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 13^th 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 13^th! The blog is published in both English and French!

Hallowe’en is just around the corner and Haunted Montreal has a plethora of experiences on offer!

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. Tours in French happen on the last Sunday of every month at 2 pm.

We are also pleased to announce a new tour as part of our upcoming Hidden Histories series!  The Colonial Secrets of Old Montreal Walking Tour is in its final testing phase and $5 tickets are available on weekends in October and early November in both English and French.

This tours will be under the umbrella of Hidden Montreal, our new division of daytime walking tours.

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 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 8 people.

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

This month we look at haunted issues in the upcoming Montreal municipal election on November 2. With five candidates running for Mayor, Haunted Montreal is pressing all of them to do more to placate the city’s Dead.

Haunted Research

Montrealers are heading to the polls on November 2 to elect a new mayor. While the citizens have the democratic privilege of voting, the Dead certainly do not.

As such, Haunted Montreal will be representing them and making demands to the mayoral candidates on their behalf. Generally-speaking, the Dead want two things: to be remembered and to be respected.

Sadly, Montreal is littered with forgotten cemeteries, burial grounds are often desecrated in the name of progress and important historical figures and sites have never been commemorated.

This election has five candidates from five different parties vying for the reigns at City Hall:

• Luc Rabouin (Projet Montréal)
• Soraya Martinez Ferrada (Ensemble Montréal)
• Jean-François Kacou (Futur Montréal)   
• Craig Sauvé (Transition Montréal)  
• Gilbert Thibodeau (Action Montréal)

It is worth noting that Projet Montreal has been in power for eight years under the helm of Mayor Valerie Plante and Ensemble Montreal was in charge before that. All the other parties have never been elected.

Montreal’s municipal politicians have a long history of neglecting the Dead. For example, during Valerie Plante’s tenure the Black Rock Irish Famine Cemetery was desecrated by the REM, which hammered a large metal caisson through layers of skeletons.

Indigenous remains were also disturbed during construction on Peel Street and at St. Joseph’s Oratory. There are now plans to disturb another mass grave at the Wellington Basin with the coming of a new neighborhood.

Furthermore, Montreal is falling behind on its commitment to Truth and Reconciliation. The city refuses to rename Christophe-Colomb Avenue despite its offensive and genocidal connotations.

Montreal also won’t repeal by-law G-2, which makes it illegal for the vast majority of Indigenous people to lead guided tours on their unceded territory.

Lastly, notable historical figures, sites and events have not been commemorated or marked in any way. Mayor John Easton Mills died of Typhus in 1847 after coming to the aid of Irish Famine refugees – and yet there is no statue of him. Indeed, the city has dozens of historical plaques marking the industrial revolution but only one marking the Irish Famine. Even Montreal’s most infamous ghost story, that of Headless Mary, has almost been erased.

Other historic sites are rendered invisible. For example, historic prison cells exist beneath Place Vauquelin in the heart of Old Montreal but are not open to the public. Furthermore, the holy site of Jeanne Le Ber’s death in the recluse of her church is now a parking lot. These places could be refurbished and become Old Montreal historic sites that respect the deceased associated with them.

Haunted Montreal follows all these issues very closely and has produced a list of 5 concerns and proposals for the mayoral candidates.

***

Election Issue #1: Commemorating Montreal’s Most Infamous Ghost Story

Our first election issue has to do with Montreal’s most infamous ghost, Headless Mary, who returns to the corner of William and Murray Streets in Griffintown every 7 years on the anniversary of her murder. Her next appearance is scheduled for June 27^th, 2026.

However, when Mary Gallagher’s ghost last appeared in 2019 the neighbourhood looked very different.

Back then, the famous corner was derelict and creepy, just as it always had been since the 1800s when the Griff was Canada’s most notorious Irish shantytown.

With rapid gentrification, the corner is now bursting with shiny new buildings constructed by the ETS (École de technologie supérieure). After an intervention by Haunted Montreal, ETS agreed to preserve the famous corner by making it a gathering space outside the new Pavilion F building. However, there is no commemoration yet for the city’s most infamous ghost story despite our request for one.

As such, Haunted Montreal has created a plan with local artists to start the ball rolling. Not wanting to frighten the students and professors at the ETS, we are not requesting a statue of Headless Mary. Instead, we wish to commemorate the site in a more subtle manner that reflects a fascinating part of Griffintown’s history.

When the Griff was Canada’s most notorious shantytown, the corner was very much feared due to rampant reports that Mary Gallagher’s ghost would return every 7 years on the anniversary of her murder. In 1999, the late renowned Griffintown storyteller Denis Delaney told CBC’s Anna Asimakopulous that “children used to take her candy and little bags of treats, and things like that, and we’d leave them for her and then run away so she wouldn’t harm us.”

Parents would use the ghost story as a way of keeping their children obedient, warning that “Headless Mary” would get them if they didn’t eat their cabbage, do their homework, or return home on time. The children believed that by leaving gifts for the ghost they would be spared from her wrath.

Keeping this idea in mind, Haunted Montreal is proposing a statue on one of the four corners of a small group of fearful children placing candies and treats on the corner to placate Headless Mary.

It is important to remember that Griffintown has enormous importance for the Irish community and most of the Irish heritage has been erased from the neighbourhood. The proposed statue would go a long way in helping to commemorate this heritage and offer something interesting and meaningful for locals and tourists to visit.

Haunted Montreal’s demands:

1. Support the commemoration project technically (e.g. permissions, zoning issues, Public Art Bureau policies, etc.) and financially, if possible.
2. Offer more support in the future for Irish heritage projects in the city.

Election Issue #2: Better Indigenous Representation

Our second election issue is about improving Indigenous representation in the city.

We would like the City to consult experts from the Mohawk First Nation to find ways to include more Indigenous representation and perspectives, especially in Old Montreal. There are many colonial statues, monuments, and plaques in the City of Montreal that should be re-evaluated and potentially removed due to their genocidal depictions and colonialist narratives.

There are also streets and other topographical features that are very problematic, such as Christophe-Colomb Avenue. Glorifying genocidal colonists should become a thing of the past, as we saw with the rebranding of Amherst into Atateken Street. The City of Montreal must listen to the Mohawk activists making the demand to retire the Christopher Columbus name from the cityscape.

It is also embarrassing that even “Mount Royal” is not yet acknowledged with its original Mohawk name – Tekanontak – on maps, websites and guided tours. According to Mohawk Elders, Tekanontak is one of the largest Indigenous burial grounds in North America. It deserves to be properly named and marked.

Lastly, by-law G-2 makes extremely difficult for Indigenous people to legally host guided tours of unceded territory. This “Tour Guide” by-law has resulted in a cartel of guides, the APGT, which is estimated to be 98% white.

Furthermore, to get a license students must attend a lengthy and expensive course at the ITHQ that barely covers any Indigenous history, language or contemporary issues.

Haunted Montreal’s demands:

1. Create better opportunities for Indigenous representation, business and tourism in Montreal.
2. Cancel by-law G-2.
3. Study problematic statues and plaques in the City of Montreal with the goal of removing them or addressing them in a satisfactory manner.
4. Rebrand streets named after genocidal figures, such as Christophe-Columb Avenue.
5. Restore the original Mohawk name Tekanontak for “Mount Royal” on maps, websites, tourism brochures, etc.

Election Issue #3: Protection and Commemoration of the Wellington Basin Famine Cemetery

The City of Montreal is moving full steam ahead with the creation of large new neighborhood in Point St. Charles called Bridge-Bonaventure. Working in tandem with Canada Lands, the project envisions a mixed-use neighbourhood with 2,800 housing units, an artisan district and even a public beach in the old Wellington Basin.

However, the chosen site also hosts the Wellington Basin Irish Famine Cemetery.

Today, an estimated 1200 – 1700 bodies repose in a mass grave beside the basin. There is nothing to indicate the presence of this Famine cemetery and the construction project risks disturbing the Dead.

As such Haunted Montreal is asking mayoral candidates to prevent anything from being built on the Wellington Basin Famine Cemetery. In fact, we are demanding a world-class Irish Famine Park on the burial site in collaboration with Canada Lands.

We also would like to see the creation of a commemorative monument dedicated to Mohawk First Nation’s solidarity with the Famine Irish. In 1847, they donated $150 and brought food to aid the Irish refugees. Mohawk artist MC Snow has committed to creating the monument and Canada Lands has also agreed that it should be installed.

There is also the problem that the Irish Famine is not commemorated along the Lachine Canal, where much of the tragedy played out. We are demanding plaques to be installed to tell this tragic story.

Lastly, we would like Montreal’s Martyr Mayor John Easton Mills to be properly commemorated in the new development with a statue and a street, square or park named after in his honour.

Mayor Mills was extremely compassionate and died caring for the Irish refugees in 1847 after succumbing to Typhus.

Haunted Montreal’s demands:

1. Protect the Wellington Basin Famine Cemetery from desecration.
2. Create a world-class Irish Famine Park on the footprint of the burial ground.
3. Support the creation of a Mohawk Famine Solidarity Monument to be created by MC Snow.
4. Add plaques along the Lachine Canal and other important sites commemorating the Irish Famine in Montreal.
5. Commemorate Martyr Mayor John Easton Mills with a statue and by naming a street or square after him in the vicinity.

Election Issue #4: Study opening the Old Prison Cells under Place Vauquelin

Over 80% of tourists visit Old Montreal and yet extremely important historic sites are rendered invisible and not used in an adequate manner.

For example, the Old Courthouse and the dungeons of the original Montreal Prison are located right beside City Hall in the heart of Old Montreal. The Courthouse has been rebranded the Lucien-Saulnier Building and is used by the city’s Department of Finance. Meanwhile, the old prison cells are located beneath the Place Vauquelin.

Many cities highlight their old prisons and courthouses as museums about the history of crime and punishment. In Canada, such museums exist in places like the Kingston Penitentiary, Ottawa Jail Hostel and St. Andrew’s prison and courthouse. These are popular educational and tourist attractions that enhance the heritage fabric of aforementioned cities.

Indeed, this type of attraction can be found all over the world. Perhaps the best example is the City of Las Vegas repurposing its old courthouse into the world-famous Mob Museum.

In a city with hundreds of attractions, the Mob Museum remains among Las Vegas’ most popular.

Haunted Montreal’s demands:

1. Study the possibility of converting the old prison cells and some of the original courthouse into a museum exploring crime and punishment in the city.

Election Issue #5: Study the creation of Parc de la Recluse in Old Montreal

Like Mayor John Easton Mills, Jeanne Le Ber was once considered a Montreal city hero.

Known as the “Angel of Montreal”, she spent much of her life as a recluse, cooped up in a small room behind the altar of a church which she funded. There, she prayed for the city while living in full reclusion, poverty and submission.

However, the site where she prayed and died in her church was demolished decades ago. It is now an unsightly parking lot in Old Montreal on the corner of Cours Le Royer and Saint-Laurent Boulevard.

Haunted Montreal is proposing that the City expropriate the parking lot to make way for a new greenspace called Parc de la Recluse. This park would commemorate her life and death on the site while removing an eyesore and improving the attractions in Old Montreal

Haunted Montreal’s demands:

1. Study the possibility of expropriating the parking lot to make way for a new greenspace, Parc de la Recluse, dedicated to commemorating Jeanne Le Ber’s remarkable story.

***

If you agree with any or all of Haunted Montreal’s electoral demands, please contact the candidates and make sure your views are known.

Contact details for all mayoral candidates:

Luc Rabouin : luc.rabouin@projetmontreal.org

Soraya Martinez Ferrada : soraya.martinez@ensemblemtl.org

Jean-François Kacou : info@futurmontreal.com     

Craig Sauvé : https ://www.transitionmtl.org/nous-joindre

Gilbert Thibodeau: info@actionmontreal.ca

Are you registered to vote?

Visit this link to check your registration status. Your name must be registered no later than 6 pm on October 16, 2025.

Haunted Montreal would like to thank our readers for considering supporting our demands by contacting mayoral candidates – and by voting if eligible.

Company News

Hallowe’en is just around the corner and Haunted Montreal has a plethora of experiences on offer!

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

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

We are also pleased to announce a new tour as part of our upcoming Hidden Histories series!  The Colonial Secrets of Old Montreal Walking Tour is in its final testing phase and $5 tickets are available on weekends in October and early November in both English and French.

This tours will be under the umbrella of Hidden Montreal, our new division of daytime walking tours.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

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

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

Lastly, we have reopened our online store from October to December!

Haunted Montreal also has temporarily altered its blog experience due to a commitment on a big writing project! Until further notice, we will be offering updates on old stories every second month and the regular blog service alternating.

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

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

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

Coming up on November 13: Update on the Hôpital de la Miséricorde

The ghost-ridden Hôpital de la Miséricorde has been empty for years and is starting to crumble. Located on prime real estate in Downtown Montreal, plans were announced to build social housing on the derelict site. However, it was suddenly purchased by Hydro-Quebec who want to build a transformer station on the old hospital. Paranormal experts advise against combining electricity with ghosts, meaning that this project could be doomed from the start.

Author:

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

Translator (into French):

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

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

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

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

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

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

Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

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

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

Our Virtual Ghost Tour is also available on demand!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Haunted Research

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

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

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

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

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

She added:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Company News

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

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

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

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

Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

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

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

Our Virtual Ghost Tour is also available on demand!

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

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

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

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Author:

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

Translator (into French):

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