Mount Royal Cemetery - A Halloween Special of Sorts

Mount Royal Cemetery is one of the most isolated, beautiful places you will find in the city. Reach the overlook on top of Mount Royal and head just a ways beyond on that gravel pathway until you reach the gates of this hidden sanctuary. For nature lovers, it's a must. If you're missing the simple sight of trees and grass (as I am), this will feel just like home. Whoever the groundskeeper is here, he really knows what he's doing. Lilacs are planted in abundance in every section of the cemetery. The sight and the fragrance give the sense that life is still in bloom, and here in the cemetery it blooms even in after life. Elsewhere in the city, these metaphorical lilacs of life bloom everyday, on every street corner, in restaurants, in galleries, in bars, in coffee shops, all around La Ville-Marie. The cemetery is not a gloomy scene at all. In fact, the cemetery is the perfect place for self-reflection. Walking around these graves, you begin to realize that you are vulnerable and mortal, your time is finite, and who you are will be remembered through the best and the worst of your characteristics. The sense of time overcomes all else.

The cemetery is just as multi-cultural as the cemetery it lies in. No surprise there - the dead are just as good an indication of a city's culture and history as the living. In the cemetery there are Jewish sections (which are gated off and far removed from the rest), Greek sections, Eastern European who-knows-what sections, and as my girlfriend and I strolled through rows and rows of tombstones on a Sunday afternoon, we came across... strange groupings of graves where we couldn't quite see the connection. About forty identical tombstones were given their own plot, and the only thing they all had in common were deaths around the years 1948 to 1953. Where did they come from? Where have they gone? It makes you wonder what's been going on in this city for the last two hundred years. There are thousands of different family names, thousands of different stories. Even some of the Molson family lies here at the top of the hill. It's only as soon as you see, in person, how many graves there are here that you realize how magical this place is. Half of Mount Royal is for the dead; the spirits of Montreal.