5 minute read
Sinners, spirits and terrifying tales
Sinners, spirits
and terrifying tales
East Coast ghost tours thrill, chill and educate
BY DARCY RHYNO
There’s not a cloud in the sky today in Sydney, Nova Scotia. I’m with a small group standing in the sunshine before the Cossit House Museum, built in 1787, just one of many historically significant buildings in Sydney’s North-End Heritage Conservation District. Our guide, dressed in
18th century clothing for this “Ghosts and Legends of Historic Sydney,” tour is warning us about what we might find inside.
The stories of jealousy, greed, foul deeds and grisly deaths set here seem endless. Earlier in the tour, in the full light of day, we stood before a private home said to be haunted by troubled spirits. Long ago, the basement served as a jail. Its most infamous inmates were involved in the 1833 Flahaven murder case. Mrs. Flahaven and her eldest daughter became overly fond of two men taking shelter in the family barn. One thing led to another, and the two scoundrels violently murdered Mr. Flahaven. They made a mess of the burial, leaving a hand sticking up out of the ground. Eventually, a dog led searchers to the victim.
The men were captured and locked up in that basement jail while the people of the town quickly built a gallows in what is now Victoria Park. Lumber was in such short supply, they borrowed from a house under construction. After the murderers were dispatched, the lumber was returned and the house completed. Ever since, residents have reported apparitions all over this neighbourhood, including at the former jail and at the house built with tainted lumber. This and other stories of troubled spirits are fresh in my mind as our guide opens the door to the Cossit House Museum where she and other staff have felt the presence of the supernatural. Cossit House—one of the oldest buildings on Cape Breton Island—depicts life in 18th century Sydney at the time of its original owner Reverend Ranna Cossit, his wife Thankful and 10 of their 13 children. As I step into the hall, the sun shines through the doorway, lighting up a flight of stairs and doorways to other rooms. The front door closes behind us and I’m blind. I remove my sunglasses and grope for the stair rail. Footsteps shuffle away from me, but I can’t move. A sudden, cold draft flows like an animal down the stairs, raising hairs on my neck and goosebumps on my arms.
Cossit House Museum, Sydney grow out of real, often ghastly crimes, epic betrayals and violent ends. Ghost tours are popular in many of these historic places. Some tours are unofficial and only available when requested. Ask at any historic inn, hotel or B&B, and you may be rewarded. At the Algonquin Resort in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, the reward is a creepy tour through the belly of the building where guests never go, to hear stories of phantoms said to haunt the resort. It’s rumoured that Stephen King stayed here before he wrote The Shining and the resort may have been an inspiration. But most guided tours are carefully crafted experiences like The Haunted Lunenburg Tour, or Valley Ghost Walks in communities around the Annapolis Valley, led by Jerome the Gravekeeper. In the heart of Newfoundland and Labrador’s capital, DARCY RHYNO the guide on the St. John’s Haunted Hike recounts chilling tales of deadly duels and Cameron B. MacDonald, Charlottetown’s Gravedigger CONFEDERATION CENTRE OF THE ARTS public hangings as his procession passes unmarked grave sites and silent cemeteries. A ghost around every corner Stories of slaughtered soldiers, deadly trysts Cities and towns across the Atlantic and suspicious fires are told on streets and Provinces are among the oldest in the down alleys often shrouded in fog. Charlottecountry. The depth of that history is fertile town’s Gravedigger, dressed in a black ground for tales of the supernatural that bowler hat, leads guests by lamplight to
PARKS CANADA/DWILSON Halifax Citadel National Historic Site Ghost Tours
spooky spots where he tells tales of superstitions, executions and unsolved murders.
Some are skeptical of supposed supernatural phenomena, but whether your hair stands on end when a guide describes apparitions in the attic or if you scoff at the thought of souls made restless after some dastardly deed, ghost tours are rewarding in other ways. For one, they’re a fun way to learn local history.
In New Brunswick, the Mysterious Mistress leads guests on the Haunted Saint John Tour. Starting at the Imperial Theatre, the route leads to the Old Saint John Courthouse, through the Old Burial Ground and ends at historic Loyalist House, the oldest original building in the city. The Mistress weaves local history, legends and ghost stories with the investigations of Loyalist City Paranormal. At Halifax Citadel National Historic Site, a guide in 18th century military attire holding a lantern welcomes guests at the drawbridge. Each guest is given a lantern of their own, the flickering glow lighting the way along passageways and into hidden chambers deep within the stone walls of the fort. These spooky spaces are all at the centre of a modern city, but the setting is forgotten when picking your way among the shadows down a dark tunnel to a dank prison cell where a guide recounts in grim detail the daily lives and afterlives of those long ago departed.
Even in the full light of day
Back at Cossit House in Sydney, I walk briskly away from the stairway and into the darkness toward the others, joining them just as they open the door to the back room,
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO flooding the hallway with light. I look behind me. There is no person or thing to see.
The guide leads us through a back door into the small kitchen garden and the sunshine. From here, she says, we’ll walk to St. George’s Anglican Church and its cemetery to hear about the man who committed crimes so monstrous, he was murdered for them, then denied burial with his family. His apparition still paces the grounds in search of a resting place beside his parents and siblings. I take a deep breath and follow our guide, thankful that the next part of the tour is in the full light of day.
Ghostly tours
NOTE: Because tour dates continue to be uncertain, please check with the websites to schedule for yourselves.
Ghosts and Legends of Historic Sydney oldsydneysociety.org
Valley Ghost Walks valleyghostwalks.com
Charlottetown’s Gravedigger confederationcentre.com/whats-on/ gravedigger-ghost-tours
St. John’s Haunted Hike hauntedhike.com
Haunted Lunenburg lunenburgwalkingtours.com
Haunted Saint John Tour facebook.com/HauntedSJTours
