Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery, National historic cemetery in Côte-des-Neiges, Montreal, Canada
Notre Dame des Neiges is a cemetery on Mount Royal that covers 140 hectares with over 55 kilometers of paths winding through wooded slopes and landscaped gardens. The grounds include several chapels, granite columbaria and family vaults distributed among maple trees and pines.
The cemetery was founded in 1854 by Montreal's Catholic community on land purchased from a physician. An architect who had visited cemeteries in Boston and New York designed the layout with curving paths modeled after rural resting places.
The name comes from a Catholic feast celebrating a fourth-century snowfall that marked the site of a Roman basilica dedicated to Mary. Visitors today see graves with French, Italian, Portuguese and Slavic inscriptions that reflect different Montreal communities.
Visitors can walk year-round, with paths cleared in winter and maple leaves covering the slopes in autumn. Main roads are accessible by car, while narrower trails are explored on foot.
At one point the cemetery shares an open passage with neighboring Mount Royal Cemetery, where both grounds maintain military graves. Over 440 soldiers from Commonwealth countries are buried there or named on memorial stones.
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