Haunted Canada: The Third Terrifying Collection

The telling of ghost stories nowadays is a favourite pastime that people may engage in for entertainment or to introduce visitors to their cities, as seen by the ghost tours that tourists can join when they visit various places around the world. In the past, these stories have also been used to relay morals and values or to convey a community’s shared history and heritage to the younger generation. With over 500,000 copies in print, the award-winning “Haunted Canada” series offers young readers a variety of entertaining and enticing ghostly stories from across Canada.

Similar to the first two collections that covered the first through sixth volumes, Joel Sutherland’s Haunted Canada: The Third Terrifying Collection is suitable for ages nine and up and includes ghost stories from different historical and geographical contexts. For young readers who may not necessarily gravitate towards conventional nonfiction books and other narratives about Canada’s history, these ghostly tales provide an alternative way for delving into that history that may be more appealing and accessible to them. Everyone understands what it is like to be frightened, and, regardless of whether one believes in the paranormal, people can still appreciate a good scary story like the ones that are shared around campfires.

This third collection contains the seventh through ninth volumes in the “Haunted Canada” series. Readers of previous books in this series will be familiar with this book’s format and narrative style. Told in a conversational narrative style that will make readers feel that someone is speaking to them directly, each story’s opening paragraph hooks readers by evoking the narrative’s setting or mentioning an unsettling fact that will set the stage for what unfolds. A number of the stories end on a cautionary or inconclusive note, with something that remains unsettled or unresolved to this day. Like the individual books in this series, this collection also includes drawings and historical photographs that enliven several of the stories by depicting places, buildings, people, and items of significance to the narrative.

For example, Sutherland includes a photograph of the actual doll for his story about a malevolent-looking doll in Quesnel, British Columbia, one that may be possessed. Each chapter also includes an atmospheric illustration at the beginning that helps to establish an appropriate tone for the story that follows. For instance, the story “Voices in the Vaults” includes a drawing of a ghostly-looking woman in handcuffs who stands in the middle of a vault. In addition, the story includes an archival photo of the vaults of Newman and Company where the story takes place. These images help to convey a suitably spooky mood and also evoke the historical period in which the story takes place. Similarly, other photographs throughout the book help to bring these historical places to life and make it easier for readers to imagine what life was like back then.

The topics and people in this collection’s stories encompass a variety of people, places, and circumstances. Some of the spirits in these stories are malevolent whereas others are more playful. One unusual tale is about a young girl from Moncton, New Brunswick, who has the top of her head scratched by an unknown presence over 10 consecutive nights. Although she tries to ignore it, the spirit returns every night to scratch her head, an action which grows increasingly more painful. Finally, she confronts the spirit one night by grabbing the hand that is scratching her, but she is terrified when she turns around and sees a featureless black shadow towering above her. Escaping to her parents’ bedroom, she tells them about the spirit. Although they search her bedroom, they cannot find anything. Fortunately, the spirit never returned since that time, but she was haunted by her experience for a long time afterwards.

Other people are not as lucky as the young girl. Another tale from London, Ontario, is about someone named Sabrina who is continually haunted by a red-headed ghost for many years, beginning from when she was a young child and appearing subsequently with increasing frequency. Unsure about the ghost’s origins or intentions, she would like to find a way to deal with this ghost, fearing that she might otherwise have to live with this haunting for the rest of her life. Perhaps the most unsettling part about this story is that Sabrina does not know why the ghost is haunting her. In another story, a woman wants to leave her haunted house, but she is unable to do so because no one wants to purchase it. Her hopes are raised when she finally secures a prospective buyer; however, he is spooked off after experiencing a paranormal encounter, causing the woman to fear that she may never be able to leave her place.

In some cases, the spirits are haunting a particular place because they have a grievance or an outstanding debt that needs to be repaid before they can rest in peace. In one instance, the remains of a deceased woman are found in an historical vault. After she is given a proper burial, the hauntings of the vaults cease. In another story from St. Vincent, Alberta, a spirit instructs Marko Bagasse to relay the message to his mother that he is happy where he is. Despite her initial misgivings, Marko finally does so, after which the mysterious spirit vanishes.

For those places subject to persistent hauntings, the stories reveal that there are sometimes ways to placate these spirits so that they become tolerable to live with. In a tale from Saint John, New Brunswick, a man named Bill decides to rent an old house, even after the owners warn him about its paranormal activity. Although things seem normal at first, Bill soon experiences several unusual things after he moves in. Initially, he would hear strange, unidentifiable sources of noise around the house, followed by the mysterious appearance of items that did not belong to him, such as a woman’s earring and a brass dinner bell. His vacuum cleaner would also turn on by itself and start to clean the floor. After doing some investigating, Bill finds out that a woman named Marion had died in the house many years ago after a long illness. Feeling uncertain about whether he would still move into the house, he discovers, by accident, that the presence of flowers seems to calm the spirit and reduce its disturbances. From them on, Bill decides to keep buying flowers to keep the ghost content. However, it is still unclear why Marion’s spirit continues to remain there, which is likely a mystery that will remain unsolved.

Some of these stories are cautionary tales warning us that, perhaps, it is best to let things lie rather than to tempt fate, either deliberately or inadvertently. For example, the story “Secret Room” shows what could happen when something is uncovered after being hidden for many years. Although they discovered this hidden room by accident, they decided to repurpose it as a sewing room rather than to board it back up. Although it seemed harmless at the time, that was when the hauntings began. Dabbling with the spirit world can also have variable consequences that are sometimes harmless, but that other times can be fatal. In one story about a family in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the family’s son Jay appears to have been possessed temporarily by a spirit that proceeded to play a song on their organ before disappearing. Fortunately, there were no other ill effects from the ghostly encounter.

In a number of these stories, the spirits continue to haunt buildings that were of significance when they were alive, whether this is for sentimental and personal reasons or whether this is due to an injustice that they have experienced. As a result, some of these spirits are harmless and simply playful while others may harbour ill intent towards those who inhabit their space. In Toronto, it is said that the Old City Hall is haunted by the spirits of Ronald Turpin and Arthur Lucas, the last two men to be hanged in Canada for their crimes. Various people have encountered paranormal experiences at night, possibly because these two people hold a grudge against the judicial system. For another haunted place in Bonavista, Newfoundland and Labrador, people would notice unusual noises and sights emanating from the old Bradley house from time to time, such as the sounds of a boisterous party or an old woman sitting near the second-floor window. The ghost is believed to be the grandmother of Gordon Bradley who was one of the last people to live there prior to the building’s becoming a provincial museum.

Spirits can also manifest in unusual ways. One unusual instance is described in the story “Afterlife Lights” in which a deceased daughter’s ghost appears to her family in the form of flashing headlights. Although this happening initially frightens her parents, they come to derive a sense of comfort from these instances as they become a way for communicating with her. As they soon learn, their deceased daughter would announce her presence through the flashing headlights in order to warn them about unseen threats on the road ahead, such as a dangerous turn or animal crossing the road. In another instance, she would flash her headlights to acknowledge her brother when her parents were bringing him home from the airport.

With the growing number of books in the “Haunted Canada” series, libraries with the previous books in this series may wish to consider obtaining this one as well. Libraries without any of these series’ books can readily add to their collection of paranormal offerings by purchasing any of these books since they are self-contained and independent of each other. Although the book’s suggested age group is nine to twelve, younger readers could still understand and enjoy these stories with assistance from adults. Parents or teachers may need to provide some explanations of the historical and geographical contexts in which these stories occur so that younger readers can better appreciate their significance and meaning. Some of the stories’ more complicated words may need to be defined or explained in relation to these contexts as well. Nevertheless, the general trajectory of each story is not overly difficult to follow and should be accessible for younger readers as well. Given their narrative style, these stories are ideal for reading aloud in a storytime session, such as in a library or school setting.

Similar to the other books in this series, Haunted Canada: The Third Terrifying Collection can be readily incorporated into a pedagogical setting for a variety of subjects or teaching goals. One approach is that teachers can use it as a way to introduce students to different parts of Canada and their respective historical periods. Opportunities for group work or research projects are possible as students can delve into these places and personages who inhabited it, through which they can increase their appreciation for the different historical narratives that contribute to Canada’s collective heritage. From the perspective of genre, these Haunted Canada texts could also be analyzed for their treatment of the paranormal. Since fiction embodies specific narrative tropes and assumptions, it would be an interesting exercise for students to consider more broadly how the paranormal is represented in fiction and how might these correlate with, or diverge from, the ways in which other mediums such as film and television represent the same topic.

Joel A. Sutherland is a librarian and author of several books for young readers. Winner of the Silver Birch and Hackmatack awards, he has written several books in the “Haunted Canada” series as well as short fiction that has appeared in many anthologies and magazines. He is also the author of Summer’s End, Field of Screams in the “Haunted” horror series, and Be a Writing Superstar. Previously, Sutherland appeared as the “The Barbarian Librarian” on the Canadian edition of the television show Wipeout. He has a Masters of Information and Library Studies degree from Aberystwyth University in Wales and currently lives in southeastern Ontario. For more information about Joel Sutherland, visit his website.