over the span of two centuries, however only 23 coffins were needed to transport all of their dusty, skeletal remains.

Sainte-Famille Street was laid out in 1862 in the middle of the property and led directly to the chapel of the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital. Between 1862 and 1864 the religious order gave the City lands south of their hospital in order to open of new streets to attract residents. Hundreds of buildings were erected in the new residential area and the coming of the horse-drawn tram in the 1860s accelerated urbanization. By 1880, the area was fully built up.

Today, the chapel is a dominant feature on the streetscape. Located beside the chapel is the Musée des Hospitalières de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, a museum devoted to the history of the hospital, where visitors can see a magnificent wooden spiral staircase and learn more details about the city’s oldest hospital.

Over the centuries, the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital has overseen thousands of deaths, many of them caused by tragedies, epidemics and violence. According to some local residents, it has the feel of an extremely haunted location.

Also, not to be forgotten, on northern end of Sainte-Famille Street is the old D’Arcy McGee High School. Opened on September 21, 1931, it was the first high school that catered to English-speaking Catholic students in Montreal. Because most of the students had Irish roots, the school was named in honour of Thomas D’Arcy McGee.

A Father of Confederation, the statesman and journalist of Irish descent was assassinated in Ottawa on April 7, 1868, allegedly by a man named Patrick James Whelan. While Whelan’s ghost is said to haunt the old Carleton County Jail in Ottawa (now a youth hostel), students used to spread rumours that the ghost of Thomas D’Arcy McGee himself would sometimes haunt the corridors of the school that was named in his honour. Unexplained mysteries, such as phantom footsteps and disembodied voices, were frequently attributed to his ghost. Over the decades, the D’Arcy McGee High School educated hundreds of young students, but with declining enrollment, it was shuttered in 1992. The abandoned school was then converted into a condominium complex for wealthy residents.

Meanwhile, on the southern end of the stretch in question a giant mural has recently been painted on the side of a building on the south-west corner of Prince Arthur Street. Some residents believe the mural was inspired by the mysterious knots that make Sainte-Famille Street so infamous.

There is much speculation about hauntings on Sainte-Famille Street, and nobody has any solid answers. That the haunting first appeared in 1929 is interesting historically because that is the year the Great Depression began wreaking havoc on the city’s economy. With the collapse of the Stock Market in October of that year, many families were ruined and forced into destitution. Some stock brokers and businesspeople who lost everything are reported to have committed suicide. Could the poltergeist be related to someone who took their own life during the economic crash?

Others believe the nearby crypt and hospital, along with their macabre history, may be responsible for the appearance of the poltergeist. Others still think the ghost of Thomas D’Arcy McGee has something to do with it. There is definitely no consensus.

One elderly man, who prefers to remain anonymous, has lived on Sainte-Famille Street for almost 30 years. He suggested that the poltergeist rumour is well-known among neighbours: “People were talking about the mysterious knots long before I moved onto this street and they still talk about it to this very day. Because nobody knows the exact address of the poltergeist house, it has always been a bit of a game or a past-time to look for knots in the curtains of the windows of the homes to try and solve the mystery.”

Furthermore, it is not only the residents in search of the paranormal knots, but also curious visitors who want to find the haunted house. It is not uncommon for strangers to walk slowly up the street, scrutinizing buildings and peering into windows. The elderly gentleman said: “Long before Pokemon Go started irritating people, we have had to deal with endless Peeping Toms on our street in search of those cursed knots. Many of the residents tired of it and replaced their curtains with blinds or shutters.”

Indeed, wandering up and down Sainte-Famille Street reveals that most of the windows do not have curtains or drapes, but rather coverings which cannot be knotted, such as Venetian blinds or wooden shutters.

Did the residents get fed up with curiosity-seekers peering into their windows, as suggested by the gentleman?

Whatever the case, whether or not a poltergeist is still active on the street, tying knots in one of the homes, is a matter of pure speculation. There just isn’t enough evidence at this time. Only one thing is certain: to this day, the “nightmare knots” of Sainte-Famille Street are one of the most puzzling and unsolved mysteries in Montreal’s McGill Ghetto.

Company News

For the Hallowe’en Season, Haunted Montreal is pleased to announce a brand new ghost tour: the Haunted Red Light District Ghost Walk!

Today, Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles is famous as a zone for festivals and entertainment. However, most visitors are unaware the most notorious Red Light District in North America once existed on the same site. Not only does it have a very dark and salacious history, but many of its buildings and streets are also reported to be haunted.

Step back in time and experience Montreal in its heyday as a “wide open city”! Discover an era when brothels, gambling dens, booze cans and burlesque halls lined every street and corruption of every type reigned. Guided by a professional actor and storyteller, guests will hear twisted tales and visit sites that are reputed to be haunted and where the ghosts have been spotted.

Hear tales about Montreal’s transformation from a strictly religious colony into Sin City and how the clergy tried to stop it at every turn. Visit one of Montreal’s ghost streets, where paranormal activity is known to disturb tourists exploring the neighbourhood. Learn about Montreal’s Red Light history and how Prohibition prompted millions of visitors to stream in from all over North America looking for a good time.

Discover a haunted hotel where guests experience strange disturbances during the night, thought to be related several murders during the 1980s. Examine an old church that is said to be haunted by its founder, who still visits the parishioners to this very day, albeit in a paranormal manner.

Many theatres, cinemas and performance halls in the Quartier des Spectacles are also rumoured to be haunted. Learn about the spirits that occupy these places, including one creepy apparition who is said to lurk in the basement of the Monument-National, once the site of a deranged Victorian waxworks museum – the Eden Musée.

Hear about some of the notorious characters from the era, such as bank robber Machine-Gun Molly, Burlesque Queen Lili St. Cyr, brothel-owner Marcel Les-Dents-en-Or, and serial killer Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, McGill University’s most infamous graduate.

Learn why the Canadian Army demanded that the Red Light District be shut down during WW II and how Mayor Jean Drapeau and police chief Pax Plante tried clean up the unsavory area. Discover how brothel raids, legal battles against corruption, the demolition of entire city blocks, and the rebranding of the entire neighbourhood led to the creation of the Quartier des Spectacles, Montreal’s glittering new Entertainment zone. While officials may have tried to erase the district’s history and stop all salacious activities in the area, the ghosts of the Red Light District still remain.

The Haunted Red Light District Ghost Walk is sure to please ghost hunters, history buffs, Hallowe’en lovers and those who seek pleasure in the paranormal. The following dates have been set in English:

Friday, October 14 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Saturday, October 15  8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Sunday, October 16 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Friday, October 21 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Saturday, October 22  8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Sunday, October 23 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Friday, October 28 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Saturday, October 29 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Sunday, October 30 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Monday, October 31 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

To book tickets, please visit our 2016 Tours section.

Haunted Downtown is currently being revised before translation, but is still available for private tours for groups of 10 or more people (in English only, for the moment). Haunted Griffintown and Haunted Mountain are also available for private bookings, in both English or French, subject to availability.

Finally, we invite clients who attended a ghost walk to write a review on our Tripadvisor page, something that is very helpful for Haunted Montreal in promoting its tours.

For those reading the blog who want to receive a new Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month and stay updated, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming up on October 13: Haunted St. Lawrence Burial Ground

In September, 2016, dozens of skeletons were discovered buried underneath René-Lévesque Boulevard in front of the Hydro-Québec headquarters during construction work. This was the location of the St. Lawrence Burial Ground, a Protestant cemetery that served the community from 1797 until the early 1870’s. After being abandoned, a beautiful park called Dufferin Square was laid out on the footprint of the old graveyard. In 1978, the park was expropriated and work began on Complexe Guy-Favreau, a federal government building that was partially built on the old St. Lawrence Burial Ground. Over the years, more than 100 skeletons have been removed from the vicinity, including that of university-founder James McGill. Today, there is no indication of the cemetery’s existence, except when digging up the road. In the October edition, learn about the ghosts that are said to haunt the old St. Lawrence Burial Ground and the endless paranormal activity that workers at Complexe Guy-Favreau must contend with to this very day.

Donovan King is a historian, teacher 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) and MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary).

Haunted Research

The Notman House is a handsome, limestone mansion on the corner of Sherbrooke and Clark Streets. Originally constructed in 1845 for Sir William Collis Meredith by famous architect John Wells, the building has changed hands and vocations many times over the decades. It has served as a home for the city’s wealthy elite, a famous photographer’s abode, a religious hospital for those deemed “incurable”, a residence for elderly women, a location for film shoots and, most recently, a “dream home” for tech start up companies.

It is also rumoured to be haunted and this month the Haunted Montreal Blog features a first-person account of an uncanny encounter in the building in the autumn of 2002.

Haunted Montreal was contacted by a man named André, who wanted to relay a disturbing story that occurred inside the Notman House in November of 2002. That year, the film “Wicker Park” was being shot in Montreal, and welcomed actors like Josh Hartnett, Rose Byrne and Diane Kruger.

André had been hired as part of a security detail. Looking back, he said: “To put things in context, at the time I was a security officer on film sets. We were called to monitor the premises between film shoots.”

André recalls guarding the Notman House, one of the film’s shooting locations: “I remember, during one evening, there were two of us working on site. Aldo was patrolling outside the complex and I was inside. The place is on the corner Clark and Sherbrooke. It once housed the offices of the Just for Laughs Festival. The William Notman home is located at 51 Sherbrooke Street West. In 2002, the building housed gloomy old cells in the basement.”

He continued: “To describe the inside during the film shoot: there was a large room used as living room and kitchen, another was a bedroom and another was an office. This house is connected by a passageway to the old St. Margaret’s Hospital for The Incurables. On the Notman House end of the passageway, there were western-style swinging doors.”

“During the night, at about 2 am, I was sitting on a couch in the living room and I heard someone walking down the passageway. The footsteps began walking more quickly, to the point of running! And bam! The swinging doors suddenly swung open and closed in rapid succession, as if someone had just rushed through. Immediately, I jumped up and lit the area with my flashlight, but there was no one there.”

He continued: “I went to look in the passageway and there was still nobody present. At this point, I began to think that my colleague, Aldo, had played a trick on me, so I tried to contact him by radio. When he answered, I asked him where he was and said: “I’m in my car outside on Clark Street”. I asked him to join me for a deeper inspection of the premises and really, we didn’t find anyone and have no rational explanation for this event.”

Unnerved the paranormal experience, in 2009 André appealed to Taps Québec, an organization that conducts paranormal investigations. A request was put forward to access the Notman House in order to carry out paranormal research, but unfortunately, permission was denied. To date, there have not been any paranormal investigations into these hauntings.

Unsatisfied, André sat on the story until he contacted Haunted Montreal in March, 2016. With the strange experience still weighing heavily upon his mind after almost 15 years, André lamented: “Since then, the area containing the offices and everything else was demolished and renovated. A pity.”

Who or what might be haunting the Notman House is a mystery, so it is always a good idea to explore the history of the building in order to speculate about the different possible scenarios.

The home was originally commissioned by Sir William Collis Meredith, a 31-year-old Montreal lawyer and bachelor. In 1843, he hired renowned architect John Wells to design the home. Wells’ had previously designed the opulent Bank of Montreal building on the north side of the Place d’Armes (still standing) and St. Ann’s Market, which was torched by an angry mob in 1849 when it served as Canada’s Parliament. Called “Meredith House” in the beginning, the handsome limestone building was constructed in 1845. Featuring Greek Revival architecture, formal simplicity, refined elegance and the highest quality of construction were the building’s hallmarks.

Sir William quite enjoyed his new home until, in 1849, a judicial promotion beckoned him to live in Quebec City. He leased his home to several prominent Montrealers, including Thomas Evans Blackwell, President of the Grand Trunk Railway, before selling it to Alexander Molson, grandson of famous brewer John Molson.

In 1876, the house was sold again, this time to William Notman, a celebrated Scottish photographer who had moved to Montreal in 1856. He moved in with his family and the home was henceforth known as “Notman House”. William Notman ran a very successful photography business. The technology was very new for the era, and taking portraits of wealthy patrons could result in great profits.

Notman was an incredibly studious artist. He was known to devote long hours to his enterprise, and in mid-November, 1891, the overworked photographer contracted a cold, which he ignored. As he continued working, his condition worsened into pneumonia. Despite his doctor ordering complete bed rest, William Notman died in his home. At the time of his passing, his collection included over 450,000 photographs. Today, the images are housed in the Notman Photographic Archives at Montreal’s McCord Museum and are considered invaluable because they provide glimpses into Montreal’s Victorian past.

Following Notman’s death, the property was purchased in 1894 by Sir George A. Drummond. Curiously, he had just ordered a new house to be built for himself on Sherbrooke Street West in 1889 after his previous residence, located right next door, was reported to be haunted.

Ever the philanthropist, Sir George A. Drummond promptly gifted the Notman House to the Sisters of the Anglican Order of St. Margaret.  An architect named Andrew Taylor was hired to design another building to the north, which was baptized St. Margaret’s Home for the Incurables and put to use as a hospital for those with terminal diseases, such as tuberculosis, or in need of palliative care. No doubt, with such a mandate, the hospital witnessed countless, often painful, deaths. A passageway was built to connect the two buildings and a healing garden was laid out behind the addition.

Concerning the spirit André had encountered, if it came down the passageway from the hospital to the Notman House, one might speculate that it was the ghost of a Nursing Sister running for assistance to help a dying patient. It would also be wrong to discount the possibility that the spirit is William Notman himself, having perished suddenly in his beloved home.

The hospital was eventually converted into a home for elderly women, and after being run by the Anglican Sisters for almost 100 years, in 1991 St. Margaret’s Home merged with the Good Shepherd House for Elderly Men and relocated to Westmount. Both Notman House and St. Margaret’s Home for the Incurables were abandoned for the first time in their collective history.

The forlorn buildings began to take on a look of dilapidation and the garden became overgrown and weed-choked. They saw very little human activity, apart from the occasional rental or film shoot. The property sat on the market and speculators argued about what should be done with it. One proposal called for a “Notman Photography Center” that would celebrate and display Quebec’s best photography, including Notman’s personal collection. This plan fell through due to economic instability at the time. Another idea was to demolish the healing garden and former hospital to build a deluxe hotel, but this plan was nixed in 2001 by the Culture Minister, who duly noted that the property had been declared a “historic monument” in 1979.

During the time of André’s experience, the Notman House had been abandoned for eleven years and had taken on an exceptionally creepy atmosphere. This was to continue for another decade, right up to 2011, when the buildings were finally reoccupied on a more permanent basis.

In January, 2011, the OSMO Foundation leased the Notman House and made it available to internet entrepreneurs, early stage venture capitalists and the general public.

According to the OSMO Foundation’s website, it is: “a non-profit entity… created by investors, technology and media executives and the community itself. Its mission is to use its financial resources to facilitate the transfer of knowledge, experience and relationships from experienced entrepreneurs and their support ecosystems to aspiring entrepreneurs.”

During this time a man rented a desk in a room from the OSMO Foundation in the Notman House. He soon learned that it was rumoured to be haunted and there appeared to be a spooky old morgue in the basement. There was also no security or alarms at that time, prompting numerous break-ins. According to the man, the garden was also forlorn at this time and he recalls having to pick syringes out of the courtyard and overgrown garden.

On several occasions he slumbered in the Notman House, but usually felt uneasy, explaining: “Notman House lends itself to mystery. You always had an off sense that things were all around you. I never had a comfortable nap there. I always slept with one eye open.” Eventually he decided to give up his desk in the Notman House and sought a less disturbing workspace.

To improve the situation, in October of 2012, the OSMO Foundation set a goal of raising funds to transform the buildings into a “dream home” for technological entrepreneurs. Their vision for the Notman House was to provide users with affordable office space, a large venue for events and a green-roof featuring a café. The spokesperson for the OSMO Foundation, Gabriel Sundaram, told CULT MTL at the time: “We are getting a lot of positive feedback from people in the neighbourhood who have walked by this space for years and years and just know it as something that looks like this kind of haunted house-looking space…”

On December 19, 2012, the OSMO Foundation formally acquired the property with the help of municipal, provincial and federal government grants, as well as private sponsors. Renovations soon began to convert the old Notman House and St. Margaret’s Home for The Incurables into the proposed “dream home” for tech start-up entrepreneurs. Sundaram was especially pleased with the historic building because of its connection to photographer William Notman. Drawing a parallel through time, Sundaram enthused that “Notman was the Steve Jobs of his time. He was at the centre of Montreal when it was in its golden age… [He was] really pushing the technology of photography at the time and was also an artist.”

Today, the OSMO Café sits between the two buildings and is a hive of activity. Baristas, tech-geeks and visitors all mingle in this bustling space between meetings and workshops. With so many people occupying the buildings after a long period of abandonment, one wonders if any of them have experienced anything haunted or paranormal.

When contacted, the representatives of Notman House declined to answer any questions on the topic, including whether or not they would now allow a team of paranormal investigators to access the site to carry out research into the mystery. Whether or not the tech entrepreneurs have experienced anything uncanny or paranormal is presently unknown.

Company News

The public season has begun and is now in full swing! Haunted Montreal now offers Ghost Walks in both English and French and this year both Haunted Griffintown and Haunted Mountain are being offered, alternating on Friday nights, starting in June:

Friday, June 17 Haunted Griffintown
Friday, June 24 Haunted Mountain
Friday, July 1              Haunted Griffintown
Friday, July 8              Haunted Mountain
Friday, July 15 Haunted Griffintown
Friday, July 22 Haunted Mountain
Friday, July 29 Haunted Griffintown
Friday, August 5 Haunted Mountain
Friday, August 12 Haunted Griffintown
Friday, August 19 Haunted Mountain
Friday, August 26 Haunted Griffintown
Friday, September 2 Haunted Mountain
Friday, September 9 Haunted Griffintown
Friday, September 15 Haunted Mountain
Friday, September 23 Haunted Griffintown
Friday, September 30 Haunted Mountain
Friday, October 7 Haunted Griffintown

Tickets can be booked in the 2016 Tours section.

Haunted Downtown is currently being revised before translation, but is still available for private tours for groups of 10 or more people (in English only, for the moment). Haunted Griffintown and Haunted Mountain are also available for private bookings, in both English or French, subject to availability.

Finally, we invite clients who attended a ghost walk to write a review on our Tripadvisor page, something that is very helpful for Haunted Montreal in promoting its tours.

For those reading the blog who want to receive a new Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month and stay updated, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming up on July 13: Camilien-Houde Lookout

High on the eastern slopes of Mount Royal is a romantic spot, the Camilien-Houde Lookout. Complete with benches, coin-operated telescopes, a quaint gazebo, and places to park, the belvedere offers incredible views of the Olympic stadium, Jacques-Cartier Bridge, Saint Lawrence River, and Plateau-Mont-Royal and Mile-End districts. Also known as “Lover’s Lookout”, the romantic atmosphere is known to attract young, amorous couples. Named after Montreal’s colorful wartime mayor, Camilien Houde, the charming lookout is also rumoured to have a dark side. Many lovers, tourists and students celebrating their high school graduation have reported strange sightings on the cliff behind the lookout, which is actually the border of the Protestant Mont-Royal Cemetery. While the most recognized ghost is that of an Algonquin Native American warrior, undead apparitions of all sorts have been known to appear on this haunted cliff, terrifying the sightseers on the Camilien-Houde Lookout below. To make matters worse, there have been several mysterious deaths at this location caused by people falling down the steep slopes of Mount Royal. Unfortunately, despite its romantic appeal, the Camilien-Houde Lookout can be a dangerous place at times. Whether or not the danger is related to the hauntings is one question that still remains unanswered.

Donovan King is a historian, teacher 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) and MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary).