Ghost stories abound in the Canada, and they often have tragic tales behind them. Here are some of our favorite spooooky places.
THE KEG MANSION
The Keg Mansion is a Toronto restaurant housed in a gothic manor that has the classic look of a haunted house. (In fact, it was used often for exterior shots on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.) The home became part of The Keg Steakhouse franchise in 1976, but prior to that it had been owned by the industrialist Hart Massey, who founded Massey Ferguson, a farm equipment and tractor producer. Massey’s daughter, Lillian, died in 1915 at age 61 on the second floor of the mansion. Many said that her health declined after her husband died six years earlier. And that’s not the only untimely death in the house. As the story goes, a maid was so distraught over Lillian’s death that she hung herself in the vestibule.
The mansion also had a secret underneath it—a tunnel connecting to the original Wellesley Hospital building. Hart Massey used it to quietly bring his son, Frederick, in for tuberculosis treatment. Many who visit the restaurant today say they feel a presence in the women’s restroom on the second floor. One woman reported that she hung a bag containing a bottle of wine on the back of the stall door. She heard the bag rustle and then saw it move off the hook. Instead of crashing to the floor, it gently lowered to her feet. Another diner said that the stall door unlocked and was opened by an unseen force. Also spotted: a woman with a noose around her neck, while others have heard children’s footsteps coming from the second floor, when no one was up there. A young boy has been spotted running up and down the staircase and is sometimes seen looking down on diners.
BANFF SPRINGS HOTEL
Often shrouded in the mists of the Canadian Rockies, the deluxe, castle-like Banff Springs Hotel can sometimes have an eerie air about it. While the hotel, which dates back to 1888, denies that it is haunted, there are a few legends of guests who checked in and never checked out. One of the hotel’s ghostly tales concerns room 873, known as “the missing room.” Although there is a room 773 below the eighth floor and a room 973 above, there is no room 873 where you would expect. As you walk down each hallway, there is a light above each room’s door. Where room 873 should be, there is a light above but no door—just a wall. At the baseboard, there is a cut marking where a door should be, and if you knock on the wall, it has a hollow sound.
Charles Fenerty, a poet from Halifax, was the first person to use wood fibers to make paper in 1844.
The story is that at some point many decades ago, a mother, father, and at least one little girl were murdered in room 873. After a police investigation, the room was cleaned up, refurbished, and rented out to tourists again. But some of the new guests heard hollow screams and others saw bloody handprints appearing on the mirrors in the room. As the legend goes, the hotel decided to finally seal off the site of the horrific crime. But some visitors have reported seeing the spirits of the family roaming in this hallway.
Then there is the story of the doomed bride who either tripped on her wedding gown and fell down the stairs to her death or brushed against some candles, lighting her gown on fire and taking a deadly spill down the stairs. Guests swear they have seen the image of a woman with a burning wedding dress abruptly disappear into thin air.
The ghost of Sam McCauley also shows up occasionally, and this is one apparition with a history that is easily traced. Sam worked at the hotel for more than 40 years, and he told everyone that he’d be sure to haunt the hotel after he died. Some guests have spotted a bellhop in full uniform who fits McCauley’s description. An older couple who was visiting swore that an older man helped them with their bags, but at the time none of the bellhops were over the age of 30. There have been sightings of a headless bagpiper and a ghostly bartender who warns guests when they’ve had too much to drink, but some of these visions may have been from just that—too much to drink.
THE GIBRALTAR POINT LIGHTHOUSE
In 1815, J. P. Rademuller—the first lightkeeper on the Toronto islands—met an untimely end. To make some extra money, he smuggled beer from the United States and sold it to the Canadians. Supposedly, some drunken soldiers from Fort York came to get beer from Rademuller one day and he refused to sell them any. Enraged by his refusal, they beat poor Rademuller.
Even after being clobbered, he refused to sell the soldiers beer. They didn’t take too kindly to his refusal, so they killed Rademuller by hacking his body apart and buried him around the lighthouse. It’s been said that on foggy nights, Rademuller’s ghost can be seen lurking about the premises, and his moans can be heard rising from beneath the sea-soaked floorboards.
Buttertubs Drive, Dingle Bingle Hill Terrace, and Jingle Pot Road are streets in Nanaimo, B.C.
THE WEIRD JOURNEY OF CHARLES FRANCIS COGHLAN Charles Francis Coghlan was a popular actor in Europe and North America in the late 1800s. While visiting Galveston, Texas, in 1899 at the age of 57, he made his “final exit.” He specified in his will that he wished to be buried on Prince Edward Island, where he had bought some property for his retirement. His body was placed in a metal casket until the final arrangements could be determined. Nearly a year after his death his body still had not been moved. When the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 struck, his coffin was swept away. On January 15, 1907, the New York Times reported that a hunter had found his casket partially buried in a marsh, 29 kilometers (18 miles) inland from Galveston.
That report was accepted as the final word on Coghlan’s ending—until 1929. That year Ripley’s Believe It or Not reported that Coghlan’s casket was found by fishermen off the coast of. . . Prince Edward Island. His coffin had apparently been caught in the Gulf Stream and had mysteriously made it to its proper resting place. Now that tale is generally accepted as folklore. But one question does remain unanswered: What happened to the body of Charles Francis Coghlan?
* * *
A LIGHT READ
Many of us have to put on reading glasses when we crack open a book. If you want to read Teeny Ted from Turnip Town, however, you’ll need to have your electron microscope handy. Measuring just 0.07 millimeters by 0.10 millimeters (.003 inches by .004 inches), Teeny Ted is the world’s smallest book. To get an idea of how small this tome is, the head of a pin is about 2 millimeters (.08 inches). So the book is at least 20 times smaller. Physicists in the nanoimaging lab of Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Burnaby, British Columbia, created the book with 30 microtablets, using a gallium-ion beam and an electron microscope. The SFU team made 20 copies, and the book even has an International Standard Book Number (ISBN-978-1- 894897-17-4). The cost: $20,000. It may be a hefty price for a microscopic read, but you’ll always have room for it.
Eighteen employees at an Ottawa manufacturing plant won a $7 million Lotto prize the same day 10 of them got laid off.