Hotsirà:ken

For those familiar with horror novels and movies, there is a common trope that it is never a good idea to build upon ancient Indigenous burial grounds. Unfortunately for the City of Montreal, a large section of its Downtown core exists on the site of a former Indigenous city and cemetery, resulting in all sorts of speculation that the modern city is haunted. Furthermore, since remnants of the Indigenous city were unearthed in 1859 on the corner of today’s Metcalfe and de Maisonneuve streets, a debate has raged on among scholars of European ancestry about whether or not it is the site of the fabled lost city of “Hochelaga” visited by French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1535.