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’s summer season is in full swing with ghost walks every Friday and Saturday night in 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 Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons for the Haunted Pub Crawl, private tours can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors (and the pubs).

We are also offering a proto-type of our new Haunted Old Montreal Ghost Tour!

This ghost walk is in development for the Hallowe’een Season and Haunted Montreal will be offering trial runs at reduced prices on the following dates and times (in English):

Sunday, August 14th @ 8 pm

Sunday, August 21st @ 8 pm

Sunday, August 28th @ 8 pm

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!

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 examine the ghost of Catholic recluse Jeanne Le Ber, one of Ville-Marie’s most devoted and extreme colonists.

Haunted Research

As the most haunted neighborhood in the city, Old Montreal witnesses many ghost-sightings.

On October 4, 2014, Haunted Montreal was contacted by a woman in a panic. Her name was Nora and she was a tourist from Texas who had recently attended a Haunted Montreal ghost walk in Griffintown.

The following day she decided to visit Old Montreal, which was the day she called Haunted Montreal to report something that had upset her very much.

After spending the day sightseeing, she attended Aura, the stunning light show at the Notre-Dame Basilica.

She had parked her car in a the western lot beside St. Laurent Boulevard just north of Cours Le Royer. As she was walking back along St. Sulpice Street, she turned left on Des Brésoles and then right on Marie-Morin Street.

She turned the corner onto the Cours Le Royer to access the parking lot. As she approached her car, she was shocked to find a disheveled old woman lying on her stomach the ground on the pavement behind her car.

The lady was writhing about, as though in pain. When Nora rushed over to help her, she couldn’t help notice the stench of blood.

As she reached down to try and help to help the woman, she noticed two very strange things. Firstly, the woman was wearing some very coarse clothing, almost as if it was made from potato sacks. Secondly, the rear side of her shirt was shredded and there was blood leaking all over her back. The woman was moaning in pain.

Nora immediately called 911 to report the situation ang get help as fast as she could.

The dispatcher said an ambulance was nearby and would arrive within a few minutes. He told her to administer first aid until the paramedics arrived.

Nora hung up and pulled a handkerchief out of her purse to apply pressure on the wounds. However, when she looked down where the woman had been moments earlier, there was nothing to see but the bare asphalt of the parking lot. The bloodied old woman in the coarse clothing had vanished into thin air.

The next thing Nora heard was the sirens of the ambulance arrive.

Two paramedics jumped out and rushed over. Nora was speechless and in a state of total shock. She didn’t know how to explain why the bloodied woman was no longer there.

She tried her best to explain what had happened. The ambulance technicians were puzzled. After a brief private discussion, they warned her that she was likely experiencing hallucinations and offered to drive her to an emergency psychiatric unit.

Upset, Nora declined.

When she called Haunted Montreal, she wanted to know if she was losing her mind or if there was another explanation.

When Haunted Montreal told her that she had likely encountered the ghost of Jeanne Le Ber, especially as it was the 300^th anniversary of her death, Nora was very relieved.

Jeanne Le Ber was born in 1662 in Ville-Marie to a very wealthy family.

As she blossomed into beautiful young woman, her parents would often dress her up in the finest clothing, ribbons and latest fashions.

Before long, she was one of the most eligible bachelorettes in all of New France. Her parents began inviting over dashing young men in high standing within the colony to woo her.

However, young Jeanne Le Ber was repulsed by all of her suitors. She said that she didn’t want to marry any of them. When her parents asked her whom she wished to marry, she told them that the only person she wanted to marry was God himself.

When Jeanne Le Ber approached her priest for counsel, he advised to try being a recluse for five years.

Jeanne spent the next five years locked in her bedroom in her father’s house – in total reclusion. Her loyal cousin, Anna Barroy, would bring her food every day. Jeanne refused to come out of her room, even for her brother’s funeral.

When she heard that the Notre-Dame Congregation was interested in building a new church next to their Motherhouse, Jeanne Le Ber offered to pay for it – under one condition.

Jeanne Le Ber wanted to live in a specially constructed apartment behind the altar in the new church so she could be as close to God as possible. Marguerite Bourgeoys, Founder of the Congregation and the Mother Superior, was thrilled and readily agreed to the proposal.

In 1693, workers began building a 50 x 30 feet church called Notre-Dame-de-Pitié (Our Lady of Mercy). As promised, a small living space was created for Jeanne Le Ber behind the altar.

On August 5, 1695, a big religious ceremony was held in the church.  Jeanne Le Ber, 33 years old at the time, took vows of perpetual seclusion, chastity and silence. As the congregation looked on, she then entered her new apartment and the door was closed behind her – never to be opened again until her death.

The living conditions within her apartment were very primitive. There was no proper heating, no ventilation and no natural light. She slept on a straw bed that got harder and harder as the years passed by. The only thing Jeanne Le Ber would eat were leftover scraps from the poor, which were sometimes moldy. These were served by her loyal cousin.

She spent her time wearing uncomfortable horsehair shirts, sewing clothing for the poor, embroidering church vestments, praying for the colony and prostrating herself before the altar every night. She was also known to self-flagellate. She used a scourge, a type of religious whip, to repeatedly lash her own back.

She was frequently left bloodied by this devout act of self-punishment.

In the dank and claustrophobic conditions, her health began to deteriorate until she caught pneumonia. She died from the disease on October 4, 1714 at the age of 52.

After 19 years in seclusion, she was hailed as the “Angel of Montreal” and buried in the church’s crypt near her father.

Over 150 years later, in 1882, Catholic authorities decided to exhume her remains to ensure they were protected in the event she became a Saint. In the Catholic Church human remains of religious figures are very important. They are preserved and kept in reliquaries beneath the altars of important churches.

However, when the Bishop cracked open the tomb, a fine white dust dissipated on contact with the air. He believed that all traces of Jeanne Le Ber’s remains had been lost.

In 1911, the City of Montreal decided to demolish the Motherhouse and Notre-Dame-de-Pitié Church with a view to extending Saint-Laurent Boulevard to the river.

The Sisters of the Congregation then had to carry out a new exhumation to transport all the remains from the crypt to their new motherhouse at Villa-Maria.

Finally, in 1988, the decision was made to transfer the deceased sisters to the Côte-des-Neiges Cemetery. While carrying out the exhumation, in 1991, officials were surprised to find two epitaphs marking the location of a single tomb: one in the name of Jacques Le Ber and the other in the name of his daughter, Jeanne. With only one skeleton inside, they wondered if it was the father or daughter.

The bones were sent to a forensics laboratory and, in 1991, experts revealed that they were the remains of a female. Her skeleton had ground-down knees and the two front teeth were damaged by notches. They concluded it was Jeanne Le Ber’s remains, on account of her frequent kneeling and using her teeth to cut threads for sewing.

Today, the remains of Jeanne Le Ber rest in the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel, where Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys also reposes.

On October 28, 2015, the diocesan process for Canonizing Jeanne Le Ber began in Montreal. This means that she could one day become the fifth Saint from Montreal, also known as the “City of Saints”.

The other Montreal Saints include Marguerite Bourgeoys (canonized in 1982), Marguerite d’Youville (1990), Brother André Bessette (2010) and Kateri Tekakwitha (2012). Jeanne Mance and Jérôme Le Royer de la Dauversière are also venerated, and may become Saints one day too.

If sainted, Jeanne Le Ber, the so-called “Angel of Montreal”, would become the only local Saint who is also a ghost.

Company News

Haunted Montreal’s summer season is in full swing with ghost walks every Friday and Saturday night on rotation.

Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

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

Our Virtual Ghost Tour is also available on demand!

Private tours for any of these experiences can be booked based on the availability of our actors.

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

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

We are also offering a proto-type of our upcoming Haunted Old Montreal Ghost Tour!

This ghost walk is in development for the Hallowe’een Season and Haunted Montreal will be offering trial runs at reduced prices on the following dates and times (in English):

Sunday, August 14th @ 8 pm

Sunday, August 21st @ 8 pm

Sunday, August 28th @ 8 pm

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.

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 2022 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 August 13^th: Haunted Old Tourist Rooms

Nestled in the bustling Quartier des Spectacles sits an old 19th Century hotel that is rumoured to be haunted. Guests have reported electronic devices seeming to take on a life of their own. One guest reported that the TV in his room randomly changed channels and the phone rang throughout the night with no one on the other end. Could this paranormal activity be related to a series of murders in the hotel during the 1980s when it was rife with drugs and prostitution? 

Author:

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

Translator (into French):

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

With over 350 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal dedicates itself to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

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

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

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

Haunted Research

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

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

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

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

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

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

According to Bourgeoys:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Company News

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coming up on March 13: Réseau Express Métropolitain’s Ghostly Gamble (Part 2)

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

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