The Royal Montreal Curling Club has been around since 1807 and is said to be the oldest active sports club in North America.

From an outdoor club to an indoor club, and later establishing a building in downtown Montreal in 1892, the club has grown significantly.

“We are very proud of this, and everybody in the curling world is very interested in the club. Each time they come here, they are very amazed by the club,” said Michel Caie, president, Royal Montreal Curling Club.

“The sport is very fun. Once you discover it, you start to play.”

In curling, there are usually two teams, and each team has differently colored stones. The goal is to score points by getting your team’s stones closest to the center of a target on the ice called the house.

The teams take turns sliding their stones down the ice, aiming for the target at the other end. Players also use brooms to sweep the ice in front of the stone to help it move faster and stay on course.

At first, the club didn’t include female members, although they were occasionally invited to curl with the men in the mid- to late 1800s.

Marie Béland, a member of the Royal Montreal Curling Club, explained that in the 1890s, there weren’t many sports available to women. Women were expected to stay at home and not engage in physical activities, except for maybe horse riding or side saddle. During that time, she said, they played croquet, but that’s about it.

In 1894, a group of women, headed by Mrs. E.A. Whitehead, founded the Ladies Montreal Curling Club, the first all-women’s curling club in the world, and rented the ice from what was then known as The Montreal Curling Club.

“I think the most important thing about our club is the fact that the women were associated with men. This was an all men’s club from 1807 until much later. The women, who were wives or daughters of the members, decided that they wanted to curl as well,” said Béland.

They went on to hold competitions with newly developed women’s curling clubs in Quebec and the United States.

Mrs. Whitehead became the first president of the Ladies Curling Association. To this day, it organizes competitions for curling clubs across Quebec and Ontario.

Béland said that the independent club lasted for more than 100 years before the decision was made that maybe they should start integrating with the men’s club. Women were invited to become members of the club in 1997.

On February 23, 1924, the club was granted a royal warrant, allowing the club to add the word “Royal” to its name.

“I think the members of the club were mostly anglophone and had close ties to the British monarchy. Many of them honour all the members who served in the First World War, their sons, and those members who actually died in the First World War. So there was a great affinity to Britain from the get-go. And so they were seeking the Royal Warrant in order to really establish their links to Britain, as opposed to links with the United States, because the United States was starting to make quite a bit of noise about a potential U.S.-Canada axis of commerce and even politically. So they were quite anxious to make sure that their links with the British monarchy were very clear. And so they asked George V to grant them the permission to use the title of Royal,” explained Béland.

The club currently has around 200 members and offers three sheets for them to play on. Thaynara Pereira is one of the members, and she plays in the Chicken League.

She said she has always loved curling since watching it during the Olympic Winter Games in Brazil. When she visited the club for the first time, she said it was “love at first shot.”

“I came for an open house, then I tried again, and signed up right away to become a member. I’ve been in love with this sport ever since.”

“It makes me feel like I’m in a place that has a history about the sport, and I appreciate something I don’t have at home,” she said.

Dustin Fraiser is another member and says he has been playing at the club for three years now.

“It’s super cool that it’s the oldest sports club in all of North America. It’s like playing in a museum,” he said.

He says the people at the club make the sport even more enjoyable.

“I curl in various leagues throughout the week, and I get to meet all different kinds of people. Everyone is super nice, and it’s just a super fun sport to do at the end of the day with great people.”

Despite losing members because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Caie says memberships have grown.

“We’re seeing a lot of interest in curling now, from a lot of people — not necessarily people who knew nothing about curling before, but also people from different countries. It’s not necessarily the same people who were curling before COVID. At least downtown, we have new people joining. This is something we’re also seeing at the global level, with many new countries coming to curl,” he said.

To this day, the Royal Montreal Curling Club remains the only curling club close to the downtown area still in operation.