Place de la Grande-Paix

The Place lies above the former bed of the Little Saint-Pierre River, which the founders of Ville-Marie must have crossed countless times. The obelisk standing here, erected about 100 years ago, pays tribute to them.

The old Custom House

Place Royale and the Amerindian
presence

Pointe-à-Callière and place Royale

This part of what was formerly Place d'Youville, redeveloped in 1999, was renamed Place de la Grande-Paix in 2001, to mark the tricentennial of the treaty. In 1701, the Great Peace of Montréal put an end to wars between the Natives and French and between the allies and enemies of the French among the Native nations.

Signatures from the 1701 treaty,
with the totem symbols of the Iroquois,
Huron and other nations, many of them
from the Great Lakes region.

Behind the contemporary Museum, de Callière Street leads into the Place, passing close by the buried traces of the residence of Louis-Hector de Callière, the Governor of New France who negotiated and signed the treaty.