Louisbourg Fortress

A perpetual French threat to British North America from its inception in 1713, the fortress was finally leveled by an army of New Englanders in 1758, seemingly never destined to rise again from the windblown, salt-stained fields that overgrew the ruin.

French Naval Captain (acted by Joe, Parks Canada)

However, commencing in 1961, the Canadian government funded an ambitious project to rebuild one-fifth of the fortress. Intended to provide jobs to unemployed coal miners, visitors can now come to witness and relive the glory of French North America.

But of course, the fortress’s inhabitants are long gone…

…or are they?

Many staff and visitors have reported seeing costumed “re-enactors” where none were supposed to be. Another visitor at the Chevalier House described in detail the uniform of a Swiss army officer billeted almost 300 years ago. Nobody at the fortress wears such a uniform today.

In yet another home, Madame Duhaget is often seen cradling her dead baby in her arms. A search of the detailed records kept by the French reveal that this woman, the wife of an officer residing here, had suffered a series of stillbirths.

In June 2016, I was one of a small group enjoying an overnight stay in the fortress. The day had been an eventful one, with me having the privilege of firing one of the 18 lbs cannons that lined the walls of this fortified town… and I did so in the full costume of a French artilleryman. We had cooked our dinners of savoury stew over open fires in the courtyard of the governor’s palace, and then retired to our respective quarters by the light of a late June full moon.

At midnight, by candlelight and at the request of the genteel Les Marchands of Parks Canada, I read from my book, Amazing Medical Stories (Goose Lane Editions, 2003). This was a special moment, for the body of the gentleman about whom I was reading lay buried in a crypt below my feet, here in the chapel of the fortress.

The author gives a midnight reading from his book, Amazing Medical Stories, chronicling the unfortunate Duke D’Anville, whose remains lie interred in a crypt directly below his feet.

The Duke d’Anville, the admiral of a fleet that seemed destined to destroy Boston, Philadelphia, and New York in 1746, had died ignominiously of a brain-tumor-induced stroke as his fleet sailed into Chebucto Harbour (now Halifax), Nova Scotia. The fleet—decimated by typhus and buffeted by storms—accomplished none of its lofty goals, and limped back to France, leaving the remains of its noble admiral interred here.

After the reading, I made an interesting proposal to my colleagues. When I had visited Transylvania on Halloween a few years ago, I had brought a “ghost busting” kit, complete with EMF (electro-magnetic field) detector and remote laser temperature sensor. You can read about my adventures there at Dracula’s Grave.

I had brought with me the same gear to the fortress, and proposed to do a survey of the opulent governor’s palace, lit only by the light of the full moon, which flooded the building on this cold and lonely night.

A spooky full moon casts pallid shadows in the streets of Fortress Louisbourg.

Surveying the barracks, kitchens and other parts of the fortress with my EMF detector earlier, I had found nothing of spectral interest and the same disappointment materialized until we entered the governor’s audience chamber.

Because of Governor Duquesnel’s severe dental problems, arthritis, and hardening of the arteries, he often held audiences from his bed. He was known to be ill-tempered and irascible, and who can blame him with so many medical issues. To soothe his swollen joints, he would often sit by the fireplace of his chamber. Later, when he died, his body lay in this very apartment.

Touring the late governor’s premises, our small party chose to sit at his council table as I explained the workings of the EMF detector and the quantum physics rationale for so-called residual hauntings. While I had read extensively on these theories, I still maintained a healthy sense of skepticism. But… sometimes things happen that we can’t explain.

Since space and time were proven to be curved by Albert Einstein, it is theorized that a past segment of time might rest adjacent to the present. In dark and quiet places, one might glimpse images of events long gone. I demonstrated this theory by twisting a (reproduction) 18th Century napkin, bringing distant parts in contact with one another, to illustrate my point.

After leaving the governor’s council chamber, we journeyed onwards, towards the eminent gentleman’s reception room. At first, all was quiet, but as I continued to scan the room, my EMF detector suddenly shrieked like a predator-startled herring gull in the direction of the fireplace and the 18th Century chair located adjacent to it.

The Paranormal Hotspot

I gave the EMF detector to our Parks Canada interpreter, Kyle, to see if this was a reproducible finding…and he elicited the same signals. We all noted that the room felt colder than natural, and a signal bounced off the chair by my temperature sensor revealed a 10 degree Fahrenheit differential from the rest of the room.

One theory is that paranormal phenomena manifest by drawing energy from the environment, hence dropping the ambient temperature. Of course, it could have just been a cold draft…

Our photographer, Gary Cralle, told us he was sensitive to these phenomena, and that his hair had stood on end as the sensor shrilled. Gary snapped some photos, after which we hurried from the room and took some time to digest the events that we had experienced.

But could this night’s experiences be reproduced? 

Silhouette Guard… or Ghost?

Several days later I had a chance to find out, when I returned to the fortress… again at night. Once more I returned to Governor Duquesnel’s audience chamber and I approached his chair and fireplace. The EMF detector again shrilled, but with a strangely different intensity and location. 

Author surveys the moonlit governor’s chamber with an EMF detector.

The test for EMF signals of natural vs. supernatural origin is that artificial sources are always virtually identical. Paranormal phenomena classically vary with time. I would have to say that the “governor” had passed the test.

But seriously, was there a paranormal presence?

I always maintain a healthy skepticism. Ghostbusting provides an interesting source of material for a journalist such as myself, but I am at a loss to explain these findings. Afterwards, I searched thoroughly, including the floor below, and could find no natural explanation for these signals.

I am told that a fully-equipped paranormal investigation team is scheduled to visit the fortress in a few weeks. I wonder what strange phenomena and will manifest…

Co-authored by George Burden and Stella van der Lugt

Photo Credits

Photos by Stella van der Lugt – All Rights Reserved

Photos five and nine by Gary Cralle – All Rights Reserved

Sometimes the evidence is shaky or suspiciously second-hand, and sometimes what we’re asked to believe runs counter to the secular common sense of our age. But the power of belief lies in its power to ignore or reject what skeptics might see as evidence or scientific proof. And that power should not be underestimated.

In the brilliant Don’t Sleep there are Snakes, the linguist and missionary Daniel Everett describes his experience with the remote Piraha people of the Amazon rainforest. Everett recounts a litany of incredible insights and experiences from his time with a human civilization that has proved to be uniquely uninterested in what we might see as ‘development’, ‘modernization’ or ‘progress’. Barefoot, naked and wholly at one with nature, the Piraha seemed to Everett to be the happiest people on earth. Yet exposure to their way of life caused him to lose, by turns, his marriage, his family and his Christian faith.

At one point Everett describes the villagers’ great excitement at a visitation of spirits cavorting on the far side of the river. They were, according to Everett, delighted and highly amused at the spectacular spirit show they were lucky enough to witness. But from Everett’s Western point of view, there was nothing to see but water, sand, and jungle. One way or the other, he simply couldn’t believe his eyes.

Half a world away from the Amazon, deep in the rural English countryside, my mother tells a similarly bewildering tale from my teenage years.

Sanding down an old skirting board running across a blocked up fireplace in her antiquated country cottage she was lost in the sensations of the moment. A radio was playing in the background and while kneeling, reaching and rubbing away rhythmically at the old woodwork she was, as she puts it, ‘away with the fairies’. Then something odd happened.

She felt a firm but gentle grip take hold of the back of her denim dungarees and begin to pull her slowly but steadily away from the old fireplace. She reckons she was dragged backwards about six feet across the bare floorboards.

“Oh for goodness sake Will, stop messing about!” she squawked – still on her hands and knees – before turning to see nothing behind her but the bare plaster of a recently stripped wall.

I was fifteen miles away at a friend’s. There was no one else in the house.

To this day Mum insists that she felt as though she was being looked after, that she was being steered away from that old fireplace like a child being eased towards safety. But just like Daniel Everett, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

Ordinarily I’d count myself as a skeptic. I might argue for the Piraha having enjoyed a smoke or a sip of something stimulating. But I believe my mother; I know her drinking and smoking habits. She’s never reported anything like that since, and she’s never sought to make a big song and dance about it. As far as she’s concerned, it was just something that once happened in that big old room.

Just like the Piraha, she believed absolutely in what she experienced. In my mother’s case she didn’t have much choice, she was dragged backwards on her hands and knees across the floor. That doesn’t happen if you’re just a bit tiddly.

That is why I can believe there is something to the enduring popularity of psychic readings, tarot cards, ghostly apparitions, and all things mystical and mythical. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I do know that I can believe in it. And I’m convinced that within that capacity for belief is the potential to change the world. That’s quite a big thought.

Daniel Everett’s ‘Don’t Sleep there are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle is published in paperback by Profile Books Ltd.

Image Credit

The Song of Hiawatha by Frederic Remington – Wikimedia Public Domain

Guest Author Bio
Will Turner
Will Turner is a writer and broadcaster. He has a PhD in linguistics and he shares a quiet and happy life in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales with his wife and two teenage boys.

When I was a young woman working as a secretary for a large newspaper company, my office was in a building in London’s renowned Fleet Street. I felt very lucky to have a job that I enjoyed so much. My best friend there was named Dorothy. We liked each other’s company and therefore often met for lunch to eat our sandwiches and talk for a while. Our favorite spot was in the gardens which surrounded St. Paul’s Cathedral, just a short walk up Ludgate Hill from our offices. We both worked under pressure and the lunch time break was ideal to chat about such things as clothes, hair-do’s, film stars, etc., and the kinds of interests that girls of our age liked to do.

There was a lot about Dorothy that I admired. She and her younger brother lived and cared for their elderly, widowed mother. Dorothy had two older sisters who were married and lived away. She was a tall, thin young woman with the most gorgeous hair I had ever seen. It was so blonde that it almost looked to be silver. I had met her younger brother just once and he, too, had the same coloring. Dorothy had a fine dusting of the same shade of hair on her face and arms. This never seemed to bother her and I found it rather fascinating. Like me, she attended Evening Classes to widen her education. Her home was north of London and mine was in east London.

During one of our many chats together I had told her of my life-time fears of anything ghostly, spiritual, or spooky. As a child I was very much afraid of the dark and my mother always left a small light on in my bedroom before she went to bed. This did help a bit but I often could not sleep and kept looking for anything creepy in the room. Eventually, I did grow out of that fear, but could never watch a movie or even read a story about anything that had a ghostly theme to it.

After WWII a large number of British people turned to visiting clairvoyants in the hope they could find more details about the death of their loved ones. Dorothy had told me many times of her worry regarding her mother’s health and I often thought it might have something to do with the death of her oldest son, Dorothy’s brother, in Burma. However, on this occasion she admitted that her mother believed that her son was visiting her at night, begging her to accept the fact that he was dead and that he wanted her to leave him in peace and let him rest.

I wondered why she had told me more about her family’s concern and was not too surprised when she said “Mary, I have a favor to ask of you.” She then said that she had heard of a famous clairvoyant named Sammy Cohen and that he had helped a lot of people who were in distress. I held my breath as she looked at me and asked if I would accompany her if she managed to get an appointment with him. She then told me that he lived in a place called “Limehouse.”

“Dorothy,” I said, “Limehouse is an area which was once a large Chinatown. This is where the notorious Opium Dens were. It is not an area where anyone gets off the bus to look around. There are many hair-raising stories about Chinatown and people keep away from it!”

To my deep concern my friend looked as if she was going to cry, so I asked, “Well, where exactly does he live?” She answered, “In a disused Monastery in the center of Limehouse”. My heart plopped and I started to shake and shiver.

After a while, I said “Would I have to go inside with you?” Her answer was positive. “No, and I am sure there will be a waiting room. He is a very busy man and much sought after. There is the chance that he could help us save my mother’s sanity.” I could understand Dorothy’s angst as I had lost my own mother previously and still missed her dearly.

After much thought, I agreed to accompany her on her mission. Shortly afterwards, Dorothy managed to get an appointment with Mr. Cohen for 6.30 p.m. in two weeks time. I told my fiancé of Dorothy’s plans and he said that his mother had been to meetings where Mr. Cohen had spoken to huge audiences. She had been very impressed with him and insisted that he was not a fake. This made me feel less nervous of our upcoming mission.

Finally, the day of the appointment arrived and we left our offices promptly, walked to the bus-stop, and started our journey to Limehouse. We didn’t try to talk on the way, as I guess we were both feeling somewhat uptight.

Walking towards Mr. Cohen’s address, we found the roads still had bomb damage and a lot of buildings were missing. It was obvious that the old Chinatown no longer existed. We arrived in good time, thus giving us the opportunity to have a serious look at the Monastery. It was very old and carried many scars from the war. Dorothy knocked on an old-fashioned door and it was quickly opened by a man of medium height, with dark curly hair, a swarthy skin and bright inquisitive eyes. He immediately invited us in. His welcome was warm and kind. Dorothy quickly followed him in. I cautiously joined her, peering around for – what? I didn’t know.

To my surprise the waiting room was very large, with an extremely high ceiling and an imposing number of mismatched chairs all around the gray stone walls. I quickly picked a chair that was as close to the exit as I could find. I had the feeling that my friend had told Mr. Cohen that I would not be going with her for the interview because he immediately waved her towards a door to another room.

I sat on the edge of my chair with my heart in my mouth. I wasn’t sure what scared me and there were no unexpected noises, not even the tick of a clock. I looked around and noted on the wooden floor there was a very large carpet that obviously had once been extremely expensive, but now it was well worn and in some places almost thread-bare. On one wall there were two water color paintings, both of small ships and, perhaps, tugs. One corner held a dried up potted fern on a small table. After about 15 minutes had passed, I finally sat further back into the chair, relaxing a little. I could hear my heart beating and I swallowed to relieve the dryness of my mouth. Another 10 minutes went by, then Dorothy and Mr. Cohen walked towards me. Much to my relief I noted they were both smiling. I leapt to my feet and hurried towards the main door but before my hand could grab the knob, Mr. Cohen said “Mary?” I froze, turning to look daggers at Dorothy. She shook her head firmly and I knew she had kept her word of not talking about me.

Sammy Cohen then said to me “I have a message for you from your mother.” I stood rooted to the spot and he continued saying, “She asks me to tell you that she is fine and so happy to be with little Georgie again.” Georgie was my mother’s first born child. He died at the age of five, many years before I was born.

Some weeks later, my friend Dorothy told me that her mother had finally accepted the fact that her son had died with many other thousands of soldiers whilst working on building roads in Burma under the Japanese rule.

Photo Credits

Clairvoyant Man –  possibly taken by William Hope around 1920 – National Media Museum

Brown Lady Ghost photo – Wikipedia – Fair Use
 

Guest Author Bio

Mary Piggott
Mary was born in London, England, the youngest of four children. Her Mother was widowed when Mary was only one year old. This led to her Mother working long, hard hours at whatever she had the opportunity to do. A lifetime of “making do” and scraping was the only life the family knew and this also resulted in each child having to leave school early to find work. Mary always had the ambition to travel and has visited over fifty countries. In 1967 Mary and her husband Colin emigrated to Canada with their little daughter. Mary is a talented artist who enjoys painting, writing and the challenge of crossword puzzles.

It is a dark and stormy night. No, really! More like an inky March night in northern England with a chilling wind driving a heavy mist into my clothes. It’s impossible to keep warm. Mark Graham, the creator of “Original Ghost Walk Tour of York” and its principal storyteller since 1973, leads us along a famous and creepy street called The Shambles through to the Black Swan Pub. Though famous for the wandering ghost in the bowler hat, the beautiful young female ghost in the long white dress who stares into the fireplace and the disembodied pair of legs that walk about the landlord’s quarters, it’s a barmaid who is the subject of Mark’s tale here tonight.

With a wave of a gloved hand out of his sombre wool coat, Mark presents to us the Black Swan. “June worked in this pub,” he begins. “One night with nobody else about, she went round back of the bar to tidy up when suddenly she felt a presence. She lost her breath as if someone had taken the air from the room.”

Mark clutches his throat with gloved hands. “Someone or something grabbed her by the throat. It tightened its grip. She kicked back, but no one was there. Just as she felt she would surely succumb, she heard the door slam. She fell to the floor and crumpled into a heap. A man and woman came through the door. The crash had broken the spell. The couple looked down and said to June, ‘We’ll have a pint of bitter and a gin and tonic.’”

In a city that dates from 71 AD when the Roman Ninth Legion built a fortress and armed it with 6000 soldiers, there’s enough history to generate literally legions of ghosts. Voted in the Google Street View Awards as Britain’s Most Picturesque Street, The Shambles itself once ran with blood. The Shambles and off it five narrow snickleways or alleys like The Little Shambles served as an open abattoir and meat market for 600 years.

The overhanging timber-frame buildings seem as if they have twisted themselves to tumble down upon you. Butchers built them in this way to keep the sun off their wares. The street gets its name from the broad shelves upon which butchers displayed their meats in front of their shops. The street was once known by its full name “The Great Flesh Shambles” likely from the Anglo-Saxon term “fleshammels” literally meaning “flesh shelves.”

It’s here in England’s most haunted city, where butchers once slaughtered and dressed animals for market, tossing guts and blood into the runnel down the middle of the street, that Mark Graham plies his trade of scaring the bejeezus out of visitors… at least those daring enough to sign up for his ghost walk, one of five now operating in the spooky city of about 200,000 souls.

Murders, suicides, accidents and deadly riots — York has them all. In 1190, the small Jewish community hid from a murderous mob in Clifford’s Tower, a stone keep built on a low hill. After several days and a terrible fire, many took their own lives rather than face a horrific death.

Those who surrendered were killed, in spite of promises otherwise. In this, one England’s most notorious examples of anti-Semitism, 150 to 500 Jews died. Only about 200 Jews live in York today. Even a Roman emperor died in York. When Constantius 1 passed away on a visit in 306 AD, the troops stationed there proclaimed his son the new emperor Constantine the Great.

Mark Graham huddles us in a corner out of the wind at the side of York Minster Cathedral, the second largest Gothic Cathedral in northern Europe, beneath which the ruins of that Roman fortress still lie. It seems in 1953 a plumber’s apprentice named Harry Martindale was working alone in the cellar of the adjacent Treasurer’s House. He’d just placed his ladder on the remains of an ancient Roman road to drill a hole in the ceiling when he heard a noise. He looked down to see a man in a plumed helmet coming through the wall.

A soldier on a horse followed and behind that about 20 foot soldiers marched in pairs out one cellar wall and into another, every one of them on their knees. Not on their knees as if in prayer or subservience, on their knees as if they had no legs below them. As each reached the excavation of the Roman road, their full legs appeared beneath them. Harry scrambled out of the cellar and never returned. His doctor ordered him two weeks rest to recover from shock.

With stories and history like this, it’s no wonder York was voted ahead of 130 others as European Tourism City of the Year by European Cities Marketing in June 2007. York beat out second place Gothenburg Sweden and third place Valencia Spain. Of course the five-kilometre Medieval wall that rings old York, the National Railway Museum, river cruises and several grand theatres add to York’s appeal to visitors. It’s also a great jumping off point for visits to the moors and to coastal towns like Whitby, famous for its beach, explorer James Cook’s childhood home and the finest beer battered fish and chips with mushy peas anywhere.

Mark Graham leads us back through The Shambles, stopping before this building and at that corner to spin another spooky ghost story until at last we find ourselves before the 500-year-old Golden Fleece pub a total of five ghosts haunt just four bedrooms in this, one of the most haunted of all buildings in York. We hurry inside out of the gloomy cold, huddle next to the fireplace and over pints of bitter make arrangements to hire a cab back to the hotel rather than face a walk back past Mark Graham’s haunts.

If You Go…

The Original Ghost Walk of York

Photo Credits

All photos © Darcy Rhyno

“Mark Graham offers a guided tour of the haunted hotspots in York.”

“York Minster Cathedral at night, the site of York’s most famous ghost story.”

“Shambles Butcher, one of only two remaining butcher shops on a street that once ran with blood.”

We were 13 in number and we watched quietly as villagers lit candles and prepared sacred dishes of mole, pibe, tamale and a drink of honey-sweetened raw chocolate. Perhaps the size of our group was a coincidence, but the Maya consider 13 to be a lucky number. It is the number of benign gods in their pantheon, sadly outnumbered by the 19 evil deities, against which they struggle bravely to protect mankind.

The “Day of the Dead” should perhaps be more appropriately called the “Days of the Dead,” since from October 31 to November 2, all across Mexico, deceased loved ones are memorialized during this time.

In urban areas the custom is treated much like our own Halloween, but in rural Mexico it is still an intensely religious holiday with roots going back into the mists of pre-Columbian times. Though now ostensibly Christianized, it is really an ancient Mayan rite that was moved to All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days. The celebrations remain a mélange of traditional and Christian festivals. The festival can be quite joyous. I tis not unusual to welcome departed souls with graveside picnics complete with fireworks, mariachi bands and flowers. It is also considered good luck to receive a sugar skull on which is inscribed your name.

Carved skulls and skeletons reflect a pre-Columbian fascination with the calcified portions of human remains, evidence of which can be seen in ruins like Chichen Itza. Tonight, however, is especially dedicated to the souls of little children.

Villagers consume the food for the offering and pass it around to guests. I try some, and afterwards down a draught of honeyed chocolatl, long a sacred drink before the Hispanic conquest. The shared sustenance seems to cement a bond between the simple villagers and onlookers. The ceremony ends and we trudge back through the ruins.

On All Saints Day, November 1, we cross the bay to the Isla de Mujeres, or Island of Women. In ancient times this was the easternmost outpost of the Maya, sacred because it was the first part of their territory to receive the rays of the rising sun. The island is dedicated to Ixchel, the goddess of the moon, and of fertility.

The remnants of her temple are found on the southern tip of the island. When Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, first reached Isla de Mujeres, he discovered a cache of female fertility figures, hence the name. He smashed them all, as evidence of idolatry. The isle still remains a popular place of pilgrimage for those seeking fertility, both for locals and New-Agers from further afield.

There is a walking trail along the coral encrusted coast offering vistas of turquoise waters, sea birds and the island of Cancun in the distance. Dotting the sides of the trails are small coral caves where guests can seek tranquility or visitors can climb up to the statuary garden with its colorful and sometimes jarring works prefacing the approach to Ixchel’s temple itself.

Along the way we pass through a charming and colorful Caribbean village, which also houses a small museum dedicated to the pirate Moncada. He made a fortune in the slave trade, then, as legend fittingly has it, fell into an unrequited love affair with a native woman and died of a broken heart. The remains of the estate and garden he built, a vain attempt to lure his beloved into his arms, can still be seen further north on the island.

All Souls’ Day, November 2, dawned with our party journeying to Xcaret. Another ancient Mayan site, up the coast from Cozumel, it boasts some interesting ruins and a themed eco-park. It is a child-friendly place that features visits to a quite convincing reproduction of an ancient Mayan village.

Here locals of Mayan heritage make and sell crafts including gorgeous hand-woven blankets, colorful pottery and figurines depicting Mayan deities and monarchs. A unique option is to don a life vest and float through a 600-meter-long underground river. I tried this and soon gained some understanding of how the damned souls in Dante’s Inferno felt, floating along the River Styx. Another river system offers a float through deep, narrow gorges past the Mayan village on the banks high above.

As a special treat, today’s festivities include the grand opening of a new cemetery. The seven-tiered conical structure features 365 graves, each unique, representing the days of the year. After the opening ceremonies the park threw a grand fiesta with local cuisine and music.

I decided to explore some out-of-the-way corners of the park further and somehow found myself in an underground labyrinth of caves. Natural light came down through occasional holes in the limestone crust, but this was gradually fading as twilight approached. I became separated from my group and was totally lost.

Despite tantalizing strains of music, I was unable to find my way out and had dark visions of spending the rest of my days in some Mayan underworld. Finally, in desperation I climbed up through a sinkhole, headed for the music and stumbled onto a path just as the rest of the group passed by. The Mayan god of the foolish must have been smiling on me.

My final day was marked by packing and getting ready to check out of the hotel, the JW Marriott Resort and Spa in Cancun. I decided my trip would not be complete without a visit to the spa (purely for research purposes, you understand) and so I booked a Mayan Copan Style Massage. My masseuse, Nexy, was a full-blooded Mayan.

To background Mayan music, I was treated not only to a massage but a ritual which involved Nexy chanting in Mayan, waving palm branches and placing a large Tiger’s Eye gem over the center of my chest. Fortunately, I recalled that unlike the Aztecs, Mayan rituals did not include removal of the heart.

The ritual was followed by a very decadent 50-minute light massage with oils, incense and flowers thrown in. I felt so relaxed you could have poured me off the table, but I did steel myself for the follow-up, including a eucalyptus scented steam room, a wet sauna, followed by 10 minutes in a hot, then cool Jacuzzi.

Let’s say the subsequent trip home was very relaxed.

Photo Credits

All photos © George Burden

“Cemetery: Sunset silhouette of Xcaret cemetery”

“Altar: Day of the Dead altar on Halloween night in Ruinas del Rey”

“Author and friend: Author holding a “good luck” sugar skull at next to a Day of the Dead altar”

“Day of the Dead ladies: Day of the Dead skeletons in the latest fashions”

“Swimming through underground caves at Xcaret”

“Mayan warrior: A Mayan warrior greets visitors to the spectacular evening show at Xcaret”

“Dead” couple: Pair of Day of the Dead skeletons about to get hitched”

There is an abandoned but wonderful old movie theatre in a small town in the Prairies that sits quietly…waiting for someone to turn up the lights, open the red velvet curtains and fire up the carbon-arc projectors.

Not a week goes by where I don’t think about what I left behind — sometimes they are happy thoughts, full of good memories. But sometimes I feel an unearthly pull like someone or something is whispering quietly in my ear. “Come back!” the gentle yet insistent voice repeats again and again. And I feel out of control, fear and an inexplicable sorrow like a dark echo in my mind and my heart.

When I bought the old 1940’s theatre in that little town on the Prairies, many of the locals told me tales of ghosts that wandered the aisles and voices in the walls that could be heard after the lights had been turned out and the patrons had all left for the night. Apparently the building had been used as a morgue for some time before reverting back to a theatre so that would explain a lot of the folklore.

I didn’t care about the stories.  I was excited and looking forward to raising my two children in a movie house that still displayed its 1940’s style but had been well maintained.

We decided to live in the apartment above the 400 seat theatre and I assumed if there were indeed ghosts, it wouldn’t be long before we saw some sign of apparitions in filmy white gauze floating down the stairs or gliding gracefully across the massive stage, disappearing suddenly behind the heavy red velvet curtains. My Hollywood images of what ghosts were supposed to do were straight from the Bela Lugosi era where spirits did what the director told them to do.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

It was well after midnight after my first weekend of running the movie theatre and I was lying in bed, tired after the post-show cleanup and planning my next day’s work. I heard the door open at the top of the stairs that led to the apartment and realized that maybe I should have locked it…..although this was a small town where everyone knew everyone else and locked doors were not common. It had to be a friend or a family member and I sat up in bed.

“Who’s there?” I asked.  No answer.

“Hello?” I shouted.

Heavy slow footsteps started down the long hallway to the main bedroom where I was sitting up in bed, holding my breath.  The footsteps stopped at the doorway of my room and I reached up quickly to snap on the overhead light. The doorway was empty. My heart pounding in my ears and fear clutching my chest, I made my way out to the hallway, checked on both kids sleeping peacefully and looked in every closet and room of the entire apartment. Nothing. This was my first encounter.

My best worker Rosie quit the next Saturday after the theatre had cleared out the last of the customers. One of her jobs was to help me gather up the popcorn buckets, drink cups and other garbage from the seats and aisles. While I was in the lobby cashing out the till and locking up, I heard an ear piercing shriek and a crash coming from one of the long sloping aisles in the theatre.  I started for the open double doors at the entrance to the theatre when Rosie charged through, clutching her cross on her neck chain in her hand and screaming for help.  Just as she cleared the entrance, both double doors came swinging shut behind her, just catching her on her backside and sending her crashing into my arms.

“What happened?” I yelled as she continued to cry and shout that “he” had pushed her and she saw “him” materialize right before her eyes as she was carrying her garbage bag and broom up the aisle.

I pushed Rosie aside and threw the double doors open.  There was no one there.  As I turned back toward the lobby to try and console Rosie, I heard them for the first time. Voices.  And so many! The walls reverberated with conversations from so many years past. Gentlemen in conversation, women laughing and oh, the sound of children’s voices in excitement!  It was so subtle yet seemed to pulse in my ears like waves of the past resonating in and out. And then quiet.

Rosie left that night, still clutching her cross and crying. She would not set foot in the theatre ever again. There wasn’t anything I could do. I was a single mom on her own with two kids and a business loan that needed repaying. It wasn’t like I could just up and say “I quit” like Rosie could.  I didn’t blame her one bit but at the same time, I felt trapped by my inability to do so.

It was my Dad’s words that gave me hope that the rest of my life would not be spent dodging ghosts and wondering how to keep staff from quitting. “Maybe it’s a friendly ghost and it’s just playing pranks,” he said the day after my experience with the voices and Rosie’s encounter with the “undead.” I decided that had to be it — for my own peace of mind.

Weeks and months went by and occasional encounters with voices, hearing footsteps, seeing doors opening and closing and items being moved when no one was looking continued to happen on an irregular basis. On closing one night, just as I was reaching for the lever to operate the motorized device that closed the big stage curtains over the movie screen, an unseen hand beat me to it and I watched the lever slide slowly over on its own. And the curtains began the long, slow process to meet in the middle.  “Thanks,” I said to my invisible assistant. A shiver went up my spine but strangely I felt no real fear.

Weeks and months slid into years and I was ready to move on. I had made the decision to sell the theatre to take a job in the city. I had been working a seven day a week business for a long time and with the kids older, I was ready to settle down to a more “normal” life.

It was my last show. I had shut the projectors down, closed the doors and sent the rest of the staff home. It was just me, my thoughts and the 400 empty seats for the last time. I felt an incredible sadness as I wandered up the last aisle checking for any missed garbage left between the seats. There were no voices that night – perhaps silenced in sadness?

But I didn’t feel I was alone. Something caught my peripheral vision and I raised my head, looking toward the back of the theatre to the last row of seats, just beside the open double doors. And there he was. A boy stood at the back, leaning casually against the wall, one leg crossed over the other at the ankles.

He couldn’t have been more than 18 or 19 years old but he was definitely from a different time.  He was wearing a light brown jacket with a darker tie and vest along with short pants that ended at what looked like argyle socks and brown shoes. My heart seemed to stop and a cold sweat formed on the back of my neck.  Thinking back now, I don’t believe it was fear.  It was more shock combined with finally, a knowledge of who had been the playful ghost inhabiting the old theatre all these years. He grinned at me, gave me a friendly wave and turned to walk out through the double doors….and disappeared.

I think he’s still there. Along with all the voices that were absorbed by the theatre walls for so many years. And they are waiting patiently for someone to come back.  There is loneliness and sadness because they are still there and have been there forever. But there is no life to keep them entertained. They love the sound of the projectors being fired up and the curtains whining their way open across the stage.  And they love the people, the energy and the smell of the popcorn that only a real old-time theatre popcorn machine can make.

But the theatre never was brought back to life after we left and the seats are empty with the walls standing silent, waiting for life.  And the boy in the theatre leans against the back wall, invading my dreams and calling my name to come home.

What are ghosts? What are they really? Are they tickles on the back of your neck, a shiver along your spine, a shadow crossing the kitchen floor? Out of the corner of my eye, I occasionally see motionless grey shadows, forms sitting in chairs and hallways, but I never feel threatened.

Am I a ghost? I dream of places I used to live. Does it mean I haunt the current tenants on my nightly forays in the dark, checking out familiar stairwells, banisters, kitchens of old apartments I used to rent? Can they sense me as I sweep along the walls remembering where my furniture was, remembering special cupboards, favourite shelves?

I love October, when minds turn to ghosts, and pumpkins start appearing on doorsteps.

Though I wouldn’t say that I’ve actually seen a ghost per se, I have experienced a few ghostlike occurrences in our house and so has my son, who is convinced his room is haunted.

We live in my family home. My parents built the house, and although no one but the cat has died here, I believe there is an imprint of some sort.

For a year or so after we moved in, and my parents were gone, I kept hearing doors closing, locks snecking, the sound of gardening boots being kicked off in the basement.  The smoke detector downstairs kept ringing and when I investigated I could smell the faint scent of Dad’s pipe tobacco in the den.

My son’s bedroom used to be mine when I was very young. I haven’t told him this, but he and I had similar experiences in that room some 40 years apart.

When I was around five years old I dreamt that I saw a menacing looking pirate (this was no Johnny Depp) come up through the floor in the closet in my bedroom. The Jungians would have a heyday with this one, I’m sure. The pirate ascended a set of stone stairs that emerged through an opening in the closet floor. His face was smeared with dirt and sweat and he had the classic pirate look, black beard, tricorn hat and vest, and he was carrying a lighted oil lantern and a burlap sack. He looked right through me — good thing, I guess — and disappeared in a kind of dingy fog.

When my son was in preschool he woke one night to see a pirate with a bushy black beard standing in his room. The pirate was carrying a bag, and vanished through the wall at the back of the closet.

I’ve since learned there is a stream that flows diagonally through the neighbours’ yard and runs between the two houses. It is said that streams can cause disturbances in houses, often bringing with them cantankerous spirits, sprites, ghosts and the like. You don’t want a stream running under your house. Dream or ghost pirate we’ll never know, but I’m not too worried. Although that closet could probably use some attention…

Image Credit

Pyle, Howard; Johnson, Merle De Vore (ed) (1921). “Blueskin, the Pirate”, Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates: Fiction, Fact & Fancy Concerning the Buccaneers & Marooners of the Spanish Main,
Plate facing p. 186, New York, United States, and London, United Kingdom: Harper and Brothers.