With its expert ghost tours, centuries of spooky history and haunted sites everywhere you turn, Montreal is one hell of a ghoulish time around Halloween.
From walking tours of a funeral-home-cum-supper-club (the largest supper club in Canada) to a boozy (haunted) pub crawl, Halloween brings out the city’s scary side, with enough spooky activities for anyone to shake a broomstick at—not to mention haunted houses, pumpkin patches and parties. What you may not know is that Montreal is also full of actual ghosts that roam the city streets all throughout the year, ready to be spotted by thrillseekers who want shivers well beyond October. This is your essential list of the city’s best guided ghost tours to book at your leisure (and peril).
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This most jovial of tours led by the knowledgeable folks at Haunted Montreal will take you or your group on a boozy downtown outing to three of Montreal’s purported 40 (!) haunted drinkeries (including the largest supper club in Canada). Expect suspense, drama, entertaining storytelling and lots of nice beer. It’s no surprise it’s one of their most ghost walks.
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The award-winning Montreal Ghosts tour group has been offering professional ghost tours since 1999, so they know their history. They’ll take you into the dark nooks and crannies of the city’s founding neighbourhood, Old Montreal (filled with architecture from the 17th and 18th centuries), and tell you all about some of the city’s most famous haunting stories. The tours are led by professional actors in costume and character, so nothing beats the illusion.
As its oldest neighbourhood, Old Montreal is also the city’s most haunted, with ghost stories that go back to the horrors of colonial times. The area has witnessed guerilla warfare, unspeakable tragedies, heinous crimes and shocking executions, all of which will be described in gory detail on this spooky tour that stops by a half-dozen haunted locations.
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Featured on TV’s World’s Scariest Hauntings, the happening neighbourhood of Griffintown has witnessed everything from dying Irish refugees during the Famine of 1847 to the Industrial Revolution, not to mention Montreal’s worst air disaster. Led by a professional actor and storyteller, this ghost tour will bring all that heady history to life—so to speak.
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Even in the light of day Mount Royal can have a bit of a Blair Witch vibe, so this lantern-lit evening ghost walk is sure to give you the heebie jeebies. Starting at the bottom on the Plateau neighbourhood side, the ramble comes with legends about the mountain including haunted hospitals, abandoned castles and cemeteries teeming with the undead.
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Located right downtown under what is now known as Dorchester Square and Place du Canada, Saint-Antoine Cemetery counted approximately 70,000 burials during the 19th century. All sorts of atrocities occurred there: mass burials of cholera victims, doctors autopsying bodies out in the open, people buried alive… hear all about it while learning ghost hunting techniques with tools such as dowsing rods, EMF readers and temperature guns.
Montreal’s downtown core is always bustling with people, both in the towering skyscrapers from 9 to 5 on weekdays or evenings and weekends when shoppers, diners and visitors fill its streets. It’s the last place you’d expect to encounter the paranormal, and yet the area holds some of the city’s most famous ghost stories. Discover dark secrets on this tour as you visit a series of ghost-infested buildings.
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Explore Old Montréal in a completely new way, learning about its dark past and the ghosts that haunt its nooks and crannies through fascinating storytelling. Led by a professional actor, this ghostly tour of the streets and alleys of Old Montréal is recommended for people aged 10 and up.
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