Montréal Museums Day marks city’s 375th Anniversary

Montréal Museums day is a hugely popular and family-friendly annual tradition in a city that boasts many world-class museums. The 2017 edition of Montréal Museums Day features 43 museums from across Greater Montréal taking part in this Montreal springtime ritual.

Montréal Museums part of global arts movement

Montréal Museums Day was first held in 1987 to help celebrate International Museums Day, which was created in 1977 by UNESCO and the International Council of Museums.

This year Montréal Museums Day will be held on Sunday, May 28. The day-long cultural event draws tens of thousands of visitors at Montréal’s participating museums. The museums pull out all the stops, often adding animation and special events to their already rich programming. 

Admission to participating museums is free, and the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) is offering free public-transit shuttle buses from museum to museum on five different itinerary routes. Click here for all five colour-coded routes and their museum stops.

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The Promenade des Artistes is located outside Place des Arts Métro station (Jeanne-Mance exit) and features a family-friendly zone complete with activities and face-painting for kids. The Fusiliers Mont-Royal will also be on hand for a 1 p.m. performance, as will Montréal historical figures Jeanne Mance and Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, who will tell how they founded Montréal in 1642 and will pose for photos with visitors in a photobooth.

This year, seven museums will be taking part in Montréal Museums Day for the very first time, including the Musée du Rock n Roll du Québec whose awesome Rock’N’Roll museum-mobile (a museum housed in a converted school bus) will be parked at the Promenade des Artistes where they will host an exhibition and musical workshop.

The Promenade des Artistes is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and is also the launching point for the free public-transit shuttle buses.

Which museums to go to?

There are 43 participating museums this year, including The Biodome, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the glorious Chateau Ramezay across the street from Montréal City Hall in Old Montréal (in 1775 the Chateau Ramezay was the Canadian headquarters of the American revolutionary army, and was where Benjamin Franklin slept when he visited the city in his bid to convince Montréalers to join the American Revolution);  the Montreal Science Centre in the Old Port: the superb Montréal Holocaust Museum (the city is home to the world’s third-largest Holocaust survivor community); the McCord Museum, the Montréal Planetarium, and the Montréal Museum of fine Arts, the oldest museum in Canada (free general MMFA admission, though regular admission applies for their Chagall: Colour and Music and Jean Paul Gaultier Love Is Love exhibitions).

It will be impossible to visit all the museums, so it is recommended to choose two STM shuttle routes. To see all five STM shuttle routes, click here and scroll down.

For the full list of participating museums and their exhibitions, click here.

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The Montréal Museums iPhone and Android apps also list the participating museums with “MMD.”

Montréal Museums Day visitors can also win fun prizes in a contest by filling in a ballot at the participating 43 museums, identifying their favourite object on display that day. Click here for details (French only).

For more information about Montréal Museums Day, visit museesmontreal.org.