[Happy Canada Day!] Creepy Canada: The Maritimes (Part 1/4)--
♥ Happy Canada Day! ♥
Canada is 143 years old today, and of course this means that today my Flist gets a larger-than-average dose of Canadiana! I've done trivia and picspams and info posts in the past, and while I had vague ideas for what I was going to do today, I got a request for this year's theme to be "Creepy Canada," and that sounded way more interesting than what I was thinking of, so we're going with it.
Thing is, Canada, while lovely, has its share of creepy happenings, more than I could ever cover here, so instead of trying to be comprehensive, I'm choosing a smattering of scary stories, one from each region, to highlight. (I make no promises of sticking to one paranormal happening when I get to Alberta, however, but then, I live there, and I've been to a number of its creepy places, sometimes completely unknowingly.) As I'm off to spend the day at an Olde Tymie celebration (where one of the events is to watch new Canadians be sworn in, eeeeee!) in the morning, you're getting the first, er, fourth of the ghost tour now.
We're going to explore the Maritime Provinces first, because it makes sense to group them together as I work my way from East to West (and also I am tired and want to go to bed). I'll post the rest as I'm able to.
So. Pull up a chair (not that close, it's bad for your eyes), grab yourself a drink (and maybe a teddy bear or two), and let's wander the misty, mysterious shores of Atlantic Canada.
Newfoundland and Labrador:
Long before Mr. Columbus was even a glint in the glint in the glint of his great-great-great-great grandfather's eye, another sort of European came barging into the lives of our Nation's First Peoples.
L'Anse aux Meadows ("Jellyfish Cove"), is an archaeological site that stands testament to settlement attempts by Vikings dating back to 1000 CE. Historians generally believe that conflicts between the Norse and the First Peoples resulted in the former eventually abandoning their settlements and leaving our shores, and many people believe that those conflicts have left their footprints on the energy of the site.
It is said that if you are at L'Anse aux Meadows on June 23rd, then you should hang around until 2 am. Around that time, you can hear a horn in the distance, out over the water, alongside the sound of heaving oars, creaking wood and waves slapping against the sides of Norse longboats. Some people even claim to have seen the boats, out there in the dark. All settles into silence once those ghostly Vikings have rowed their way to shore, but two hours later, between 4 and 5 am, the silence erupts into earsplitting shouts and screams from the neighbouring forest, presumably from the spectres of the Native Peoples opposing these invaders. Once the sound fades away, L'Anse slips back into natural quiet, only to have the same phenomena repeat again at the very same time, on the very same date the next year. Apparently these sights and sounds have been reported dating all the way back to the 1700s.
Nova Scotia:
Early in the morning, on Thursday, December 6, 1917, Halifax experienced a horrific tragedy that remains, to this day, the biggest man-made accidental explosion on record. The SS Imo -- a Norwegian vessel -- and the SS Mont-Blanc -- a French cargo ship laden down with wartime explosives -- collided in the harbour. The Mont-Blanc caught fire almost immediately, leading citizens to move to their windows and go out in the streets to view the blaze. Unaware of what the Mont-Blanc was carrying, hundreds of people watched from the shore. While the crew, who was unable to contain the fire, abandoned ship and fled, they were unable to communicate to the citizens of Halifax the real danger onboard. The Mont-Blanc drifted closer and closer to shore, finally setting buildings on fire, and as the blaze spread to land, the alarm was finally raised.
It was too late. Twenty-five minutes after the Mont-Blanc caught fire, it exploded in a 2 km high fireball (creating a mushroom cloud), killing more than 2 000 people, injuring 9 000, obliterating 1.32 km2 (326 acres), and causing a tsunami that towered over the harbour before crashing down upon it.
The explosion did more than destroy lives and property. Many of the buildings that still stood had shrapnel embedded in their frames, and a curious thing happened to St. Paul's Anglican Church. The profile of someone's head seemed to have been burned into the glass of an upper window. There are a few gruesome tales of decapitations (either of sailors or church workers) in the wake of the explosion being the root cause, but most popular theory appears to be that it is the profile of the Deacon that served the church during the years leading up to that fateful event.
The strangest thing, however, is that the glass itself has been changed more than once since the profile first appeared, and yet it always reappears, in exactly the same spot.
Prince Edward Island:
The Northumberland Strait runs the length of P.E.I., between its southern shores and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. As it is both shallow and iced over in the winter, it can be a treacherous route for ships passing through.
Starting in 1786, people started reporting the sight of a three (sometimes four) mast ship sailing the strait, the crew visible on board, and the whole vessel, from port to stern, sometimes aglow with a fiery light, and sometimes clearly in flames. Efforts to reach the ship over the years have failed, yet onlookers report having sometimes viewed the ship for hours at a time before it mysteriously vanished. No one knows what vessel it is, but theories abound, from pirates who made a pact with the Devil to hide their treasure safely for all eternity, to hapless crews trapped in the strait in which they met their untimely ends.
New Brunswick:
The Mirimichi is a place not unused to weird occurrences and ghostly presences. But the Dungarvon Whooper is a phenomena that makes even the strongest resident's blood run cold.
The story goes that one winter, at a logging camp near the Dungarvon River, the camp's happy-go-lucky cook ran afoul of a thief (or thieves) among the loggers' ranks. This cook had a rather impressive amount of money tucked away in a belt that he wore around his waist at all times, and the other loggers coveted that belt.
There are a number of versions of the tale, but all of them end in the cook being killed by his fellow loggers -- sometimes just his boss, sometimes another logger, sometimes the whole crew -- and buried, all for the money belt. Some versions have the boss knocking off the cook and claiming he fell ill suddenly and died, some have an expert hunter take him out on a hunting trip, only to shoot him dead and blame it on a mystery bear.
All, however, end with the camp, at sundown, in the terrified grip of loud screams and whoops, in anger and pain, coming from everywhere and nowhere, all at once. The loggers were frozen in place, sure that the screams were the familiar voice of the cook, and after ten minutes of continuous screaming, the voice fell silent as startlingly as it started. This, however, kept happening each evening at sundown for weeks at a time, until the loggers abandoned the camp once and for all.
While the Whooper has quieted down somewhat since then, even today the residents of the Mirimichi say that they can sometimes still hear the voice of the cook, screaming out his rage in the dusk.
...And that concludes our trip through the Maritimes. More later! Now, go out and do something Canadian today, ok? (Yes, that means all of you. The "Honorary" Canadians too! ^_~)
Canada is 143 years old today, and of course this means that today my Flist gets a larger-than-average dose of Canadiana! I've done trivia and picspams and info posts in the past, and while I had vague ideas for what I was going to do today, I got a request for this year's theme to be "Creepy Canada," and that sounded way more interesting than what I was thinking of, so we're going with it.
Thing is, Canada, while lovely, has its share of creepy happenings, more than I could ever cover here, so instead of trying to be comprehensive, I'm choosing a smattering of scary stories, one from each region, to highlight. (I make no promises of sticking to one paranormal happening when I get to Alberta, however, but then, I live there, and I've been to a number of its creepy places, sometimes completely unknowingly.) As I'm off to spend the day at an Olde Tymie celebration (where one of the events is to watch new Canadians be sworn in, eeeeee!) in the morning, you're getting the first, er, fourth of the ghost tour now.
We're going to explore the Maritime Provinces first, because it makes sense to group them together as I work my way from East to West (and also I am tired and want to go to bed). I'll post the rest as I'm able to.
So. Pull up a chair (not that close, it's bad for your eyes), grab yourself a drink (and maybe a teddy bear or two), and let's wander the misty, mysterious shores of Atlantic Canada.
Newfoundland and Labrador:
Long before Mr. Columbus was even a glint in the glint in the glint of his great-great-great-great grandfather's eye, another sort of European came barging into the lives of our Nation's First Peoples.
L'Anse aux Meadows ("Jellyfish Cove"), is an archaeological site that stands testament to settlement attempts by Vikings dating back to 1000 CE. Historians generally believe that conflicts between the Norse and the First Peoples resulted in the former eventually abandoning their settlements and leaving our shores, and many people believe that those conflicts have left their footprints on the energy of the site.
It is said that if you are at L'Anse aux Meadows on June 23rd, then you should hang around until 2 am. Around that time, you can hear a horn in the distance, out over the water, alongside the sound of heaving oars, creaking wood and waves slapping against the sides of Norse longboats. Some people even claim to have seen the boats, out there in the dark. All settles into silence once those ghostly Vikings have rowed their way to shore, but two hours later, between 4 and 5 am, the silence erupts into earsplitting shouts and screams from the neighbouring forest, presumably from the spectres of the Native Peoples opposing these invaders. Once the sound fades away, L'Anse slips back into natural quiet, only to have the same phenomena repeat again at the very same time, on the very same date the next year. Apparently these sights and sounds have been reported dating all the way back to the 1700s.
Nova Scotia:
Early in the morning, on Thursday, December 6, 1917, Halifax experienced a horrific tragedy that remains, to this day, the biggest man-made accidental explosion on record. The SS Imo -- a Norwegian vessel -- and the SS Mont-Blanc -- a French cargo ship laden down with wartime explosives -- collided in the harbour. The Mont-Blanc caught fire almost immediately, leading citizens to move to their windows and go out in the streets to view the blaze. Unaware of what the Mont-Blanc was carrying, hundreds of people watched from the shore. While the crew, who was unable to contain the fire, abandoned ship and fled, they were unable to communicate to the citizens of Halifax the real danger onboard. The Mont-Blanc drifted closer and closer to shore, finally setting buildings on fire, and as the blaze spread to land, the alarm was finally raised.
It was too late. Twenty-five minutes after the Mont-Blanc caught fire, it exploded in a 2 km high fireball (creating a mushroom cloud), killing more than 2 000 people, injuring 9 000, obliterating 1.32 km2 (326 acres), and causing a tsunami that towered over the harbour before crashing down upon it.
The explosion did more than destroy lives and property. Many of the buildings that still stood had shrapnel embedded in their frames, and a curious thing happened to St. Paul's Anglican Church. The profile of someone's head seemed to have been burned into the glass of an upper window. There are a few gruesome tales of decapitations (either of sailors or church workers) in the wake of the explosion being the root cause, but most popular theory appears to be that it is the profile of the Deacon that served the church during the years leading up to that fateful event.
The strangest thing, however, is that the glass itself has been changed more than once since the profile first appeared, and yet it always reappears, in exactly the same spot.
Prince Edward Island:
The Northumberland Strait runs the length of P.E.I., between its southern shores and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. As it is both shallow and iced over in the winter, it can be a treacherous route for ships passing through.
Starting in 1786, people started reporting the sight of a three (sometimes four) mast ship sailing the strait, the crew visible on board, and the whole vessel, from port to stern, sometimes aglow with a fiery light, and sometimes clearly in flames. Efforts to reach the ship over the years have failed, yet onlookers report having sometimes viewed the ship for hours at a time before it mysteriously vanished. No one knows what vessel it is, but theories abound, from pirates who made a pact with the Devil to hide their treasure safely for all eternity, to hapless crews trapped in the strait in which they met their untimely ends.
New Brunswick:
The Mirimichi is a place not unused to weird occurrences and ghostly presences. But the Dungarvon Whooper is a phenomena that makes even the strongest resident's blood run cold.
The story goes that one winter, at a logging camp near the Dungarvon River, the camp's happy-go-lucky cook ran afoul of a thief (or thieves) among the loggers' ranks. This cook had a rather impressive amount of money tucked away in a belt that he wore around his waist at all times, and the other loggers coveted that belt.
There are a number of versions of the tale, but all of them end in the cook being killed by his fellow loggers -- sometimes just his boss, sometimes another logger, sometimes the whole crew -- and buried, all for the money belt. Some versions have the boss knocking off the cook and claiming he fell ill suddenly and died, some have an expert hunter take him out on a hunting trip, only to shoot him dead and blame it on a mystery bear.
All, however, end with the camp, at sundown, in the terrified grip of loud screams and whoops, in anger and pain, coming from everywhere and nowhere, all at once. The loggers were frozen in place, sure that the screams were the familiar voice of the cook, and after ten minutes of continuous screaming, the voice fell silent as startlingly as it started. This, however, kept happening each evening at sundown for weeks at a time, until the loggers abandoned the camp once and for all.
While the Whooper has quieted down somewhat since then, even today the residents of the Mirimichi say that they can sometimes still hear the voice of the cook, screaming out his rage in the dusk.
...And that concludes our trip through the Maritimes. More later! Now, go out and do something Canadian today, ok? (Yes, that means all of you. The "Honorary" Canadians too! ^_~)