The first Montreal Winter Carnival was held in January, 1883, and was the outgrowth of a suggestion by Mr. R.D. McGibbon, an advocate of the city. One of the great features was the ice palace, which was erected in Dominion Square, a mediaeval castle of transparent crystal. The attack of 2,000 snowshoers, and the defence by the volunteers, was a great scene amid the detonation of bombshells and the interchange of pyrotechnic missles till at last the castle capitulated. After this an immense line of showshoers, each bearing aloft a blazing torch, scaled the mountain in a seemingly endless trail of fire. This has been repeated at more or less regular intervals but the fear that the ice palace would harm prospective immigrants through unnecessary fear of our bright, brisk and invigorating winter has caused the carnival pageant to fall into desuetude. Yet the carnival is but a development of the old frost fairs on the Thames, that most known being on the occasion of the visit of Charles II and the Royal Family to the Frost Fair of 1684, when the printers made a souvenir as follows:
| Charles, | King | Mary, | Duchess |
| James, | Duke | Anne, | Princess |
| Katherine, | Queen | George, | Prince |
| Hans in Kilder | |||
| London, printed by J. Croome on the ice on the River | |||
| Thames, Jan. 31st, 1684. | |||
The month of June, 1884, was the scene of great festivity among the French-Canadian population on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the parent society of St. Jean Baptiste Association of Montreal, being taken to hold a national congress of French-Canadians from June 24th to the 28th, to inaugurate the placing of the first stone of the Edifice Nationale, which afterwards became the “Monument National.” Outside of the literary, artistic and other intellectual sessions of the congress there were public sports, balloon ascensions and amusements, and a great procession of all the societies of St. Jean Baptiste in Canada and the United States, when a magnificent array of allegorical cars representing the chief features of Canadian history passed through the principal streets of the city.
In addition there was a grand historical cavalcade representing St. Louis, King of France, receiving the oriflamme of St. Denis and departing for the Seventh Crusade. The dresses for this dignified cavalcade cost about ten thousand dollars and the whole spectacle was one that far surpassed any similar dramatic pageant that had preceded it or has followed since in Canada.
On January 1, 1884, the River St. Lawrence again notably flooded the lower part of Montreal as was usual in the spring.
On July 4, 1884, Louis Riel arrived at Duck Lake and began to inflame the discontent in the half-breeds and Indians, who feared dispossession of their lands by the incoming settlers and the encroachment of the iron road of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. This, together with the Soudan war then in progress, produced a revival of the military spirit so that in the following year, 1885, Montreal sent the Sixty-fifth Regiment to suppress the rebellion.
The Montreal contingent returned home at a critical juncture and was employed to quell the anti-vaccination riots of 1885. At this time a virulent epidemic of smallpox had broken out in the city and a compulsory vaccination act had been passed which was resented by a great portion of the people, many complaining that the vaccine used had poisoned them, while others complained on sentimental and medical grounds. It was a time of terror. Mobs attacked the houses and even the persons of Larocque, Drs. E. Persillier-Lachapelle, J.W. Mount, Hingston, and others, who were before the public as the chief promoters of the vaccination movement. Meanwhile the doctors appointed for each district had their stations and went from door to door to vaccinate, while the houses could be seen with their isolation papers posted on them and with guards around and the yellow ambulances plying through the streets, taking away the affected sick or the dead.
The friends of many of the victims refused to allow the patients to be removed to the Exhibition grounds where a temporary hospital had been arranged. All the local troops were called out. The cavalry was there, too. A tremendous mob assembled at Mount Royal and attacked it with stones. Many of the men received cuts in the face. When the mob was at its worst, it was discovered that there was no magistrate to read the riot act, and no ammunition for the rifles, in case the rifles had to be used. However, the cavalry rode through the crowds. A better feeling finally prevailed, so that the patients were peaceably allowed to be taken to the public hospital.
