6 Creepy Quebec Ghost Towns Perfect For A Spooky Fall Fear-Trip

Val-Jalbert

Distance from Montreal: 5 hours by car

This ghost town is a popular tourist site due to how well-preserved many of its buildings are. The small town was constructed around a paper mill in 1901. In its heyday in the 1920s, Val-Jalbert was a bustling little village, but when the mill shut down in 1927, the town was quickly abandoned.

Now, you can still see many buildings, some of which have been restored after Val-Jalbert was left to crumble. The site also offers views of a nearby waterfall, once you're too creeped out to keep exploring the town.

Grosse-Île

Distance from Montreal: 3 hours by car, plus a boat ride to the island

This scenic island location, with flowers and water views galore, belies its deeply sombre past. From the 1830s up until 1937, Grosse-Île was used as a quarantine station for immigrants, mostly from Ireland. They would often bring infectious diseases with them, like cholera, typhoid, and smallpox, and ultimately over 8,000 people were buried on the island.

Visiting this historic site is free, but you'll need to cross some water to get there (y'know, the whole island thing). There are boats available to take you to see the remaining structures, including the hospital and cemeteries.

Rivière-La Guerre

Distance from Montreal: 1.5 hours by car

The small settlement of Rivière-La Guerre was originally populated by Scottish immigrants in the 1820s. At first a cozy little community, the town eventually was abandoned after the wood trade became too challenging to maintain. Floods troubled the area and made it difficult to stay after a dam was constructed in a nearby river.

Now, the remains of the small church are most of what's left of Rivière-La Guerre, where you can see for yourself how easy it is for time and nature to erase the remains of human lives.

Baie-Sainte-Claire

Distance from Montreal: 2.5 hour flight from Quebec City, 18 hours by car (I warned you some of these would be far away!)

On the island of Anticosti near Gaspé, the remnants of a brief settlement can be visited and explored. The island was initially purchased in the hopes of building a fishing business, but these aspirations were hardly fulfilled. By 1930, only two families were left living in Baie-Sainte-Claire.

Now, all that remains are a few stone structures, including a lime oven that was restored in 1985.

Saint-Jean-Vianney

Distance from Montreal: 5 hours by car

Situated in what's now Saguenay, this small village experienced a nightmare on the evening of May 4, 1971. A massive, sudden landslide swept away a portion of the town, destroying 42 houses and killing 31 people. Only 15 survivors were ever found.

That month, then-Premier Robert Bourassa announced that the town would be closed permanently. Now, the only remains of Saint-Jean-Vianney are the rough terrain caused by the landslide and the slight traces of former roads. Chilling.

Pascalis

Distance from Montreal: 6 hours by car

The Pascalis township was founded in the early 1900s, when gold was discovered in Abitibi. Wherever there was gold, there were people, and Pascalis the town emerged in the thick of that dynamic.

At its height, Pascalis was based around one of four major mines in the area. But less than a decade after it was founded officially, disaster struck.

In 1944, a raging forest fire took nearly the entire village. A single home stood, that of the Boulay family, along with the concrete projection room of the local cinema and a pumping house on the outskirts of the town.

To this day, all that remains of the abandoned village are that pumping house, the movie theatre's ashen concrete skeleton, and a smattering of ruins lying in the forest.