Haunted Canada: The Second Terrifying Collection

With over 400,000 copies in print, the award-winning “Haunted Canada” series began being published in 2002, and it has since added eight subsequent collections of ghost stories. Joel Sutherland’s Haunted Canada: The Second Terrifying Collection combined three books that were published originally in separate volumes called Haunted Canada 4: More True Tales of Terror, Haunted Canada 5: Terrifying True Stories, and Haunted Canada 6: More Terrifying True Stories. This collection continued the series of books that Pat Hancock began with Haunted Canada 1, 2, and 3, the first three volumes of this series.

Like Haunted Canada: The First Terrifying Collection, (www.cmreviews.ca/node/415 ) Sutherland’s Haunted Canada: The Second Terrifying Collection is suitable for ages nine and up and includes ghost stories from a variety of historical and geographical contexts across Canada. These stories will equally delight readers who have enjoyed the first collection and will further contribute to the debunking of any misperceptions that Canada does not have spooky tales to tell. Like the previous collection, this book provides an interesting way for readers to learn about different parts of Canada in contrast to the more conventional narratives that they may glean from historical textbooks and documentaries.

Consisting of more than one hundred tales, this collection depicts settings that people may typically consider to be spooky or that are often associated with ghostly activity, locales such as historical castles, wild islands, foreboding forests, and abandoned buildings. The stories range from those that feature prominent landmarks, such as the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria, to those with nondescript locations, such as an abandoned hotel known as the Demon House. Additionally, other stories refer to places that people may not necessarily associate with hauntings, such as Ottawa’s Bytown Museum, a restaurant named Workington Avenue Grill in White Rock, BC, and the school playground at Winnipeg’s St. Ignatius School.

A wide variety of hauntings are represented in this collection, but they are all connected by a common element: the hauntings all occur in places that have some special significance to those ghosts. The nature of that significance differs and, in some cases, is unknown. The ghosts, themselves, are also different in terms of their motivations. Some are simply mischievous and do not have any ill-intentions, apart from wanting to make their presence known to people, whereas others are malevolent beings that people would want to avoid. In several instances, the ghosts cannot rest because they are grieving for their lost loves, such as the ghost who grieves for her fiancé in a tale connected with Montmorency Falls. Similarly, another interesting story talks about a poltergeist known as the Blue Nun at St. Francis Xavier University. The ghost, itself, is believed to be a nun who worked previously at one of the university’s colleges, Mount Saint Bernard College, when it was originally a college for Catholic women. The nun committed suicide because of her guilt in falling in love with a priest who also committed suicide shortly after she did. As a result, people have spotted the Blue Nun around campus since that time, and she has frightened people by making noise and throwing objects.

The variety of locations represented in Sutherland’s collection will generate reader interest and may prompt some to learn more about those places. One nice feature of the collection is that, in addition to the provinces, Canada’s territories are represented. For example, the collection includes a story from Trout Lake in the Northwest Territories about a spirit named Nahkah who liked to play dead, a story from Iqaluit, Nunavut, about a mysterious shadowy man who haunts the townhouse complex White Row, and a story about former entertainer Kathleen Rockwell—also known as Klondike Kate—who haunts Yukon’s Palace Grand Theatre in Dawson City. The collection’s geographical breadth and variety are further reflected through the cities and towns that the stories have originated from as well as the different types of locations within which they occur. Readers will be familiar with the capital cities and major cities, such as Moncton and Kingston, but may not have heard of places like Tranquille in Ontario and Fort Qu’Appelle in Saskatchewan.

This book also features some unusual types of paranormal activity that readers may be less familiar with, but that, nevertheless, make for fascinating reading. One such tale deals with a phenomenon known as a crisis apparition which occurs when a spirit appears to loved ones during or soon after a crisis. The crisis could arise from a variety of situations, including death or other life-threatening situations. In a 1785 tale from Sydney, Nova Scotia, a British soldier named Wynyard saw a ghost in his parlour who looked like his brother. Disturbed by what he saw, Wynyard could not understand how that was possible since his brother lived back in England. However, Wynyard later found out that his brother had passed away at the exact time that he had seen his ghost.

Another unusual tale was about a noblewoman named Marguerite de La Rocque who was marooned on the Isle of Demons by her uncle Jean-Francois de La Rocque de Roberval because he was after her inheritance. Two other people, her servant Damienne and her lover Etienne, were also left on the island with her. In improbable circumstances, Marguerite was eventually rescued after two years of being stranded, but the other two people and her baby had died prior to this. Consequently, her story became an inspiration to everyone.

In another story from Newfoundland and Labrador, a woman named Nancy Coyle took care of preparing the deceased for burial in the community, something which she did right in her own home. The deceased included disreputable people such as felons, people who died aboard ships that were sailing to North America, and inmates from the insane asylum. Nancy’s community ostracized her because of unusual occurrences in her house that made people think that she could raise the dead. When she died, no one wanted to prepare her for burial, and her body was subsequently lost. As a result, Coyle’s ghost can be seen wandering around the city’s cemeteries.

This collection shares the same problems as the previous collection Haunted Canada: The First Terrifying Collection because it lacks other elements that would enhance readers’ experiences. Since this book is equally as long as the previous collection, a table of contents and index would help readers to look up their favourite stories easily or stories for specific geographical locations, time periods, and topics. In addition, teachers who want to use this book in an educational context will need to spend some time locating the stories that they need.

Despite this shortcoming, the book does include other information that will be useful for readers. The book’s epilogue will give readers some interesting insight into Joel Sutherland. Having researched numerous ghost tales and gathered eyewitness accounts, Sutherland recounted how he felt compelled to investigate one of these locations himself in the hope that he would also have a ghostly encounter. As a result, he went to The Olde Angel Inn on Niagara-on-the-Lake, the oldest inn in Ontario and incorporated in 1789. The inn was known for having a resident ghost named Captain Colin Swayze who died there at the hands of the invading American army. Sutherland spent the night at the inn and recorded his time there during which his experience would appear to support the view that the inn was haunted. On the Scholastic website, readers can view a video that Sutherland provided about his experience.

The book has historical photos of selected places, people, or objects that relate to the specific stories, with photo credits for readers who want to look up more information. Similar to the previous Haunted Canada collection, this book includes line drawings—done this time by Norman Lanting—that evoke a key element from the story, such as the story’s setting, ghost, or another significant object. In some cases, the illustration is a more literal representation of a person or object from that story. For example, the story “Afraid of the Darke” includes an illustration of the ghost Francis Darke who has been sighted during performances at the University of Regina’s Darke Hall for Music and Art. Similarly, the story “Duel to the Death” from Newfoundland and Labrador is about a ghost who wanders the streets near the place where he died after a card game, and so the accompanying illustration shows a person’s hand with some cards. However, in other cases, the illustration is more suggestive and evokes a haunted atmosphere that is in keeping with the story’s tone. The illustration accompanying the story “Demon Hotel” shows a ghostly presence appearing at a window on the upper floor of an abandoned building.

Given its varied representations of hauntings, this book will provide much for readers to discuss as it draws upon stories from different cities and locations across Canada. Like the earlier Haunted Canada collection, this book offers an interesting way for teachers to teach students about Canada’s history. For example, if a unit is done on a specific city or location, then teachers could draw on a selection of stories to illustrate how narratives are constructed about a place through the stories that people tell and pass down to their descendants. A college or university level pop culture class could consider how the representations of hauntings in Sutherland’s collection compare with those that appear in other mediums, such as film and television.

Like the previous collection of Haunted Canada stories by Pat Hancock, this book also has an informal and conversational narrative style that will draw readers into the ghostly tales and give them the impression that a storyteller is speaking with them directly. An author and librarian, Joel Sutherland has written several books in the Haunted Canada series. He has won the Silver Birch Award, and he is also the author of the Red Maple Award Honour Book Summer's End. ( www.umanitoba.ca/outreach/cm/vol23/no36/summersend.html ) More information about his work is available at https://www.joelasutherland.com.