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!

With the summer here, Haunted Montreal is running a whole season of ghost tours and haunted experiences! Our ghost tours include Haunted Old Montreal, Griffintown, Downtown and the mountain!

Please note that due to construction. our Haunted Old Montreal Ghost Tour has changed its starting location!

Details in the Company News section below!

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 4 pm.

We also offer paranormal investigations! In addition to our investigation of the old Sainte-Antoine Cholera Cemetery, Haunted Montreal is proud to announce our latest experience – Paranormal Investigation – Colonial Old Montreal.

To learn more, see the schedule at the bottom of our home page!

Private tours for all of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours start at $215 for small groups of up to 7 people.

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

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

This month we update our readers about some remarkable new archaeological discoveries – and alleged desecration – within the historic Dawson Site.

Haunted Research

The Dawson Site, a 19^th Century archeological dig that unearthed an Indigenous village in Downtown Montreal, is one of the city’s biggest mysteries.

Haunted Montreal Blog #44 – The Dawson Site – was written in April, 2019. The article featured the history of this remarkable place and the paranormal activity associated with it.

Since the original blog publication, there have been important new developments.

In 2016, workers were doing construction on Peel and Sherbrooke Streets as part of the Promenade Fleuve-Montagne tourist itinerary. Rumour has it that an earth-digger allegedly cut the skeletal remains of a Mohawk chief in half, which put an immediate stop to the work.

Realizing that they had discovered more of the Dawson Site, archaeologists proceeded to unearth over 2000 Indigenous artefacts at the intersection between 2016 and 2019.

However, many speculate that the alleged desecration of the chief’s skeleton, purportedly cut in half by the digger, triggered paranormal activity.

Rumours now abound that a set of skeletal legs, cut off above the hip bones, can sometimes be spotted wandering about the crossroads.  

The discovery also inspired some incredible public art! Tsi niion kwarihò:ten, a series of 11 stations along Peel Street featuring detailed bronze spheres, reflects Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives during the colonial era.

Created by Kanien’kehá:ka artist MC Snow and Kyra Revenko, a non-Indigenous artist, the sculptures are inspired by the Mohawk thanksgiving ceremony “Words Before All Else”. Essentially, the artworks honor every important element of life and highlight the importance of cultural diversity, dialogue and reconciliation.

Given the rarity of Indigenous public art in the city, Haunted Montreal highly recommends walking the trail and engaging with its bronze spheres and the audio app tied to them. Just keep your eyes peeled for any potential paranormal activity at the intersection with Sherbrooke Street!

Company News

Haunted Montreal is proud to announce our latest haunted experience – Paranormal Investigation – Colonial Old Montreal.

Hosted by professional Ghost-hunter Dominique Desormeaux of Investigations 13, Haunted Montreal’s “Paranormal Investigation – Colonial Old Montreal” takes guests on a dark adventure into the mysterious world of ghost hunting!

With the summer in full swing, Haunted Montreal is running a whole season of ghost tours and haunted experiences! Our ghost tours include Haunted Old Montreal, Griffintown, Downtown and the mountain!

Please note that due to construction, our Haunted Old Montreal Ghost Tour has changed its starting location! Our former location, Parc de la Presse, is fenced off for upgrades.

As such, Haunted Old Montreal Ghost Tours have relocated and will now be starting at the mysterious Bank of Montreal Clock.

Guests are invited to meet the guide next to the Bank of Montreal Clock in front of 155 St. Jacques Street West. The location is on the north-east corner of St. Francois-Xavier and St. Jacques Streets, very close to Metro Place d’Armes on the Orange Line.

In the meantime, our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 4 pm.

To learn more, see the schedule at the bottom of our home page!

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 $215 for small groups of up to 7 people.

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

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

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

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

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

In other news, if you want to send someone a haunted experience as a gift, you certainly can! We are offering Haunted Montreal Gift Certificates through our website and redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual events (no expiration date).

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

We are selling t-shirts, magnets, sweatshirts (for those haunted fall and winter nights) and mugs with both the Haunted Montreal logo and our tour imagery.

Purchases can be ordered through our online store.

Haunted Montreal has temporarily altered its blog experience due to a commitment on a big writing project! New stories at the Haunted Montreal Blog will now be offered every two months, whereas every other month will feature an update to an old story.

As always, these stories and updates will be released on the 13th of every month!

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

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page, 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: Montreal’s Forgotten Irish Famine Cemetery

Plans are afoot to build a whole new neighbourhood in the Bridge-Bonaventure sector south of Griffintown and the Lachine Canal. Urban plans depict high-rise condominiums, spaces for commerce and arts and even an “urban beach” in the old Wellington Basin. However, local historian Sylvain Gaudet has recently unearthed research suggesting that over one thousand Irish Famine Dead are still buried in the vicinity. As the site of Montreal’s first Irish Famine Cemetery, further desecration will almost certainly result in more ghosts in the already haunted area.   

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!

For this year’s Hallowe’en Season we are launching our new ghost tour – Haunted Old Montreal!

This haunted walk is available every Sunday night in October!

Tickets are now on sale!

Haunted Montreal is also currently offering our regular ghost tours in both languages:

Every Friday:

Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Every Saturday (on rotation):

Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

Every Sunday:

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.

For those who want to try to communicate with the Dead, we offer a real Paranormal Investigation the first weekend of every month (Fridays in French and Saturdays in English). There is also a special investigation on Hallowe’en night:

Paranormal Investigation – Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery

Private tours can also be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors.

Our Virtual Ghost Tour is also available on demand!

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 venerable Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal hospital and its ghost stories told over the centuries!

Haunted Research

Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal is one of North America’s oldest and most haunted hospitals. Established in 1642 by colonial nurse Jeanne Mance, it has seen many incarnations over the centuries and still exists today.

The founding of this colonial hospital was allegedly rooted in a Godly message received by Jérôme Le Royer de La Dauversière. This devout Catholic tax-collector from La Flèche, France was part of a religious movement that dreamt of colonizing “New France” with the goal of converting Indigenous people to Catholicism.

On February 2, 1630, as he approached his 33rd birthday, Jérôme Le Royer went to the chapel of Notre-Dame du Chef du Pont in La Flèche for the Feast of the Purification. During the communion, Le Royer heard an interior Godly voice, which instructed him:

“My son, consecrate yourself, with your wife and children, to the Holy Family. You will found an order of nuns and consecrate them to my foster father, Joseph. These nuns will go to Montreal, Canada, and found the Hôtel-Dieu there.”

Jérôme Le Royer was so inspired by the otherworldly message that he decided to found “The Notre-Dame Society for the Conversion of the Savage Peoples of New France”.

This colonial organization began fund-raising and assembling supporters with the goal of establishing a French colony on the Mohawk territory of Tiohtià:ke, called “Montreal Island” by the French.

Le Royer also established the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph, an order of nuns to found the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital. He recruited a young woman named Jeanne Mance to be in charge of the project. He also selected a military leader named the Sieur de Miasonneuve to govern the colony.

Once the colonization team was assembled, it sailed across the Atlantic for Quebec City in 1641. After spending the winter in the colony, in May, 1642, it set sail to colonize Tiohtià:ke. The French had an advantage in that the Mohawk people were not in this part of their territory at the time.

It is important to note that the Catholic colonists were terrified of the Devil and his evil minions. They saw demons as having a special mission to harass and thwart any Christian project, especially works of charity and compassion like hospitals, orphanages and shelters.

The first thing the French colonists did when they arrived was fire their cannons to try and scare suspected demons away. Father Vimont, a Jesuit priest who was part of the group that founded the city, wrote:

“The thunder of the cannon reverberated over the whole island. The demons…were no doubt dismayed at a sound that testified to the love we have for our great lady.” The great lady was the Virgin Mary, and the religious colonists named their city “Ville-Marie” in her honour.

With the construction of the Ville-Marie colony, Jeanne Mance created a rudimentary hospital in 1642 within the palisade of the fort.

When the first stone hospital was built in 1645, Jeanne Mance officially founded the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal on October 8, as confirmed by a patent of King Louis XIV of France.

When the Mohawk First Nation realized that Tiohtià:ke had been colonized, and all out war broke out with the French. In 1649 the hospital was briefly closed and converted into military installation

The hospital grew when two surgeons arrived from France in 1653 and authorities began constructing a chapel on the site. However, disaster struck on February 22, 1695, when a mysterious fire burned the hospital to the ground. Authorities blamed the inferno on a demon.

As they rebuilt the hospital, the nursing sisters complained that the same demon had arrived to terrify them.

They claimed that he ran about the hospital at night with a big candle in his hand. The demon was seen dashing from window to window, frightening passers-by on Saint-Paul Street.

The demon also raised a horrible racket by throwing piles of building materials down the stairs into the cellar. Sometimes he could be heard working all night long with an axe and saw, as though he was a carpenter.

There were also nights when the demon galloped around on the roof like a frisky young horse or walked the length of the dormitory, clattering as if wearing wooden shoes. He finally rolled a large barrel down the stairs before moving on to terrorize other places.

In another case, a priest named Father de Fancampt claimed he was visited by a demon on his deathbed at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital. The demon taunted him and tried to bring him to purgatory, so Father de Fancampt refused to die until the demon was exorcised by another priest.

The hospital would burn to the ground again on June 19, 1721. While celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi, soldiers fired a volley into the air. A bullet struck the Hôtel Dieu, triggering a devastating fire that destroyed the hospital and burned down 138 homes.

A third hospital was soon built, but it was not to last very long.

The third version was destroyed on April 10, 1734, when a slave-woman named Marie-Josèphe Angélique was accused of arson.

It had started on the south side of Saint-Paul Street and spread very quickly. The fire was so intense that the law enforcement officers could not get close to it. Due to a strong wind blowing from the west, the fire spread and destroyed forty-six houses along with the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in less than three hours. Half of the city was completely ruined.

Rumours began to circulate that a slave named Marie-Josèphe Angélique had set the fire in the attic of her mistress’ home, one Madame de Francheville, on St. Paul Street. Even the town crier announced that she had started the fire.

Even though there were no witnesses, Marie-Josèphe Angélique was arrested and put on trial for arson. Some twenty colonists filed before the judge. All of them were convinced that the slave of Widow Francheville was guilty, yet not one of them saw her set the fire. She was declared guilty by the Judge and was sentenced to have her hand cut off and then to be burned alive at the scene of the fire, with her ashes scattered to the wind.

However, all death penalties in New France were automatically appealed to the Governor in Quebec City. The Governor reviewed the case and he felt it was too cruel. He decided to reduce the sentence: her hand would no longer be chopped off and instead of burning her alive, she would be hanged first and then her body would be thrown on the funeral pyre.

That afternoon, Marie-Josèphe Angélique was taken one last time through the streets of Montreal on the back of a horse-drawn garbage cart. She was dressed in a long white robe with a sign made from the burnt wood of the home around her neck with the word incindieare, or “arsonist”, inscribed upon it.

She was forced to wear a noose dangling around her neck and to carry a two-pound lit wooden torch as a reminder of her alleged crime.

When they arrived at the site where Madame Franchville’s home had stood, Marie-Josèphe Angélique mounted a scaffold with piles of firewood underneath it. She was then hanged and then the large funeral pyre was lit.  Her body was cut down and then flung into the blaze. Once her body had been cremated, her ashes were scattered in the wind.

Today, the ghost of Marie-Josèphe Angélique is probably the most well-known in Old Montreal. Not only have there been numerous sightings of her limping through the streets in a long white robe with a torch in her hand, but her story has also been featured on TV programs like Creepy Canada.

The fourth Hôtel Dieu Hospital was then built. It would be the last and most enduring structure on the original site.

Religious authorities were thrilled in 1784, when a military officer named James Singer donated his slave Dianne to the Hôtel Dieu Hospital before returning to England. The nursing sisters were so grateful for his “generosity and pious charity” that they promised to forever pray for his health and longevity.

In 1836, the hospital was exposed to scandal when the book Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, or, The Hidden Secrets of a Nun’s Life in a Convent Exposed was published. It claimed to reveal systematic sexual abuse of nuns and infanticide of the resulting children by Catholic priests in her convent and the Hôtel Dieu Hospital. In it, Monk claimed that nuns of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph, whom she called “the Black Nuns”, were forced to have sex with the priests in the nearby seminary. The priests supposedly entered the convent through a secret tunnel.

If the sexual union produced a baby, the priests baptized it – and then strangled the baby and dumped it into a lime pit in the basement. Uncooperative nuns “disappeared”. Widely regarded as an anti-Catholic hoax, the book even provided a map of the grounds with the fictional secret tunnel linking the hospital to the seminary.

In 1861, the Hôtel Dieu Hospital moved to a new location on the slopes of Mount Royal, marking its fifth incarnation. Not only did the living nuns and patients move to new hospital on the mountain – they also took all of the bodies of the deceased nuns, who were transferred to the chapel of the new hospital. A total of 178 nuns had died over the span of two centuries, however only 23 coffins were needed to carry all their remains, as many of the bones had been reduced to powder. These remains are still there, including the skeleton of Jeanne Mance.

The Mountain Campus of the Hôtel Dieu Hospital would serve Montrealers for over 150 years. It witnessed everything from epidemics of smallpox and Spanish Flu to diagnosing the first AIDS patient in Canada. The hospital was the site of medical innovations, the recovery of hundreds of thousands of patients and the deaths of many who did not survive.

It is also rumored to be haunted by ghostly nurses, smallpox victims and all sorts of other ghastly apparitions.

In 1992, the Musée des Hospitalières de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal opened on the site. Created for the 350th anniversary of the City of Montreal, this museum highlights the history of Jeanne Mance and the hospital she founded.

Returning to Old Montreal, the fourth hospital was demolished after the Mount Royal campus opened. Store-Warehouses, the most common type of building in Old Montreal, were erected on the site between 1861 and 1874. They were constructed because the British began to expand the port and these buildings were used to store imports and exports on the upper floors and as shops on the ground level. The religious authorities rented out these buildings to merchants, earning record sums from the property.

When the port moved to the east in the 1970s, all of the Store-Warehouses in Old Montreal became obsolete. These were converted info Old Montreal’s first luxury condos and currently sell for over a million dollars each. Because the Catholic authorities never took a Vow of Poverty, they made a fortune from the old Hôtel Dieu site!

Today, the condos are rumoured to have ghosts. Sometimes people have seen ghostly nurses in the windows of the building. Other times people hear a disembodied female voice crying “Au secours” (or “Help me!” in English). These paranormal cries may be related to one of the many fires that consumed the old hospital.

In any case, on September 23, 2017, the Hôtel Dieu moved from its Mount Royal site into the CHUM Super-hospital along with several older facilities. Today, one of the oldest hospitals in North America is still operating in the most ultramodern of settings.

One constant question is whether any ghosts or demons have followed the Hôtel Dieu Hospital to its newest location. While hospital management has denied that the new location has any paranormal activity, Haunted Montreal was contacted by a man who was recovering from a heart attack in October, 2019 at the CHUM location.

The patient claimed that while resting one afternoon in his hospital bed, he suddenly smelled sulfurous odor, almost like rotten eggs. At first, he thought that an orderly was bringing some sort of nasty food, especially as he could hear footsteps approaching his room.

However, the footsteps stopped outside of his door and nobody opened it.

“Is anyone there?” he asked, but there was no reply.

The patient pulled himself out of bed and slowly walked to the door, holding his nose as he went due to the sulfurous stench. Once at the door, he turned the handle to try and open it. It seemed to be locked!

Puzzled, the patient continued trying to turn the handle, when all of a sudden, the lights began flickering on and off in his hospital room. He then began to hear what sounded like demonic laughter.

It started slowly with some deranged snickering and soon developed into a roaring, full-throated cackling.

The man hobbled back to his bed as quickly as he could and began pressing the buzzer to summon a nurse. The laughter and the smell of sulfur got worse and worse and the man collapsed in his bed in terror.

When he woke up, he was surrounded by nurses and the stench and laughter were no longer present. Medical staff informed him that he had had a minor heart attack.

The patient assumed he may have been dreaming or hallucinating from the cocktail of drugs he was on, so did not mention his experience to hospital staff.

Indeed, it was only a few days later that he confided to Haunted Montreal about what had happened.

Given the Hôtel Dieu Hospital’s long association with demons and other spirits, it is feasible that the CHUM location is haunted.

Whatever the case, as one of the oldest hospitals in North America still in operation, there can be no denying the tales of ghosts and apparitions who have been haunting it for almost four centuries now.

Company News

For this year’s Hallowe’en Season we are launching a new ghost tour – Haunted Old Montreal! This haunted walk is available every Sunday night in October and more dates may be added based on demand.

Tickets are now on sale!

We are also offering all of our regular tours!

Every Friday:

Haunted Griffintown Ghost Walk

Every Saturday (on rotation):

Haunted Downtown Ghost Walk

Haunted Mountain Ghost Walk

Every Sunday:

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

For those who want to try to communicate with the Dead, we offer a real Paranormal Investigation the first weekend of every month (Fridays in French and Saturdays in English):

Paranormal Investigation – Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery

Private tours for any of these experiences can be booked at any time 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!

Our team also releases 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.

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 November 13: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Montreal

While visiting Montreal during a lecture tour in 1922, Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle learned about a poltergeist in the city. He described the apparition in his 1924 book Our Second American Adventure. Doyle gave a detailed account of how it had harassed a married couple. When a priest came to cast out the poltergeist, “in the midst of his exorcism the rug sprang at him and enveloped his head and shoulders, so that he ran terrified from the house.”

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.