The most beautiful cemeteries in Montreal worth visiting

Easily the most beautiful cemetery to walk around, NDN Cemetery got its first resident in 1855. A National Historic Site of Canada, it’s the largest cemetery in the country and counts about 1 million, um, residents. It covers a large, 341-acre swath of Mount Royal and has over 13,500 trees, including some rare specimens, giving it a sense of removed contemplation in the heart of nature. You can enter it at the meeting point of Côte-des-Neiges and Chemin Camilien-Houde, but one cool way to access it is via Upper Outremont: you’ll find a little-known public entrance at the corner of Courletette and Boulevard Mont-Royal that leads you a looong way up a hill (not for the faint of heart — literally) to a beautiful viewpoint and some gates that will give you access to the graves.

This neighbour to the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery is the smaller older sister cemetery, with close to 300,000 people who’ve been interred there since the Halloween season of 1852. You can easily access the softly undulating greens from Chemin Camilien-Houde on the more leisurely side of Mount Royal, as well as through Upper Outremont. It’s chock-a-block full of beautiful cherry, crabapple and lilac blossoms in spring. From here you can also easily access the two Jewish burial grounds — the Shaar Hashomayim Congregation and the Shearith Israel Synagogue — that have grounds on the mountain.

Featuring a water feature, lots of expertly tended trees, a few architecturally interesting monuments, a chapel (they also do weddings) and a big mausoleum with white marble and comfy seating (open all year), this outsized garden on Avenue des Perron in Laval is a real escape from everyday life. It was designed for families to come together and block out the sounds of the city while they share memories of loved ones, with all kinds of privacy nooks — but it’s open to everyone, not only family to those buried here. The mood is hushed, solemn and peaceful, so bring your contemplative side.

Right in the centre of what they now call Midtown, near Décarie and de la Savane, this cemetery dating back to 1863 isn’t as picturesque as the some of the others — featuring rows and rows of immaculately tended graves and very little horticulture — but it’s a real walk through history and the rich tapestry of Montréal’s Jewish heritage. It’s among the country’s largest Jewish cemeteries, counting 65,000 residents, including a Titanic victim, acclaimed poet A.M. Klein, Yiddish Theatre of Montreal founder Dora Wasserman and other well-known Canadian authors, politicians and artists. There are 16 Holocaust Memorials onsite you can find a map to here.

This memorial garden is in the unlikely location of the Côte-de-Liesse and Sainte-Croix intersection, across from the gas station and right beside Autoroute 40. It’s not a pretty context, but the garden itself is a fascinating little oasis — walk in and suddenly you’re completely elsewhere. There are some grand old trees and lots of carefully calculated landscaping, so that before you know it, you’ll feel a meditative peace come over you. After you’ve sat and strolled a bit, treat yourself to lunch from the popular takeout counter at the ginormous Asian market, T&T, across the street on Sainte-Croix. Dumplings are a surefire remedy for any melancholy mood.

This West Island cemetery near Vaudreuil is much more than a resting place for the deceased: it’s set in a beautiful 96-acre park zigzagged with walking trails through so much flora and fauna that it forms a bona fide ecosystem. It’s near the Morgan Arboretum, so there’s an abundance of tree and shrub species to spot if you’re that kind of nerd. You’ve got many trail options to choose from, complete with ponds full of fish and frogs, plus all sorts of migratory birds, geese, owls, eagles, coyotes and deer. Make a day of it.

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The Saint-Hubert memorial garden on the South Shore is flanked by a large lake and has a stream running through it, known poetically as the Ruisseau du Souvenir. It’s a peaceful atmosphere for sure that will lower your blood pressure within minutes. It’s not huge, but a rambling exploration through it will reveal sitting nooks, little bridges, wide grassy knolls and sightlines that seem designed for landscape pics.

Established on Rue Masson in Laval in 1993, this is one of only two Muslim-run cemeteries in Quebec (the other is next door). The graves all face Mecca in this green, expansive, well-tended but no-nonsense cemetery named after Mohammed’s brother. This isn’t so much a strolling-among-the-woods kind of cemetery, but it is a fascinating one, full of history and the heritage of Montreal’s Muslim community. It’s also strewn with haphazard chairs for loved ones to be able to sit by their dearly departed.

There are about 250,000 graves within this memorial space of under a square kilometre in Longue-Pointe in the east end of town, which is actually quite grand considering it’s dedicated to the most modest of saints, St. Francis of Assissi. Its impressive alleyways among the great green grassy expanse lead to a sculpture of St. Francis. The cemetery can lay claim to housing an important selection of French Canadian greats: author Hubert Aquin, longtime mayor Jean Doré, actress Lise Lasalle and a handful of hockey players among them.