McGill University

Haunted Montreal Blog #110 – McGill Arts Building

McGill University’s Arts Building is an iconic symbol of the institution. Constructed in 1843, as the oldest structure standing on campus, it is also reputed to be haunted. This may be due to its deranged history as the first edifice where medical students performed experimental autopsies on unfortunate corpses, many of them stolen from local cemeteries. Today, phantom footsteps echo throughout the old building and some students have reported spotting what could be the ghost of an old Anatomy professor.

Haunted Montreal Blog #38 – Ravenscrag

Ravenscrag is a prominent Pine Avenue mansion that is currently used as McGill's psychiatry department. Now known as the Allan Memorial Institute, it is a very creepy estate and is also rumoured to be extremely haunted. Tortured, disembodied voices are known to echo the corridors and not only do caretakers often refuse to clean the terrifying morgues in the building, but sometimes at night a mysterious light appears in the cupola of the main tower overlooking the McGill campus.

Haunted Montreal Blog #28 – McGill University Faculty Club

The McGill Faculty Club is the sort of place where things literally go bump in the night. Doors on the upper floors often slam on their own accord. The staff also reports that the elevator sometimes moves between floors, inexplicably, without any human passengers. In the billiard room, the balls are known to roll on their own, as though a game is being played by invisible spirits. Some servants are unnerved by the numerous portraits hanging on the walls, which they claim often follow them with their eyes. In 2010, Tony Austin, the Club’s longstanding maître d’hôtel, told the McGill Reporter: “I’ve never seen a ghost myself, but when you’re all alone in this house at the end of the night it can be a little creepy with all those portraits staring back at you.”

Haunted Montreal Blog #6 – Haunted Griffintown Tour & McLennan Library Ghost

Allegedly the 6th floor of the McLennan Library is haunted by the ghostly apparition of an elderly man who wears a strange old coat. He is known to float quietly above the floor, sometimes towards students who are deep in a book or librarians stacking the shelves. Once he selects his target, the apparition is known to glide up behind a person, then lurk, almost perfectly still. He stares intently at his victim until he is noticed. When the startled person reacts, usually by screaming and jumping up from their chair, this ghost is known to vanish into thin air, leaving the victim embarrassed for having disturbed the quietude that makes the McLennan Library famous.

Haunted Montreal Blog # 2 – Duggan House

The building is currently used by the Department of Education. At some point during the 1990s, a female Graduate student had a terrifying encounter in Duggan House. She was scheduled to have an important academic meeting her professor in the large foyer of the building. When she entered, she found him in a plush chair, awaiting her. The student sat down opposite him, put her purse on the ground to the right of her, and flipped open her notebook. She was in the process of explaining some new avenues of research, when suddenly she froze and stopped speaking. Her mouth agape, she stared at the shadowy, spiral staircase to the left behind the professor. The student appeared to be in a state of panic and started pointing at the staircase and screaming. She witnessed the ghostly specter of a woman, clad in a 19th Century petticoat, who materialized on top the spiral staircase and then begin descending into the foyer. The girl was now shrieking hysterically, causing the professor to panic. He immediately spun his chair around to see the imminent danger that was terrorizing his student. There was nothing there.

Back To Top