Haunted Canada 8

by Joel A. Sutherland

  He dropped the head back into the barrel with a splash and staggered backwards as the second man spat out a mouthful of the tainted port. Apparently, another Newman & Company employee had died aboard a ship that was sailing from England to Newfoundland, and his head had been preserved in an unmarked barrel of port for the journey home. To say that the two men picked the wrong barrel to steal from would be a gross understatement.

  The vaults of Newman & Company

  Although the two men who discovered the head in the barrel heard a ghost but didn’t see it, another employee encountered a spirit in the flesh, so to speak, only a few years later. He entered a little-used area of the vaults and came face to face with the terrifying vision of a woman standing with her back to the opposite wall. She stared at him with a mournful expression, then raised her arms and slowly approached. Her hands were shackled but she didn’t make a sound.

  The employee ran away and told Mr. Newman, his employer, what he had seen. The two men returned to the room. They didn’t find the ghost, but they did make an unusual discovery. In an old, musty barrel surrounded by cargo from a past freighter run, they found a wooden box covered with intricate carvings. Something inside rattled when Newman shook it gently. He opened the lid and found that it was full of bones. Human bones. Also in the barrel was a bundle of blood-red silk and a pair of iron shackles. Beneath the silk was a human skull. Fearful that leaving the bones untouched would prevent the ghost from moving on, Newman decided to gather the remains in order to give the woman — whoever she had been — a proper burial.

  It worked. The ghost of the woman was never seen in the vaults again, but she did appear a short while later in one of Newman’s dreams. She beckoned him to approach and warned him that a great tragedy was to befall one of his ships. When Newman awoke early the next morning and recalled the dream, he began to panic. He hadn’t insured that particular ship and he’d be bankrupt if anything happened to it, so he decided not to tempt fate and immediately had it insured.

  The ship never reached its destination in England and was believed to have sunk somewhere along the way. Is it possible that the ghost appeared in Newman’s dream to save his business in thanks for the proper burial he gave her remains?

  Although that ghost was never seen again, other spirits continue to make their presence known to this day. Kelliann Blackwood worked in the Newman Wine Vaults in 2003 and 2004, and often felt as if she’d walked through cold spots that enveloped her in an emotionally distraught feeling that would remain with her for the rest of the day. Other days she and her fellow employees would hear phantom footsteps that seemed to be coming from within the stone walls. Invisible hands would brush up against their arms as they passed the barrels, and the spirits sometimes pinched the living, as if out of malice. Some heard voices calling their names when no one else was in the building.

  On June 18, 2011, Karen Hanlon caught one of the Newman Wine Vaults’ ghosts on camera. She was attending a small private wedding in the building when she took a picture of a couple of musicians playing at one end of a tunnel. Hovering in the air above a mixing board was the foggy yet remarkably clear image of a man in a white dress shirt, his face dark and obscured. Karen took one look at her camera’s digital screen and raced to find the newlywed couple.

  “Look what I just took!” she shouted, waving the camera in the air. “Look what I just took! There’s somebody in the picture.”

  The question is, which ghost did Karen catch? In the Newman Wine Vaults, it could’ve been one of many. There’s no shortage of spirits floating among the wine.

  THE SCREAMING DOPPELGÄNGER

  Victoria, British Columbia

  Beacon Hill Park in downtown Victoria is one of the most well-loved and beautiful locations in the city. The 200 acres of land was officially established as a park in 1882 and contains walking paths, landscaped grounds, bridges, ponds and rivers, and many breeds of trees, flowers and animals. But it’s also home to a ghost. What follows has been described as one of the strangest paranormal events ever documented anywhere in the world.

  Victoria resident Peter Stewart and his wife loved Beacon Hill Park. They enjoyed waking before the sun and going for long jogs along the park’s many paths before other people started to arrive. Their regular route took them past a rocky area near the corner of Douglas and Superior Streets and they rarely saw another soul there so early in the morning — but that changed in the early 1980s.

  One day they turned a corner at a decent pace and stopped dead in their tracks. A most unusual sight met their eyes. A woman was standing atop the rocks. At first they thought she was holding a yoga position, but when they took a closer look they realized this was not the case. Her legs were spread shoulder-width apart and her arms were stretched up to the sky. She was facing east, toward the rising sun. The woman was slim and tanned, had blond hair and wore a black shirt and white pants. The odd thing about her was that her head was tilted back and her mouth was open in a silent scream. She looked like she was in terrible pain, but she stood statue-still with her eyes closed. She didn’t acknowledge Peter and his wife at all, so eventually the joggers moved on.

  They saw the silently screaming woman many times, and so did others. She always matched the same description, was only seen on the rocks as the sun rose, and never moved nor made a sound. One woman out walking her dog asked her if she needed any help, but even that didn’t elicit a reaction. Two groundskeepers responsible for cleaning the park early in the morning saw her regularly, and they thought it was odd that they never once saw her enter or leave.

  On November 15, 1983, the groundskeepers made a gruesome discovery. It was a beautiful fall day and the ground was covered in bright red, orange and yellow leaves. But they found an odd pile of leaves, all bunched up behind the rocks where the silent woman had always been seen. Sticking out from that pile was the toe of a woman’s shoe. The men called the park authorities. When the police arrived soon after, the two groundskeepers were asked to stay nearby so that they could answer any questions the officers might have. And so they were there when the police removed the body.

  The groundskeepers couldn’t believe their eyes. It was the same woman, the one who stood on the rocks most mornings. But the woman looked a little different. Instead of tanned skin and blond hair, she had pale skin and black hair. Instead of a black shirt and white pants, she wore a white shirt and black pants. It was as if the woman seen on the rocks was a photo negative version of the body found in the same area, with the colour of her skin, hair and clothes reversed.

  There’s a German word for this: doppelgänger, or a “double walker.” A doppelgänger is the ghost of a person who is still alive. Everyone who had seen the woman on the rocks — who came to be known as the Screaming Doppelgänger — knew at once that she was the ghost of the murdered woman.

  An autopsy was performed on the body and revealed that she had been strangled before being left in the park. Her husband had reported her missing several weeks earlier.

  What’s particularly interesting and eerie about this case is that the woman’s doppelgänger was seen for years before she was murdered, and that she looked like a photo negative version of herself. But that was about to change.

  Six weeks after reading about the murder in the newspaper, Peter and his wife were jogging through the park when they saw the ghost of the woman again. She was standing in the exact same spot on the rocks, with her feet shoulder-width apart, her arms stretched up to the sky, facing the rising sun. Her head was back and her mouth was open wide in a silent scream. But now the ghost looked exactly like the body that had been removed from the park, with pale skin and black hair.

  The stunned couple stopped and stared at the ghost for a short while before she disappeared in front of their eyes.

  The Screaming Doppelgänger is still seen today, but with every passing year her body grows more vaporous and misty, and less corporeal. Since her murder remains unsolved, there’s no telling how long she’ll continue to t
errify early risers in Beacon Hill Park.

  THE SHADOWY FIGURE

  Duncan, British Columbia

  It started with a chill that was far too cold to be normal, and before long Marianne Sisler knew that she was being haunted by a ghost.

  Marianne and a co-worker were the only two people in the office one Friday afternoon in 1975. Marianne was in the front reception area when she decided she needed a coffee to see her through the rest of the day. She was tired and under a lot of stress. Her husband had suffered a stroke a few months before and spent most of his time in bed, unable to move very well. And her mother, a widow, was beginning to need more attention and care.

  Marianne made her way to the lunchroom at the back of the office and poured herself a cup of coffee. As she walked back to reception, a terrible feeling suddenly stopped her. She felt impossibly cold air swirling around her legs. It felt more like a presence than a draft.

  Marianne stepped to the side and realized she’d been standing in a cold spot. She stepped back in the spot, but the odd sensation had vanished.

  She looked around and saw that her co-worker was at her desk with her head down. Marianne was relieved she wouldn’t have to explain why she’d stopped in the hall and stepped from side to side. She felt a little silly. After all, it had only been a bit of cold. More than likely there was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

  By the time Marianne got home she had forgotten all about the incident. After dinner she got busy in the kitchen preparing food for the weekend. Her husband was in bed and the house was otherwise empty. She was at the counter with her back to the rest of the room when suddenly the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She knew someone was behind her, staring at her. Her husband? Impossible. Marianne would have heard him approach. An intruder? Unlikely. She knew for a fact that she had locked both the front and back doors.

  With a sense of apprehension, Marianne slowly turned around to find a shadowy figure passing through the kitchen and into the living room, out of view. She could see that it wore a men’s dark grey suit, but the man’s face and hands were obscured as if they were made of shadows. Even so, Marianne felt certain that the shadow man was her father, who had died more than twenty years earlier.

  She couldn’t move for a moment. Then, once her nerves began to settle, she didn’t know what to do other than continue with her work. But only a few minutes later Marianne felt the same sensation on the back of her neck. She turned and saw the shadow pass through the kitchen and into the living room once more. This time he disappeared into thin air.

  Marianne quickly finished her work and retreated to her bedroom. Her husband was already in a deep sleep. She got into bed and pulled the covers up over her face, leaving only the top of her head exposed.

  Before long, she felt something touching her hair. It was a gentle touch, light as a feather, but still unnerving. She pulled the covers down just enough to peek out. The shadow man was standing beside her bed. Quickly she pulled the covers back over her head, hiding from view completely.

  The next morning Marianne reflected on the previous day’s events. She didn’t share the details with anyone and slowly began to convince herself that all of it — the cold spot, the shadowy ghost, the feeling of her hair being touched — had been her imagination. It was far easier to believe that the feelings and visions had been stress induced. Surely she’d feel a little better after a good night’s sleep.

  Marianne’s grown daughter, Sandra, soon arrived. They had arranged to go shopping together. They chatted about work in the kitchen for a while, but Marianne didn’t mention the previous day.

  After a while Sandra went upstairs to freshen up before going out. When she returned, she had a very unusual question for her mother: “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  The question took Marianne by surprise, so she asked her daughter why she wanted to know.

  Sandra was unwilling to explain.

  “Did you see him?” Marianne asked.

  Sandra admitted that she had seen the reflection of a shadowy man pass behind her while she was brushing her hair.

  “You saw your grandfather,” Marianne said.

  Marianne’s father remained in the house for the rest of the week, moving silently from room to room, causing chills to spread across Marianne’s body every time he was near. Sandra visited twice that week. Both times she declared, “He is still here, Mom!”

  The following Saturday, eight days after Marianne had first felt her father’s cold presence, Marianne woke up and immediately knew that he had moved on.

  Sandra returned later that day and agreed. “Oh, he is gone now,” she said as soon as she entered the house.

  On Sunday Marianne visited her mother. Before much time had passed, and without comment, her mother handed her a photograph. Marianne looked at it in surprise. It was an old black-and-white photo of her father that she had never seen before. In it he was wearing the exact same dark grey suit he had worn throughout the week.

  Marianne felt like her mother must have given her that particular picture at that moment for a reason, so she told her mother what both she and Sandra had seen in her home.

  Her mother listened silently. When Marianne was finished, her mother made no comment. Marianne wondered if she had also seen the shadow in the suit or if the timing of her sharing the photograph had been a coincidence.

  She never discovered the truth.

  Marianne’s mother passed away in October of 1979. The evening of the funeral, Marianne was alone in her den when the telephone rang loudly, interrupting the silence of the darkened house. She answered the phone.

  “Hello?” she said.

  No one responded. The connection was bad, as though someone were calling long-distance.

  “Hello?” she said again.

  “Lottie! Lottie!” a voice screamed in her ear.

  Marianne recognized the voice immediately. It was her mother.

  “Mom, this is Marianne!”

  Silence. Although the line remained open for several minutes and Marianne waited, listening intently, her mother said nothing else. Eventually Marianne hung up. When she picked up the receiver again, the line was clear.

  Marianne couldn’t believe what had happened. Lottie was her mother’s best friend, and both women had lived in the same seniors’ residence.

  To have one parent try to make contact after death was shocking enough, but to have both do so was nearly unfathomable. What Marianne’s parents had hoped to achieve are mysteries that will remain unsolved forever.

  DEATH IN THE DINING ROOM

  Halifax, Nova Scotia

  Lunch was over, dinner was yet to come, and the dining room was empty. A waitress at the Halifax Club took the opportunity to get caught up on tasks that had to be completed before the next rush — the members-only meeting place was often quite busy at meal times. She bustled around the room, clearing dirty dishes and taking them to the kitchen, placing clean tablecloths on each of the tables, rolling napkins and setting clean cutlery and glasses. There was plenty to do, but her work was going well and she felt good about the progress she was making. But then there was a disturbance in the dining room that made her pause.

  She heard the high-pitched sound of glass hitting glass. Not shattering, but clinking loudly. She dropped the cutlery she’d been about to set and stood straight up, whipping her head left and right, scanning the room. She was alone.

  Straining her ears, she listened. There it was again, glass on glass. She checked each one of the dining room’s tables but there was nothing she could find that was making the sound. And yet it persisted.

  Finally, after her nerves had stretched as tight as they possibly could, the waitress looked up. The chandeliers were all swinging violently from side to side. That was impossible — the doors and windows were all closed — but they were swinging all the same. The only explanation the woman could think of for the swinging chandeliers was that the Halifax Club’s former general manager was in the room with her.r />
  He often is. In fact, he never leaves. Not even death can keep him away from his workplace. His spirit can’t be blamed for lingering. His death — right there in the dining room where many odd things happen — was both shocking and gruesome.

  The Halifax Club was established in 1862 by fifteen of the city’s wealthiest and most influential men, most of whom had strong ties to England. They desired a private meeting place that would also serve as a location to hold important dinners and dances, so a dining room and grand ballroom were necessary inclusions. At the time, Halifax was a very important port city that served shipping routes between Canada, the United States and Europe. The Halifax Club was an immediate success.

  But something drove the first general manager to commit an atrocious act in 1870, when the club was still in its infancy. One day, quite out of the blue, he walked into the dining room where many members were enjoying some good food and company. He stood before them and got everyone’s attention. Then he raised a sharp, long knife high in the air above his head and, without giving anyone time to stop him, thrust the knife into his belly with both hands. He died within seconds, his blood pooling on the floor around his unmoving body. Why he killed himself, no one could say.

  Jason Clarke, a recent Halifax Club general manager, didn’t see the ghost himself, but he did have many staff members report sightings over the years, including the waitress who saw the chandeliers swinging overhead. Another woman was passing by the cloakroom one evening when her body was overcome by an ice-cold sensation. She was instantly certain that she was in the presence of an evil spirit and a shiver ran down her spine. She ran away in fright and was never comfortable in that area again. Other employees reported to Jason that they felt eerie chills while alone in the building and locking up for the night. Sometimes the cold spots were followed by whispers in the walls and other times those whispers turned into shouts. The worst was when the voices would shout the employee’s name, as if the original general manager was trying to bark orders from beyond the grave.