Strange & Supernatural

by Barbara Whitby

  Comments on other Amazing Stories from readers reviewers

  “Tightly written volumes filled with lots of wit and humour about famous and infamous Canadians.”

  Eric Shackleton, The Globe and Mail

  “The heightened sense of drama and intrigue, combined with a good dose of human interest is what sets Amazing Stories apart.”

  Pamela Klaffke, Calgary Herald

  “This is popular history as it should be...For this price, buy two and give one to a friend.”

  Terry Cook, a reader from Ottawa, on Rebel Women

  “Glasner creates the moment of the explosion itself in graphic detail...she builds detail upon gruesome detail to create a convincingly authentic picture.”

  Peggy McKinnon, The Sunday Herald, on The Halifax Explosion

  “It was wonderful...I found I could not put it down. I was sorry when it was completed.”

  Dorothy F. from Manitoba on Marie-Anne Lagimodière

  “Stories are rich in description, and bristle with a clever, stylish realness.”

  Mark Weber, Central Alberta Advisor, on Ghost Town Stories II

  “A compelling read. Bertin...has selected only the most intriguing tales,which she narrates with a wealth of detail.”

  Joyce Glasner, New Brunswick Reader, on Strange Events

  “The resulting book is one readers will want to share with all the women in their lives.”

  Lynn Martel, Rocky Mountain Outlook, on Women Explorers

  To my grandchildren Destiny and Arthur, for your inspiring sense of fun and frightful store of ghost stories.

  “We are not humans seeking a spiritual experience, we are spirits seeking a human experience.” Anon.

  Strange and Supernatural

  Chilling Tales from Canada’s

  East Coast

  Barbara Whitby

  James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers

  Toronto

  Author’s Note:

  Except where historical events are well documented, references to names and places throughout the book have been altered to protect the privacy of the individuals concerned.

  Prologue

  Jane slipped into the bathroom of the gracious century-old home she and Patrick had recently purchased on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. She settled down to enjoy the luxury of a few moments’ peace from the chores of moving in.

  The peace was short-lived.

  Creepy fingertips began to crawl up and down her arm. At first she attributed the sensation to her imagination, since no one was in the bathroom with her, but she was unable to shake off the feeling. Soon the movements intensified, as if someone was caressing her and trying to get her attention. When the actions of the invisible presence became more intimate, Jane panicked and cried out. In response she was splashed with cold water, seemingly out of nowhere.

  Whenever she visited the bathroom, she continued to experience similar sensations, and she began to dread having to go there.

  So started the nightmare of living in this old house.

  During the daytime the family could not watch TV because the channels would change continually. They were scared witless when a mandolin they had brought with them burst into a catchy tune, strummed by an invisible presence.

  The constant noise of a woman’s clattering shoes roamed through every room, and the heavier sound of a man’s footsteps pacing an upstairs bedroom made it difficult to sleep at night. Jane, Patrick and their two young children were plagued with nightmares. One night Jane woke her husband from a terrifying dream and realized that he was talking in German. Since Patrick had no conscious knowledge of that language, they dreaded that his body was being possessed by demons while he was asleep.

  The parents were seriously worried that their children too were becoming possessed in their sleep. Both of them awoke exhausted after nights interrupted by constant coughing and moaning. Sometimes seven-year-old Roger reeked inexplicably of rum, and once Jane was appalled to hear a woman’s voice calling the little boy by name.

  Then Jane herself started to experience physical changes. Her body began to exude a foul smell — foul enough for her young son to comment on it. Her left arm and hand were in constant pain, although she was not aware of having injured them. And she developed dreadful pains in her stomach, which she had never experienced before.

  Jane felt hopelessly out of her depth as she cringed from the noise of the slamming doors and crashing objects at night. She was terrified that a ghostly presence resented them living in the house and wished them harm.

  What could they do? They had bought the house, and now they were trapped.

  Chapter 1

  Ghosts, Shape-Shifters and Poltergeists

  A Vengeful Curse

  The legacy of curses has endured from time immemorial. A number of stories about the cursing of the Narrows area in Halifax Harbour, among them a passionate love story, have been handed down through several generations.

  A Mi’kmaq curse that was reputedly uttered more than 200 years ago in Halifax is taken very seriously in the Maritimes to this day. It concerns the bridging of the harbour.

  In the middle of the eighteenth century, Europeans founded the town of Halifax on the edge of a picturesque and deep expanse of water. A mile away, on the other side of the inlet, they built the smaller settlement of Dartmouth. The only way for inhabitants to travel from one to the other was by boat or over an arduous land route through thick forest where dangerous wild animals roamed. The crossing was far too wide to attempt a bridge in those early years.

  First Nations people had lived in the area for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans. After the building of Halifax and Dartmouth, the Mi’kmaq continued to occupy several traditional camping areas, especially around Chocolate Lake, on the many small islands near Halifax and in Turtle Grove on the outskirts of Dartmouth. They travelled freely between these areas by canoe, as had long been their custom. They traded with the European settlers, but in general they remained independent and maintained their privacy and their own way of life.

  Some time during these early years, a young Mi’kmaq woman became involved in an ardent relationship with a European settler. One day, without any respect for First Nations’ customs, the man strode into the camp where she lived, went straight to her family’s wigwam, and told her to meet him down on the beach after nightfall.

  Unfortunately this encounter was observed by a Mi’kmaq man who was deeply in love with her. He was consumed by jealousy when he saw the intimacy with which the two greeted each other. He kept a watchful eye on her to see what she would do, and when she crept out that night to meet the young European, her Mi’kmaq suitor followed. Stealthily tracking her to the shore, he was in agony as he saw the two of them kissing passionately by the water.

  The young woman was infatuated by the settler’s seductive foreign ways and she eagerly agreed to go for a late-night sail alone with him. Their arms entwined, and still kissing passionately, together they boarded his small boat and made their way up the harbour.

  Crazed by jealousy and anger, the young Mi’kmaq man secretly followed the lovers in a canoe. When they were well out on the water, he silently pulled alongside their boat. The couple, totally absorbed in each other, were taken by surprise when he suddenly leaped over the side of their craft, raging and brandishing a hatchet. He only intended to kill the settler, but somehow during the struggle the girl he loved so dearly came between the two men and was hacked to death. Her lifeless body toppled overboard and sank like a stone.

  The
settler recovered his wits enough to shove away his enemy and to pull for shore where, to the fury of his assailant, he managed to escape into the forest with his life.

  Overcome by horror and grief at the outcome of his jealousy, the Mi’kmaq hurled the hatchet that had slaughtered his beloved far into the turbulent waters of the harbour. He raised his fist to the dark sky and called on the spirits. Then, summoning all his emotional power as a wronged suitor, he cursed the site of the Narrows, where the tragedy had occurred.

  Three times he cursed it: in the present, in the future, and in perpetuity. “Never again,” he screamed across the Narrows, “shall white people cross this water without fearing for their safety!” His voice rang out as he declared that three great tragedies would occur at this accursed spot. The first would happen during the raging of a great tempest, the second would take place during a time of abnormal quiet and the third would involve enormous loss of life. This would be a fitting memorial for the young girl who was now lost to him. The tumult that she had raised in his heart would be matched by the fury of the elements and the revenge of the supernatural world.

  Initially the story of the curse was treated simply as a spooky fable to be shared around the fire on dark winter nights. After all, who really believed in the superstitious nonsense of times past? Most people agreed that this story was nothing more than a charming romantic reminiscence. But a real threat? Never!

  Yet the first two curses have already come true, and in so uncanny an enactment of the Mi’kmaq’s prediction that, to this day, local people fear that the third dreadful act of destruction will indeed take place.

  By the late nineteenth century, confidence in the triumph of science over nature flourished largely unquestioned. Daring new engineering feats were frequently attempted, and in 1884, for the first time since the curse had been uttered, the challenge of bridging the harbour at the Narrows was actually undertaken. The Intercolonial Railway dared to build a railway bridge more than 1,500 feet long over the water from Halifax to Dartmouth. Stone-filled cribs were positioned every 10 feet on the harbour bottom to hold the wooden trestlework. The bridge’s graceful lines curved gently, a design that was intended to minimize stress from the high winds that roared in from the Atlantic Ocean. It seemed a marvel of engineering, certain to endure.

  When put to the test, the bridge was to prove no match for the fury of the elements. It stood for six years, the pride of both communities, with no hint of the calamity to come. Then, on September 7, 1891, a ferocious hurricane bore down on the area. This kind of storm was almost unheard of in the region. Screaming winds uprooted trees, destroyed buildings and lashed the waves in the harbour into a fury. At the height of the storm two-thirds of the bridge were torn away and the rest destroyed.

  First Harbour Bridge c. 1980

  The link had become so vital to the economy that any qualms about the Mi’kmaq curse were dismissed as superstitious fear, and a temporary new bridge was quickly built to replace the first one. It was completed in 1892 and stood for 18 months. Then, amazingly, on July 23, 1893, at 2 a.m. on an unusually peaceful summer night — just as the curse had predicted — a huge section of the bridge collapsed into the waves and silently floated away.

  These two disasters were so extraordinary that people began to cast their minds back to the curse and to seriously worry about the wisdom of building any further bridges. That is why, in 1955, when a third bridge was to be built across the harbour and named in memory of Angus L. Macdonald, the bridge commissioners in charge of construction formally asked the Mi’kmaq grand chief to remove the curse. He agreed on behalf of his people.

  On April 2, 1955, a sacred Mi’kmaq ceremony took place before the bridge was opened to traffic. A number of chiefs in ceremonial robes prayed and sang in Mi’kmaq, as a young Mi’kmaq dancer, Jim Paul, danced with great solemnity to the centre of the bridge and back, and the curse was declared removed. Many Mi’kmaq people attended the ceremony and celebrated afterwards with a lively feast.

  Nevertheless, some people are anxious that some dreadful disaster may yet happen. For one thing, the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge was not built over the Narrows, at the site where the curse was traditionally believed to have been uttered, but further down the harbour. This was clearly not recognized by the officials concerned at the time when the sacred ceremony was enacted. A fourth bridge, the McKay Bridge, which opened in 1970, is said to span the actual site of the curse. Although no additional ceremony has been carried out to protect it, this bridge has so far survived with no hint of a mishap.

  Was the wrong bridge released from the curse? Does that make any difference? Some local residents remain uneasy about the third and final curse, which threatened an enormous loss of life. Both bridges carry a never-ending stream of traffic. What if a vengeful spirit from the past has in fact targeted the fourth bridge? And can the terrible events of the Halifax Explosion of 1917, with its enormous loss of life, be linked to this curse? The entire area has certainly experienced more than its share of violent destruction.

  The Amherst Poltergeist

  Esther Cox, a young woman of 18, lived in a crowded two-storey wooden house on Princess Street in Amherst, on the Nova Scotia–New Brunswick border. The year was 1878. She shared the house with her married sister Olive Teed; her sister’s husband Daniel and their two children; Daniel’s brother John; and Esther’s own brother and sister, William and Jennie.

  Living next door was Bob MacNeal, a shoemaker who, unbeknown to Esther, had a reputation for sexual violence. One day he reputedly attacked and raped Esther, a traumatic personal violation that may have triggered the events to

  follow.

  At first, Esther heard rapping noises and voices at night, but when she told her family, they dismissed her story as anxiety brought about by her experience at the hands of MacNeal. Soon, though, other members of the household began to notice frightful happenings. Esther was with her sister Jennie one night, in the bedroom they shared, when they heard strange noises. At first they were afraid that there must be mice in the bed sheets. After a moment or two, they agreed that the noises were not coming from in the bed, but from under it. A cardboard box of quilting fabrics was stored there, and when they pulled it out it began to bounce on its own and jump high into the air.

  A poltergeist was at work. The girls’ screams brought their sister’s husband Daniel to the scene, but he told them they must have been dreaming and ordered them back to bed.

  The next night Esther developed alarming physical symptoms. Without warning she leaped out of bed, screaming that she was dying. Her sister Jennie lit the lamp to find out what was the matter and discovered that Esther had turned bright red and that her body was swollen. Jennie quickly called the rest of the family, who watched in horror as the swelling increased. Esther appeared to be about to burst. Her eyes bulged from their sockets, and her skin was burning, almost too hot to touch. The episode ended when there was a loud bang from under the bed and Esther collapsed

  onto it, unconscious.

  When the symptoms reappeared four nights later, the family called in the local doctor, Dr. Carritte. At first he diagnosed her condition as one of “nerves.” But what he witnessed within the next few moments changed his mind. The bed began to writhe beneath Esther’s swelling body, the pillow moved to and fro, and the blankets were wrested off the bed by invisible hands and thrown violently across the room. A loud banging started up on the floor beneath the bed, followed by a scraping noise on the wall above the headboard. As the doctor watched with the family in horror, the words — Esther Cox You Are Mine To Kill — gradually emerged, scratched into the plaster of the wall.

  The haunting escalated during the following days. There was a constant hammering on the roof and potatoes were hurled around the basement. When the family noticed that the knocking appeared to have a pattern, as if a spirit was trying to communicate, they began to ask questions alou
d. “How many people are in this room?” Daniel shouted. The presence replied correctly, sounding out the number with distinct raps.

  In December the same year, Esther became very ill with diphtheria and, during this time, the manifestations stopped. The house remained quiet while she went to recuperate at the home of another sister who was married and living in Sackville, New Brunswick. However, when the unfortunate young woman returned in January 1879, a new series of hauntings began. As well as the noises that had been heard before, lighted matches now materialized just below the ceiling and dropped to the floor, and a voice told Esther that the house would burn down. Knives and forks hurtled through the air and struck the walls, and hundreds of pins and needles appeared out of nowhere, riddling poor Esther’s face and body.

  Esther tried to find some peace at the local Baptist Church, but the banging noise followed her. Although she sat at the back of the church, hammering started up from the front pew and grew so loud that the minister’s sermon could not be heard above the racket. Esther fled from the church in great distress. The minute she left the building the noises stopped.

  Esther then went to live with a farming couple, the Whites, who needed an extra pair of hands. Although she worked hard they were horrified by the disappearance of tools and by objects flying around in the house. Esther was let go.

  In March 1879, Esther was invited to visit a group of psychics in an effort to discover the reason behind her misfortune. The psychics held a seance, sitting nervously in a circle in a darkened room waiting to see what would happen. The medium called aloud for the spirits to make themselves known. Creepy disembodied voices responded, and several identified themselves as former friends of Esther. They had now passed on, they said. “Why are you haunting Esther in so terrible a manner if you were her friends?” demanded the medium. However, none of the spirits gave a satisfactory explanation. Esther returned to Amherst, none the wiser.