Haunted Montreal

With more than 375 years of history under its belt, Montreal is among Canada’s oldest cities. Few cities get to this ripe old age without accumulating a few ghosts, and Montreal is no exception. See below to find out more about Montreal’s spookiest sites. 

Top Haunted Sites

• Search for the Algonquin Indian, the spirit of a long-perished Algonquin warrior who is said to roamMount Royal Cemetery(Cimetière Mont-Royal).

• Hear about hair-raising reports of loud noises and a mysterious woman in white that have plagued the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel in hauntedDowntown Montreal.

• Wander the specter-ridden streets ofOld Montreal, the oldest part of the city. 

• Visit eerie empty lots, abandoned sites, and scary old buildings inGriffintown, a former industrial working-class neighborhood. 

Montreal’s Haunted History

From the time of Jacques Cartier’s voyage to Quebec in 1535 right up to the 20th century, when the city rose to prominence as Canada’s biggest and most important urban center, Montreal has witnessed many murders, deaths, tragedies, and unexplained mysteries. Macabre episodes and gruesome events blight the pages of its history books, whether it’s the 6,000 Irish immigrants who fell foul to a typhus epidemic in the mid-19th century, the hundreds of soldiers wiped out during the 1837 rebellions against the English, the more than 50 children killed in a tragic 1918 orphanage fire, or the grisly killing of Mary Gallagher—whose decapitated body was found in 1879. As a result, ghost stories abound in Montreal, meaning guides have lots of creepy tales to share during “spirited” ghost tours of the city.