It was sunny and above freezing for the first day in forever, so obviously we were inclined to search out some ghosts. While others out there seem to think that shadowy things wait until October rolls around to go bump in the night, we’re ninety percent sure that ghouls and goblins aren’t beholden to seasons or dates. If undead phantoms are oOoOoO-ing around at all, they’re oOoOoO-ing around regardless of the status of pumpkin crops.
We were sure that ghosts could be found in the city somewhere - but where? There’s at least one McDonald’s that is absolutely cursed (take a guess in the comments!), but we wanted something more than cursed. We wanted haunted. So, we did a couple quick Google searches. Tourisme Montreal thankfully has a dedicated site for this kind of thing and makes some very grand claims about Montreal. It is, they say, arguably the most haunted city in Canada - if not all of North America! They do not share any hard numbers or the methodology they followed to arrive at this conjecture, but who were we to question them? Our understanding of paranormal statistics is rudimentary at best.
Despite the bold claims by MTL tourism, they do hedge things a bit. “While the city has dozens of haunted sites,” they write, “some are more ghost-ridden than others.” We didn’t want to waste our (or your) time with a place only moderately ridden with ghosts - so we decided to look at exclusively at the most haunted places across the city.
Sadly, most of the most haunted sites entailed certain non-paranormal (normal?) risks. Visiting Grey Nuns Motherhouse (a former convent turned into a Concordia residence hall) sounded cool, but sneaking into a dorm at night sounded very uncool. Wandering around Mount Royal cemetary seemed intriguing (if a little cliché), but catching a trespassing charge did not. While we’re very dedicated to giving you the best mid-March ghost content possible, most of the most haunted places weren’t going to work out. We were going to bail on the idea, leave Montreal’s ghosts to wander un-blogged about, but then we found TravelTriangle’s “6 Haunted Places In Montreal That Will Scare You To Death With Their Spookiness.”
The place with the second highest levels of deadly spookiness was, you guessed it, the Standard Life building’s parking lot.
Were we skeptical that deadly spookiness levels could be quantified? No. Were we put off by the fact that the picture they use is of the Standard Life and ATCO Center in Edmonton rather than the Standard Life (now Manuvie) building in Montreal? Also no. This building’s parking lot was exactly the kind of “place which is not for the faint hearted” that we were looking for and the disoriented, unnamed son of the owner of a house was just the kind of ghost we wanted to meet.
We grabbed what we had begun to consider our “ghost gear” (our trusty iPhone 5S) and set off for the Standard Life building’s parking lot in search of, urm, well, nonstandard life.
On our way, we were forced to reconsider certain assumptions we had about ghosts. If movies and books had taught us anything, it was that ghosts typically stayed indoors. They dwelled in the castles of Otranto, abandoned hospitals, or - most frequently - houses with crown moldings. They also, it seemed, tended to like their abodes to be somewhere in the countryside or at least on the outskirts of town. For all the different ghosts haunting film and literature, we had never seen or read about an outdoor city ghost in North America. The truly terrifying reverend from Poltergeist III occurred to us, but that gaunt dude was technically from a cave in rural California and only travelled to the city to get Cindy. He was, at best, a tourist ghost. Candyman came to mind, but he was very dedicated to public housing (what a great thing!) and needed to be summoned. Our parking lot ghost, we were sure, hadn’t occupied public housing, wouldn’t have a hook for a hand, and didn’t need summoning. TravelTriangle, we were pretty sure, wouldn’t knowingly lead us to a Candyman-type scenario.
Why, we wondered, are ghosts are so rarely represented in cities? Is it because no one would notice them? The typical markers of paranormal entities - torn and old clothes, a penchant for unclear or sudden outburts, unclear desires - are all very normal attributes for a lot of people across our fair city. Montrealers, we suppose, whisper cryptic phrases less frequently than ghosts - but we have met more than a few people sitting outside metro entrances who know how to whisper a cryptic phrase or two.
Maybe ghosts don’t show up in cities because it would be too difficult to sort out their origins. There are too many sordid lives, too many nameless dead, in a metropole. If you came across a shambling spectre in the Old Port, how would you begin to identify them in order to, y’know, resolve their unfinished business and shepherd their lost soul towards the light? We have no idea how we’d do that. Would we have to go to a library? Is that where the archives are? And if we found the archives, would they be helpful? Official archives tend to be quiet about certain folks and, more particularly, those who suffer the kind of difficult lives and unfortunate deaths that might make a person refuse death entirely and haunt the forsaken land that bore indifferent witness to their suffering.
Needless to say, we were pretty excited about the rarity of this parking lot ghost. Our expectations were high. We had timed things so that we’d arrive near the building at sunset. Upon arriving we remembered that “sunset” does not mean “nightfall.” There is, like, A LOT of time between sunset and night. We wandered aimlessly around the area, keeping an eye peeled for the possibility that our city ghost was also a day ghost - but no luck.
Wandering up and down the street for over an hour, we listened to a generic podcast where the host reads ostensibly true scary stories submitted by listeners with handles like CrotchMaster12 and DiggleMyFiddle (!). We were trying to get ourselves in the right frame of mind for our meeting with this ghost, but the stories seemed neither true nor scary. Or, rather, these stories seemed like every horror story. There were violent acts committed against frightened victims who were met, if they were met at all, by disbelieving friends and family. Each story was thick with familiar tropes, weighed down by predictable twists and turns.
Why, though, did the formulaic character of these stories make them seem untrue and uninteresting? A love story’s veracity and interest isn’t undermined by its adherence to tropes. We might not want to ever hear about love at first sight, but we don’t doubt that it happens or perk up when we see it represented. The stuff of horror, though, always seems derivative. We’ve heard it before. Sad and scary tales wherein an innocent person falls prey to some disastrous force or circumstance beyond their ken are a dime a dozen. Some person misjudges a risk, makes a mistake, or encounters tragedy and finds their world radically changed for the worse. These stories aren’t even notable anymore.
We started to wonder whether our report was doomed to be disbelieved or, worse, disregarded. What if the parking lot ghost did very predictable things? Had a terribly common plight? Wanted only to find a place that was his? What if we were startled by him and ran off before listening? Or what if - despite our best efforts - our mind was closed to really attending to him at all?
After seeing no fewer than seven different delivery guys drop off food at a nearby apartment building, it was finally sort of dark enough. It never actually gets dark in the city. Stars here are mostly theoretical. But we assumed (based on nothing) that it was dark enough now for ghosts.
The Standard Life building, as far as we could tell, is under renovation. The entrances are cordoned off with little signs saying as much, so we have no earthly idea why random lights up and across the building are lit. We’d read nothing about ghosts in the building, so didn’t worry too long trying to spy elderly widows at the windows or frustrated insurance adjusters adjusting deeds for no one regarding nothing. We just assumed the building was empty save the security guard in the lobby. The heat, power, and shelter of this building were - we guess - for him alone.
We quickly disregarded the building itself and made our way to the haunted parking lot.
We aren’t going to lie. It was less portentous than we had imagined. We were hoping for, like, some ominous columns behind which hooded figures might hide or an old Cadillac in eerily pristine condition whose radio might randomly click on and issue out old doo-wop tunes. Instead, we got a bunch of snow and two blue barrels. The iron fence was, we suppose, kind of gothic - but it was barely decaying and hardly bent in a suggestively creepy way. There were also a fairly steady stream of pedestrians and cars passing by behind us. An older man wished us a good night while he was walking his dog which, while kind, kind of messed with our sense of dread anticipation.
We waited. There was nowhere to sit and we were fairly certain that we’d be shooed away by the security guard if we did find somewhere to perch, lean, or rest. We didn’t want to be caught sitting when the parking lot ghost showed up anyways - so we just awkwardly stood there and looked around. We are very unpracticed at indeterminately waiting. Typically we wait for something identifiable to arrive. We wait for friends, buses, or nightfall. Here, though, we weren’t entirely sure what we were waiting for or how long we’d have to wait for it. We wanted somehow to speed this whole thing along - it was getting bitter cold - but didn’t really know what to do. Moreover, we were starting to worry that the parking lot ghost might be truly invisible. Maybe he was already there, but we couldn’t see him. If we couldn’t photograph him, then how would you believe in his existence or the urgency of his needs?
We were stuck, again, trying to figure out what we’d have to say to convince you about this ghost. Words wouldn’t do the trick and photographs might not be possible. Even if this ghost were the non-invisible (visible?) variety, wouldn’t the ghost just look like anyone else? His arm might be extended just so - searching for wine - but what would that prove? You’d maybe look at the picture and scoff. And if we argued that no, no, this is just and merely a person without a proper place, a person who is only looking for a way out of trouble or a way back into something like safety and comfort, but has lost or sworn off more standard forms of expression? Well, you might say, why doesn’t this damn ghost just go towards the light already? It’s not that hard. Just go to the light like everyone else. It’s not like you expect someone to show you the light or explain how the light works. If he’s really a ghost, well, then someone would be helping him. There are a lot of people out there pretending to be ghosts, playing at it for profit. We’ve read stories about that. AND anyways there are metaphysical programs in place to aid actual ghosts. The fact that that ghost is in a parking lot instead of an old mansion somewhere with all the other ghosts is proof that that ghost wants to be a parking lot ghost. Besides ghosts inevitably did something to deserve being a ghost. That’s how it happens. They’ve only got themselves to blame. What did you say the parking lot ghost wanted? Wine? Give me a break.
We couldn’t think of how to present the parking lot ghost in word or image such that everyone who read or saw him recognized his importance, his rarity, the inviolable merits of his need, or the many and varied ways he might be helped. So, a little despairing, we started walking back home. We detoured over to Dorchester Square which, we were told, is haunted by the thousands of people - mostly immigrants from all over - buried beneath it in mass graves during the cholera epidemics in the 19th century.
We saw and heard and felt no ghosts. Just a couple of unhoused folks off in the distance, talking, laughing, yelling, eventually wandering off to some untold elsewhere or hunkering down on a bench for a spell. It was getting late, so we went home and thought hard about how on earth we’d tell you about all the ghosts and all the people who aren’t ghosts at all.
Cursed McDo? If it's still there, the one on the corner of Mont-Royal and Papineau is a vibe. And I have heard stories about the one up near St. Laurent/Jean-Talon. Honestly, they might all be cursed in their own specific way. This must be a trick question.
Maybe the Bell Centre could be a venue for a sighting of a ghost carrying the Stanley Cup!