Notre-Dame-de-Neiges Cemetery is a very large graveyard that sits on the hill of Mount-Royal in the city of Montreal.
Ask any Montrealer and they're bound to have a great aunt, grandfather or uncle buried there. It is Canada's largest graveyard and the third largest in North America. Founded in 1854, the cemetery's architects were inspired by the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The goal was to scale a French classicism style with the feelings of nature. This was a popular aesthetic movement at the time, influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher. The cemetery was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1999.
The generally Roman Catholic cemetery holds over a million people (that's a third of the population the city) and is complete with 65,000 monuments. One of the mausoleums, named La Pieta Mausoleum, has a life-sized reproduction of Michelangelo's actual Pieta sculpture.
Notre-Dame is as diverse as Montreal itself. The cemetery offers selected areas reserved for all types of nationalities. Take a roam around the cemetery and you'll discover spots exclusively for: Chinese, Korean, French, Italian, Greek, Polish, Portugese and Ukranian clients.
Some of Quebec's most famous deceased politicians and journalists call Notre-Dame their home, including Robert and Henri Bourassa, Therese Casgrain, Nick Auf-der-Maur and Maurice “the Rocket” Richard.
Located in the city's eclectic Cote-Des-Neiges neighbourhood and being only a few blocks away from the famous St. Joseph's Oratory, Notre-Dame serves as an ideal place to wander, contemplating the afterlife, life, and everything in between.
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