Haunted Canada 9

by Joel A. Sutherland

  In 2016 a woman named Ruthann was on a tour with her fiancé and also saw a ghost, but instead of seeing him in a picture she saw him in the flesh, so to speak. The guide led the group around a corner and Ruthann spotted a tunnel with a sign that said it was a restricted area. The tunnel was pitch black, but Ruthann could see a light about three metres away. At first she assumed it was a permanent fixture, but then it began to bob up and down. It wasn’t a light on the wall or ceiling; it was a light on a miner’s helmet. Ruthann looked a little harder and could make out the dark outline of a man wearing the helmet, his face featureless and black. When she told the guide what she had seen, the guide calmly replied, “You just witnessed a ghost.”

  Ruthann wasn’t convinced. “It could be just one of the other people,” she said, hoping that was true.

  “Definitely not,” the guide said flatly. “No one — and I mean no one — is allowed down that way.”

  No one but the ghosts, that is.

  AND THE GHOSTS PLAYED ON

  Vancouver, British Columbia

  Bill Allman, house manager at the Vogue Theatre, was locking up the building alone late one summer night in 1994. He made his way through various areas of the theatre — the stage, the projection booth, the dressing rooms — and eventually headed down to the basement. Bill walked from room to room, satisfied that each was empty before moving to the next, but then he stopped in the carpentry room. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the gut-churning sense that someone was right behind him. He spun around and was horrified to find his feeling had been correct. A three-dimensional shadow floated past the door. It was grey, translucent and held a human form. He bolted into the hall, but the shadow person was gone. Bill claims he set a speed record for exiting the theatre after the encounter. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last time he’d come across the shadowy ghost.

  A month or two later, Bill was walking up the stairs to the stage. A drum kit was set up for a Beatles tribute band, but the musicians weren’t on stage yet. All the same, Bill heard someone begin to play a basic drum beat: one kick on the bass drum followed by one hit on the snare, repeated over and over again. When he got up on stage, the drum beat stopped abruptly. There was no one there. The next day, his staff admitted that they’d also heard the phantom drummer playing late into the night.

  A day or two after that, Bill caught sight of the ghost again. He had walked out onto the stage and spotted the ghost sitting in the audience, seven or eight rows from the front. Nearly as soon as he’d been spotted, the ghost vanished.

  The shadowy ghost was not the only spirit to inhabit the Vogue Theatre, as Bill would soon learn. It was one week after he had given an informal tour of the theatre to a friend and his girlfriend — a tour he thought had been uneventful — that Bill learned of an unsettling encounter. Bill’s friend told him that while they were on their tour, his girlfriend had seen a young man with dark hair and severe facial features sitting in an old chair in the projection booth. When they entered the booth, the young man had turned his head slowly and stared at the friend’s girlfriend with a look of intense anger, and then he’d dissolved where he sat.

  A few weeks later the same ghost nearly ruined a live performance of a show called Unforgettable. Bill was watching from the back of the house. One of the supporting actors, Shane McPherson, was on stage performing a song and dance number when he suddenly dropped his cane. Then he blew his dance steps and even a few lines from the song. During the intermission, Bill went downstairs, found Shane in his dressing room, and asked him what had happened.

  The Vogue Theatre

  “I don’t know if you’re going to believe what I’m about to tell you,” Shane said.

  After all the experiences he’d had in the theatre, Bill had a feeling he probably would.

  While in the middle of his routine, Shane explained, he had seen a young man with dark hair and sharp features walk through a fire exit near the front row at stage left. The young man stopped, looked directly into Shane’s eyes, and then dissolved. Shane was so shocked by what he’d seen that he dropped his cane and messed up his performance.

  Other staff members and performers have also had unusual experiences throughout the building. The day following Shane’s encounter, technician David Raun was in charge of locking up the theatre for the night. As he passed the stage, he looked up and spotted a man standing in the doorway to the projection booth. He was standing in the shadows, but his face was clearly visible, and the dark hair and chiselled features matched the descriptions others had given of the ghost. Before David could do or say anything, the man disappeared.

  An employee who worked in the theatre’s box office was alone in the lobby one afternoon when all of a sudden she felt like she was no longer alone. She quickly turned and caught sight of a shadowy figure climbing the stairs to the balcony. When she checked, no one was there.

  One night, after stacking advertising posters in the storage room, a group of employees locked up the theatre and went home. They returned in the morning to find the posters they’d so neatly stacked the day before strewn across the floor.

  Another night singer Arnold Robinson walked downstairs to his dressing room when he was suddenly aware that someone — someone he couldn’t see — was walking along beside him. He tried his best to ignore the presence, a remarkably hard thing to do, hopeful whoever it was would leave him alone once he entered his dressing room. It didn’t.

  Arnold mustered up all the courage he had and said, “If you want to hang out, that’s cool.” The spirit didn’t take him up on his offer.

  In the Vogue Theatre, the ghosts play on long after the curtain falls.

  THE DEAD MAN’S BED

  Wakefield, Quebec

  Billy Brennan arrived in timber baron James Maclaren’s camp in the late 1800s and was immediately assigned to sleep in a dead man’s bed. That didn’t give Billy pause. Every lumberjack knew that the job was dangerous and that death could come at any moment for any one of them, young or old, experienced or not. It was an accepted rule of the camps that when one lumberjack died, another would take his place with little delay or fanfare.

  After his first long day on the job, Billy collapsed onto his bed, tired and sore. Sleep didn’t come easy, however, and not just because cedar boughs served as his mattress. Before he was able to drift off, a man slowly approached his bunk and stared down at him. Then, without a word, the man yanked Billy’s blanket off of him. Before Billy could ask the man why he had done that, the stranger disappeared.

  The next day Billy shared the odd tale with some other men in the camp. After describing what the man looked like, everyone appeared to know who he was. Billy had been visited by the ghost of Long Jim Nesbitt.

  Long Jim had drowned in the Gatineau River, a tragic yet common fate for many. White crosses can still be found along the shore, marking the locations where loggers drowned well over one hundred years ago.

  Billy was understandably shocked by the news. It couldn’t be so. Perhaps it had been his imagination. Perhaps it had been a dream.

  That night, twice as tired and three times as sore as the day before, Billy once again laid down on his cedar mattress and hoped sleep would come quickly. But once again, the ghost of Long Jim Nesbitt appeared beside Billy’s bed, stared down at him for a moment, yanked his blanket to the floor, and disappeared.

  It happened again on the third night, the fourth and the fifth.

  Billy, a tough man who had rarely been intimidated by anything in his young life, was growing incredibly scared. What did the ghost want? Why was he terrorizing him? And worst of all, what if his nighttime attacks became more threatening?

  On his first day off since he’d taken the job at the camp, Billy walked north to the town of Farrellton. He hoped the village priest would know what to do. The trip took two and a half hours, but Billy would have walked it many times over if it brought him any resolution.

  “I am being haunted by the ghost of the dead lad who used to sleep in my b
unk,” Billy told the priest. “The ghost of Long Jim Nesbitt is haunting me and I don’t know why. But it is really scary and I can’t go on much longer.”

  Fortunately for Billy, the priest provided some guidance. It seemed to him that the ghost had a specific reason for haunting Billy, and it might help to figure out what the dead man’s reason was.

  Billy thanked the priest and walked back to camp, mulling over the advice he’d received.

  Night fell and the men shuffled off to their beds, and then to sleep. All but Billy. But this time at least he had a plan.

  Without fail, the ghost appeared beside him. But before he could put one cold finger on the blanket, Billy leapt to his feet and demanded to know what the ghost wanted of him.

  After a moment of deathly silence, the ghost spoke.

  “Under your bottom blanket,” he said in a slow, low hiss, “there is some money I owe to Charlie Farrell at Wakefield. I have been working all winter long to save the money to pay my debt. Will you please take the money to Charlie for me?” And without waiting for an answer, he disappeared.

  Billy checked beneath the blanket under the cedar boughs and, sure enough, he found a secret stash of money. He didn’t consider keeping it for himself, not for a second. When the sun rose the next morning he walked into town, inquired where he could find Charlie Farrell, and paid him the money.

  The ghost of Long Jim Nesbitt never appeared in Maclaren’s lumber camp again. His debt paid, he was finally able to rest in peace.

  THE CELLAR

  Halifax, Nova Scotia

  Joanne Dolan was alone in the basement office of the Cellar Bar & Grill one night when the temperature suddenly plummeted. It wasn’t the first time she’d experienced that — she’d felt inexplicable cold spots many times over the years — but it was the chilliest she’d ever felt it. She’d heard odd sounds and caught sight of things out of the corner of her eye before too, but had never seen anything like what she saw next. A misty form in the shape of a person passed through the room. It was a frightening sight that sent her running out of the office and up the stairs in a hurry. She needed to be around other people — living people.

  Upstairs, she found three co-workers — Natalie, Barbara and Mike — and told them what had just happened to her. Joanne then discovered she wasn’t the only staff member who had had similar experiences.

  On a quiet night not too long before, Natalie and Barbara were the only two people working after closing time. Natalie was clearing tables in the back dining room on the main floor, getting them set for the next day, while Barbara was upstairs closing up the bar. Other than the clinking sounds of the glasses and cutlery they were tidying, the restaurant was dead quiet.

  “Natalie?” a voice called out.

  “Be there in a minute,” Natalie called upstairs, assuming it had been Barbara.

  A few moments passed.

  “Natalie?” the same voice said, and this time it sounded closer.

  “I’m just out back checking glasses,” Natalie said, growing a little annoyed by Barbara’s intrusions. “I’ll be right there.”

  A few more moments passed.

  “Natalie?”

  “Yes, Barbara,” Natalie said with a sigh, giving up her work and leaving the back dining room. Barbara clearly wouldn’t be ignored any longer.

  But when Natalie asked Barbara what she wanted, Barbara shook her head and looked confused.

  “I haven’t been calling your name,” Barbara replied.

  Uncertain of who was in the restaurant with them — and what she wanted with Natalie — the two employees wrapped up their closing duties as quickly as possible and got out. They didn’t feel comfortable being there a moment longer than necessary.

  Mike Hubley, a chef at the restaurant, also noticed many things he couldn’t explain over the years. It wasn’t unusual for knives and other utensils to disappear when he’d turn his back for mere seconds. Often, when he was the only person in the building, he’d hear footsteps above him, see shadows moving out of the corner of his eye and, like Natalie, hear his name called out by an unseen presence. One morning he found a clipboard on the counter in the kitchen, even though he’d hung it on the wall the night before. He’d been the last one out of the building that night and the first one in in the morning.

  Early one morning Mike saw a woman in an old-fashioned dress enter the dining room before the restaurant opened, so he approached her to let her know she’d have to leave and come back later. But when he got close to her she disappeared. Frightened, he called out to Joanne, who was also at work getting ready for the day. She rushed into the dining room. When she stepped into the spot where Mike had seen the ghost vanish, she noticed the temperature was incredibly cold, just like that day not too long before when she’d been in the basement office. It was so cold that she jumped backwards.

  “Are you okay?” Mike asked her.

  She nodded and made a decision. She was sick and tired of working in fear. Something needed to be done. Joanne summoned all her courage and stepped back into the cold spot.

  “We aren’t afraid of you,” she said in the sternest voice she could summon.

  At that moment the temperature immediately rose back to normal. Her show of bravery had apparently worked.

  Perhaps it had, but not forever.

  Supernatural hijinks continued in the Cellar Bar & Grill. Salt and pepper shakers moved from table to table on their own, chairs switched places, computers went haywire, and fires in the fireplace were smothered out by invisible hands.

  Joanne continued her attempts to get rid of the ghostly presence. One day she went downstairs to do inventory and felt an icy cold hand grab her shoulder from behind. She spun around but wasn’t surprised to find no one there.

  There are two theories regarding the restaurant’s paranormal activity. In 1809 a woman named Elizabeth, who worked on a farm where the restaurant now stands, was murdered on the property. Her body was discovered the next day, but the culprit was not.

  Another suspicion is that an unidentified woman whose body was discovered in a bag by the river behind the restaurant haunts the building. Mike Hubley’s parents worked in the restaurant at the time and his father was the one to make the gruesome discovery. Unaware that the lumpy bag that had washed up on shore was a dead body, he opened it up and was horrified by what he found. The back door to the restaurant was open and the stench of the body was so potent that it filled the entire building. People noticed an increase in paranormal activity from that day on.

  The Cellar Bar & Grill closed and reopened as Resto Urban Dining, and some say the ghost — or ghosts — left with the change. But others disagree, and current staff members have continued to report that the restaurant never seems completely empty.

  Just as a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, a haunted restaurant by any other name would be as frightening.

  FOREVER AND EVER HOME

  Red Deer, Alberta

  Elizabeth Plumtree, former executive director of the Red Deer Cultural Heritage Society, entered Cronquist House early one morning. It was a day like any other … or so she thought. She walked through the house on her way to turn off the alarm, but a loud sound stopped her cold.

  Fwump-fwump-fwump-fwump-fwump-fwump-fwump!

  Startled, she turned around and saw that the door between the butler’s pantry and the dining room was swinging back and forth violently. It was moving too quickly to have been caused by anything other than someone passing through, so Elizabeth knew she wasn’t alone in the house. But an unnerving thought entered her head and refused to leave: No one can be in here because the alarm is still on.

  She turned off the alarm and searched the house, going from room to room, but it was completely empty. All the while she could hear the door swinging wildly, but when she returned to the dining room it suddenly stopped.

  Built between 1911 and 1912 by Swedish immigrant Emmanuel Petterson Cronquist, a farmer and merchant who arrived in Alberta in 1893 wi
th his family, Cronquist House stands out from the landscape like a classic haunted abode. Not surprisingly, the Queen Anne Revival style home, with a three-storey round turret and wrap-around verandah, is the setting for countless tales of ghostly goings-on.

  Elias Cronquist was the home’s final inhabitant. He died in the house in 1974. Considered by locals to be an eccentric recluse, Elias lived alone in the house for years and spent most of his time hidden away in one of the upstairs bedrooms. After his death, the Red Deer Cultural Heritage Society purchased the house and had it moved to its present location near Bower Ponds. That’s when reports of paranormal activity first began to surface.

  Staff members working alone in the building have heard Elias’s loud, clomping footsteps from his bedroom above. From the sounds of his pacing, it appears as if he is angry. Elizabeth Plumtree believes he isn’t pleased that his house was moved to a new location.

  Elias is blamed for moving cups and saucers in the tea room when no one is looking. He slams doors and makes loud noises. Staff and visitors alike have reported chills and goosebumps on the backs of their necks, a sure sign that Elias is standing right behind them.

  The Cronquist family, between 1910 and 1915

  One day, when a new employee had just started work, there was a huge crash from an empty room that startled him greatly; Elizabeth tried to calm him down by explaining that it was just Elias. Whether or not that made the new employee feel better or worse is unknown.