by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Valuable things should never get lost. It's disconcerting. Yet it happens all the time.

Some treasure hunts are well known. Several books have been written about the Westmount businessman who poured big money into dredging up an alleged pirate treasure at Oak Island near Halifax. We've revealed in this paper the million-dollar painting collection at a location only officially known to a clique of EMSB officials. You know, undoubtedly, about the laughing cow landmarks that have been mysteriously put away from their familiar perch at the old Elmhurst dairy in the West End that officials keep promising to return but never do.

But there are other hidden Montreal treasure mysteries that are really begging for a few hardheaded glory-seekers to solve. I'm thinking along the lines of an Indiana (Quebec?) Jones types. Wooly tuques accepted in lieu of fedoras.

These are the lost treasures I'm most curious about.

1. Those who partied with illicit substances in the '70s likely have ol' Dunie Ryan to thank, as the West End gang kingpin brokered much of the party favours that came through these ports. He was a beloved figure to some, but mess with him and you'd find yourself having a dirt nap, like the McGurnaghans - one of whom was blown up near Westmount Park and another who was gunned down in his tavern in the Point in 1981.

The problem with murdering your debtors is that they'll murder you once they fall behind. Thus, Dunie was gunned down by deadbeats at his Nittolo's motel in 1984. The murder was avenged spectacularly. His killers were given a TV that blew a Beirut-style hole in the concrete apartment building on the northeast corner of Guy and de Maisonneuve. But Dunie couldn't take his estimated $200-million to gangster heaven. He told the '70s CECO crime inquiry that he kept his cash buried underground. So come down to St-Jacques West and start digging - tell 'em you're digging for worms if they catcha.

2. Late in the 1690s, a bunch of coureurs de bois paddled to New Orleans along with a bunch of Jesuits. Their return trip was slated to come back through a series of waterways that would allow them to avoid having to portage. According to Pennsylvania lore, they were returning with kegs of gold coins and made it up the Mississippi, then the Ohio, but got spooked by Seneca Indians near modern Pittsburgh. So they ditched their treasure under a big rock and portaged to the Genesee up to Lake Ontario. They never returned for the cash and the rock hasn't been found in spite of the big cross etched on its side.

3. A world-famous local extraterrestrial - that some dismissively claim is actually a wax doll - is being kept in an "earthquake-proof vault somewhere in the province," according to a 1995 interview by reporter Nancy Lyon with the alien's nervous owner Réjean Cossette. The owner, who lived in St-Tite at the time, has since been harder to track down and one can only guess what became of the alien. The Montrealien was first displayed at a Man and His World event called Le Monde des Insolites and was immediately put on the cover of several specialty UFO trade magazines around the world. The city auctioned the alien off for $175 in 1987 and the four-foot-tall guy was next seen eight years later at a local UFO conference. He was wheeled out on a trolley wearing a dapper silver laminated spacesuit, under the watchful eyes of white-clad technicians. Local UFO specialist Christian Page believes the Montrealien is not a real alien, but that it was actually just a wax model. Others disagree: UFO Magazine quoted "UFO abductee" Linda Corriveau explaining the wax doll… err… alien corpse resembled those who drove the flying saucers at Roswell. Page strenuously (perhaps too vigorously?) argued that Corriveau was just a city clerk who never actually claimed to have been abducted. We don't know where Corriveau is now. It's not impossible that the bunch of them have flown off in the Montrealien's spaceship.

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