The Time the Eiffel Tower Was Almost Moved to Canada

By Barbara,2 min read,

Last Updated: June 19, 2025Published On: June 15, 2025

Eiffel Tower Was Nearly Shipped Away to Canada

France’s most iconic landmark nearly got a one-way ticket to Montreal

It’s 1967. The Beatles are everywhere. The Cold War is chilling. And in Montreal, Canada, engineers and planners are scrambling to put on one of the most ambitious world expos in history: Expo 67. The theme? Man and His World. The centerpiece? Still up in the air.

Enter: the Eiffel Tower.

Yes, the Eiffel Tower. The one in Paris. There was a moment—a real, documented moment—when this 1,000-foot iron icon was almost disassembled, shipped across the Atlantic, and reassembled in Canada.

Bienvenue à Québec, Eiffel.

The Expo 67 fever dream

Expo 67 was no small affair. Canada was celebrating its centennial and wanted to impress the world. The budget ballooned. The guest list was global. They needed something big. Something bold. Something French. What better way to show off Franco-Canadian friendship than to “borrow” the most famous monument in France?

The idea gained serious traction. The Eiffel Tower had become somewhat passé in 1960s Paris—a rusty relic in a city pushing toward modernism. There were even whispers (gasp!) of demolishing it. So the idea of shipping it overseas didn’t sound as outrageous then as it does now.

The logistics were… insane

Moving the Eiffel Tower would’ve been a colossal operation. It’s made of over 18,000 individual iron parts, held together by more than 2.5 million rivets. Disassembling it would take months. Shipping it across the Atlantic? Even longer.

But the proposal was real enough to spark political discussions and feasibility reports. Rumor has it, even Charles de Gaulle gave it a brief, Gaullist shrug.

Ultimately, the project was scrapped—not because of sentimentality, but because the logistics were bonkers and France remembered it kind of liked having a global icon in its capital.

**So what did Canada get?**

Instead of the Eiffel Tower, Expo 67 got Habitat 67 (a groundbreaking housing project), Buckminster Fuller’s massive geodesic dome, and pavilions from over 60 nations. It was still a triumph—and is still considered one of the greatest World’s Fairs ever.

But imagine the skyline if that plan had gone through. Paris without the Eiffel Tower. Montreal with it. Tourists trying to take Eiffel selfies with poutine.

The mind reels.