Montreal’s Le Miaousée wants to become Canada’s first permanent cat museum

For about 100 years, the presbytery on De Castelnau street in Montreal’s Villeray borough was home to Catholics who lived and prayed there. Now, the cats are taking over.

From paintings, historic photographs, book covers and shiny stuffed animal eyes, they stare down at visitors from the walls of Le Miaousée, which bills itself as the first cat museum in both Montreal and Canada.

Aqeela Nahani, the museum’s executive director, is all in on cats. She has the image of her 15-year-old rescue cat tattooed on her arm, and recently left a job in the corporate world to focus on launching the cat museum.

Her inspiration came after she read a book about cat heroes who saved lives, and immediately wanted to know more.

“I started researching cat museums, and I found that Canada did not have one