A ghost of a chance
see an increase in international visitors. The two active tours at this time take place on Mount Royal and Griffintown, however, there are plans for Secret Montreal, and Red Light District tour through what is now known as the Quartier des Spectacles. “It’s the Paris of North America!” King enthuses. “We’re working on haunted downtown and Chinatown as well!”
On the 13th of each month, King adds a ghost story installment to his site, www.hauntedmontreal.com . “The stories are featured in English and French. Montreal is extremely haunted! There is an archive of approximately one-hundred-and-fifty stories – I have twenty-five blogged. Since Montreal was such an economic hub for so long, there is a true multicultural angle to its history, and so the stories are multicultural as well – tales of oppression, layers of colonization; the famine in Ireland in 1847 that saw 75,000 Irish immigrants land in Canada... Many Montreal tours are very Euro-centric, but the Haunted Montreal tours are theatrical and multi-cultural!”
King’s own history with haunts is diverse. In the 1990s, studying acting, he was hired by Bob Short, Academy Awardwinning Hollywood designer (for his work on Beetlejuice). Short had set up Chateau Greystoke in Decarie Square, an enormous haunted house, and put his trust in King to hire and train the bilingual actors who became the attraction’s haunts!
King’s love of ghosts and this acting angle led him to a stint running England’s London Dungeon entertainment department.
When asked about some of the more famous Montreal ghost stories, King doesn’t miss a beat. “There have been numerous accounts of the ghost of Simon Mctavish tobogganing in his coffin!” Down the Mcgill-centric road named after him no less. Apparently there is a painting hanging in the Mccord museum where you can actually see Mctavish’s skeleton luge-ing along. Mctavish died of a combination of pleurisy and pneumonia, leaving an incomplete castle and a young widow who remarried someone a little closer to her age. King claims that in the 1800s students were so caught up with pursuing the legend that Mcgill University attempted to actually bury the story, and Simon Mctavish’s mausoleum along with it. Rumour has it that one explanation for this odd appearance is a professor known as the Resurrectionist who, under budget constraints, would find the cadavers necessary for his class at the Catholic cemetery...and that there’s a chance that he was a bit of a butter fingers, leading to his toboggan (carrying his subject) on the loose through Montreal. “Mctavish is our Legend of Sleepy Hollow! There is a feature film in there!” King laughs.
Another colourful character from the past, speaking of red lights, is Mary Gallagher, known as Headless Mary, one of Montreal’s ladies of the evening, who was beheaded in a jealous rage by her best friend Katie Moynan (another practicer of the oldest profession), sparking a series of sightings. Headless Mary became a legendary character even used by parents to prompt their offspring to behave. It became tradition on the anniversary of her death for children to leave bags of candy on the corner she used to frequent. Apparently Mary’s just looking for a head. Can we really blame her for traipsing around the ville?
King hopes in time to compile his blog installments into book form. He grows the tour business sustainably, and hopes to add a new ghost tour every year.
For more information on how you can get your scare on, visit www.hauntedmontreal.com . This is a great experience for those looking for something different to do with the teens this summer, or a great date night (just might bring you closer). Tell ‘em Sheila Q. sent you .... but allow me to warn you, you may never see the city the same once you experience this level that others can’t see.