Photo: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of Old Montreal, about three kilometres from the Grand Quay to the Clock Tower. It begins on the point where Ville-Marie was founded in May 1642: Place Royale and the Old Customs House, the archaeology of Pointe-à-Callière, Place de la Grande-Paix, where the Great Peace of 1701 was signed with thirty-nine Indigenous nations, the site of the Parliament burned by a mob in 1849, and the Grey Nuns' hospital of Marguerite d'Youville. It climbs to Rue Saint-Jacques and the Bank of Montreal, Place d'Armes and the Maisonneuve Monument, Notre-Dame Basilica and the Old Seminary of Saint-Sulpice, then follows Rue Saint-Paul, where the fire of 1734 was blamed on the enslaved Marie-Josèphe Angélique, to Place Jacques-Cartier, Nelson's Column, City Hall, the old fortification walls on the Champ-de-Mars and Château Ramezay. The last stretch runs past the Cartier and Papineau houses, the Maison Pierre du Calvet, Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel and Bonsecours Market to the Clock Tower, built as a memorial to merchant sailors lost in the First World War. The cruise terminal is on the Grand Quay itself, the first stop.
24 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 135 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 27 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Grand Quay, Place Royale and the Old Customs House, Pointe-à-Callière Archaeology and History Complex, Place de la Grande-Paix, Parliament of the Province of Canada site, Grey Nuns' General Hospital.
Rue Saint-Jacques, Bank of Montreal head office, Place d'Armes and the Maisonneuve Monument, New York Life and Aldred buildings, Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal, Old Seminary of Saint-Sulpice, Rue Saint-Paul, Place Jacques-Cartier, Nelson's Column, Montreal City Hall, Champ-de-Mars and the fortification walls, Château Ramezay.
Sir George-Étienne Cartier NHS, Maison Papineau, Maison Pierre du Calvet, Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel, Bonsecours Market, Clock Tower.
The point where Ville-Marie was founded in 1642, with the fort's foundations, a fire pit and palisades seen through a glass floor.
Where the Great Peace of 1701 was signed with thirty-nine Indigenous nations, Kondiaronk's muskrat mark on the treaty though he had died.
The foundations of the market turned Parliament that a mob set on fire in April 1849 after the Rebellion Losses Bill was signed.
James O'Donnell's church, its blue, gilt-starred ceiling and stained glass showing scenes from Montreal's own history.
The Second Empire city hall rebuilt after a 1922 fire, with the balcony where de Gaulle cried 'Vive le Québec libre!' in 1967.
Excavated remains of the walls built from 1717 to 1738, showing the escarp, the counterscarp, the ditch and the bastion bases.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 24 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 24 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Old Montreal — from Ville-Marie to the Port, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
24 narration points, including Grand Quay, Place Royale and the Old Customs House, Pointe-à-Callière Archaeology and History Complex, Place de la Grande-Paix and Parliament of the Province of Canada site. That is about 43 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 24 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.