History and stories
A mountain that trembled, a lodge, a chapel and a casino
How a logging valley north of Montréal became a ski village with a château-style hotel at its foot and a casino on the next slope — told with dates, and with the legends marked as legends.
From 1872 to the casino's opening
| Year | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Before 1850 | The Algonquin name for the mountain, Manitonga Soutana, and the story of a mountain that trembled. | Wikipedia (legend) |
| 1872 | Curé Antoine Labelle settles the parish; it is formally established in 1879. | Wikipedia, Mont-Tremblant |
| 1892 | The railway from Montréal reaches Saint-Jovite; it is extended to Lac Mercier in 1904. | Wikipedia, Mont-Tremblant |
| 12 Jan 1895 | Mont-Tremblant Park is created — today Québec's oldest provincial park. | Wikipedia, the park |
| 1938 | Joe Ryan climbs the mountain on skis with Lowell Thomas and Harry Wheeler. | Wikipedia, the resort |
| 12 Feb 1939 | Mont Tremblant Lodge opens. | Wikipedia, the resort |
| 1940–41 | Ryan builds the St. Bernard Chapel at the base of the village. | Wikipedia, the resort |
| 1964 | Circuit Mont-Tremblant opens; it hosts the Formula One Canadian Grand Prix in 1968 and 1970. | Wikipedia, the circuit |
| 1991 | Intrawest buys the resort and rebuilds the pedestrian village. | Wikipedia, the resort |
| 1993–1996 | Québec's first casinos open: Montréal (1993), Charlevoix (1994), Lac-Leamy (24 March 1996). | Wikipédia, Société des casinos du Québec |
| 1996 | Fairmont Tremblant is built. | Fairmont, 'our Story' |
| 24 Jun 2009 | Casino de Mont-Tremblant opens, Québec's fourth casino; the Casino Express gondola is built the same year. | Wikipédia; remontées-mécaniques.net |
| 2018 | Alterra Mountain Company takes ownership of the resort; a new high-speed quad replaces the Lowell Thomas lift. | Wikipedia, the resort |
| 2023 | The national park is named a dark-sky preserve; the hotel is ranked #2 resort in Canada in a Condé Nast Traveler readers' poll. | Wikipedia; Fairmont |
Most early dates here come from Wikipedia, which we treat as a secondary source. The hotel's 1996 date is the hotel's own. We found no published architect for either the hotel or the casino, so none is named.
The trembling mountain
The Algonquin called the mountain Manitonga Soutana. Wikipedia translates it two ways — 'Mountain of Spirits' in one article, 'Mountain of the Devil' in another — and repeats the account that the mountain rumbled and swayed under people's feet. The French-language article tells it as the Grand Manitou, a spirit living in the mountain who made it tremble when someone troubled nature. From that came the French name, montagne Tremblante, and the town's.
We tell it as it is told: a legend, passed through several retellings before it reached an encyclopaedia. It is a good one to know on the summit at dusk, when the wind gets into the spruce and the gondola cables hum. The hotel's meeting rooms carry the name Soutana — the only echo of the old word we found on the hotel's pages.
Sealskins, a radio voice and a lodge in a year
In 1938 Joseph Bondurant Ryan, from a wealthy Philadelphia family, came north prospecting for gold. With Harry Wheeler, founder of the Gray Rocks Inn, and the American broadcaster Lowell Thomas, he climbed the mountain with skis wrapped in sealskins for grip. The resort's history, as Wikipedia retells it, has Ryan vowing at the top to build an alpine village there. On 12 February 1939 Mont Tremblant Lodge opened, and the lodge is still part of the pedestrian village.
Lowell Thomas then did what radio men do: he broadcast shows from the mountain and brought skiers north. The resort later named a lift and trails after him; the Lowell Thomas lift was replaced by a high-speed quad for the 2018–2019 winter, after Alterra took over.
Chapel road
Fairmont Tremblant's address is 3045 Chemin de la Chapelle — the road of the chapel. At the base of the village stands the St. Bernard Chapel, which Ryan built in 1940 and 1941; he is buried beside it with his wife Mary and their son Peter. We have not found a document that names the road after that chapel, so take the link as our fireside guess rather than history.
Peter Ryan's own story belongs here too. He was named to the Canadian Olympic ski team, turned to motor racing after a skiing accident in 1959, became the first Canadian to race in Formula One and won the first Canadian Grand Prix, at Mosport in 1961. He died in Paris in 1962, aged 22. Two years later a circuit opened near his father's mountain, and in 1968 and 1970 it hosted the Formula One Canadian Grand Prix.
A casino opened on Québec's holiday
Loto-Québec opened its first casinos after a cabinet decision in December 1992: Montréal in October 1993, in the former French pavilion of Expo 67; Charlevoix in 1994, in the old summer theatre of Le Manoir Richelieu; Lac-Leamy, the first built from scratch, in March 1996. Mont-Tremblant came thirteen years later, on 24 June 2009 — the Fête nationale du Québec.
The same year a gondola called the Casino Express was built by Doppelmayr CTEC to link the south base to the Versant Soleil: 31 eight-person cabins, 1,528 metres of cable, a ride of seven minutes and twenty-five seconds, according to an enthusiasts' lift database. Today Loto-Québec's visit page talks only about the road and a shuttle bus; if the gondola matters to you, ask the resort whether it runs on your dates.
Stay on the mountain where these stories happened
Where these facts come from
Pages read on 15 November 2026 unless a different date is given in the text.
- Wikipedia — Mont Tremblant, the mountain (secondary source)
- Wikipedia — Mont-Tremblant National Park (secondary source)
- Wikipedia — Mont Tremblant Resort (secondary source)
- Wikipedia — Mont-Tremblant, the city (secondary source)
- Wikipedia — Circuit Mont-Tremblant (secondary source)
- Wikipédia (FR) — Société des casinos du Québec (secondary source)
- Wikipédia (FR) — Casino de Mont-Tremblant (secondary source)
- Remontées-mécaniques.net — Casino Express gondola record (enthusiast database, secondary)
- Fairmont Tremblant — 'our Story' and awards (English text on the German edition of the site)
- Casino de Mont-Tremblant — plan your visit (Loto-Québec)
- Wikipédia (FR) — Tremblant, the station (Grand Manitou version)
- Fairmont Tremblant — meeting rooms (Soutana)